Surface Acoustic Wave induced Transport in a Double Quantum Dot

We report on non-adiabatic transport through a double quantum dot under irradiation of surface acoustic waves generated on-chip. At low excitation powers, absorption and emission of single and multiple phonons is observed. At higher power, sequential phonon assisted tunneling processes excite the double dot in a highly non-equilibrium state. The present system is attractive for studying electron-phonon interaction with piezoelectric coupling.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Negative differential conductance and magnetoresistance oscillations due to spin accumulation in ferromagnetic double-island devices

Spin-dependent electronic transport in magnetic double-island devices is considered theoretically in the sequential tunneling regime. Electric current and tunnel magnetoresistance are analyzed as a function of the bias voltage and spin relaxation time in the islands. It is shown that the interplay of spin accumulation on the islands and charging effects leads to periodic modification of the differential conductance and tunnel magnetoresistance. For a sufficiently long spin relaxation time, the modulations are associated with periodic oscillations of the sign of both the tunnel magnetoresistance and differential conductance

Non-Markovian dynamics of double quantum dot charge qubits due to acoustic phonons

We investigate the dynamics of a double quantum dot charge qubit which is coupled to piezoelectric acoustic phonons, appropriate for GaAs heterostructures. At low temperatures, the phonon bath induces a non-Markovian dynamical behavior of the oscillations between the two charge states of the double quantum dot. Upon applying the numerically exact quasiadiabatic propagator path-integral scheme, the reduced density matrix of the charge qubit is calculated, thereby avoiding the Born-Markov approximation. This allows a systematic study of the dependence of the Q-factor on the lattice temperature, on the size of the quantum dots, as well as on the interdot coupling. We calculate the Q-factor for a recently realized experimental setup and find that it is two orders of magnitudes larger than the measured value, indicating that the decoherence due to phonons is a subordinate mechanism.Comment: 5 pages, 7 figures, replaced with the version to appear in Phys. Rev.

Transient regime in non-linear transport through many-level quantum dots

We investigate the nonstationary electronic transport in noninteracting nanostructures driven by a finite bias and time-dependent signals applied at their contacts to the leads. The systems are modelled by a tight-binding Hamiltonian and the transient currents are computed from the non-equilibrium Green-Keldysh formalism. The numerical implementation is not restricted to weak coupling to the leads and does not imply the wide-band limit assumption for the spectral width of the leads. As an application of the method we study in detail the transient behavior and the charge dynamics in single and double quantum dots connected to leads by a step-like potential, but the method allows as well the consideration of non-periodic potentials or short pulses. We show that when the higher energy levels of the isolated system are located within the bias window of the leads the transient current approaches the steady state in a non-oscillatory smooth fashion. At moderate coupling to the leads and fixed bias the transient acquires a step-like structure, the length of the steps increasing with the system size. The number of levels inside a finite bias window can be tuned by a constant gate potential. We find also that the transient behavior depends on the specific way of coupling the leads to the mesoscopic system.Comment: RevTeX, 12 pages, 11 include .eps figure

Gate-tunable band structure of the LaAlO3_3-SrTiO3_3 interface

The 2-dimensional electron system at the interface between LaAlO$_{3}$ and SrTiO$_{3}$ has several unique properties that can be tuned by an externally applied gate voltage. In this work, we show that this gate-tunability extends to the effective band structure of the system. We combine a magnetotransport study on top-gated Hall bars with self-consistent Schr\"odinger-Poisson calculations and observe a Lifshitz transition at a density of $2.9\times10^{13}$ cm$^{-2}$. Above the transition, the carrier density of one of the conducting bands decreases with increasing gate voltage. This surprising decrease is accurately reproduced in the calculations if electronic correlations are included. These results provide a clear, intuitive picture of the physics governing the electronic structure at complex oxide interfaces.Comment: 14 pages, 4 figure

Direct control of the tunnel splitting in a one-electron double quantum dot

Quasi-static transport measurements are employed on a laterally defined tunnel-coupled double quantum dot. A nearby quantum point contact allows us to track the charge as added to the device. If charged with only up to one electron, the low-energy spectrum of the double quantum dot is characterized by its quantum mechanical interdot tunnel splitting. We directly measure its magnitude by utilizing particular anticrossing features in the stability diagram at finite source-drain bias. By modification of gate voltages defining the confinement potential as well as by variation of a perpendicular magnetic field we demonstrate the tunability of the coherent tunnel coupling.Comment: High resolution pdf file available at http://www2.nano.physik.uni-muenchen.de/~huettel/research/anticrossing.pd

Molecular states in carbon nanotube double quantum dots

We report electrical transport measurements through a semiconducting single-walled carbon nanotube (SWNT) with three additional top-gates. At low temperatures the system acts as a double quantum dot with large inter-dot tunnel coupling allowing for the observation of tunnel-coupled molecular states extending over the whole double-dot system. We precisely extract the tunnel coupling and identify the molecular states by the sequential-tunneling line shape of the resonances in differential conductance.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

Transport through a Strongly Correlated Quantum-Dot with Fano Interference

We present the transport properties of a strongly correlated quantum dot attached to two leads with a side coupled non-interacting quantum dot. Transport properties are analyzed using the slave boson mean field theory which is reliable in the zero temperature and low bias regime. It is found that the transport properties are determined by the interplay of two fundamental physical phenomena,i.e. the Kondo effects and the Fano interference. The linear conductance will depart from the unitary limit and the zero bias anomaly will be suppressed in the presence of interdot coupling. The zero bias shot noise Fano factor increases with the interdot coupling and tends to the Poisson value. The shot noise Fano factor shows a non-monotonic behavior as a function of the interdot coupling for various side dot energy levels

The JCMT Spectral Legacy Survey: physical structure of the molecular envelope of the high-mass protostar AFGL2591

The understanding of the formation process of massive stars (>8 Msun) is limited, due to theoretical complications and observational challenges. We investigate the physical structure of the large-scale (~10^4-10^5 AU) molecular envelope of the high-mass protostar AFGL2591 using spectral imaging in the 330-373 GHz regime from the JCMT Spectral Legacy Survey. Out of ~160 spectral features, this paper uses the 35 that are spatially resolved. The observed spatial distributions of a selection of six species are compared with radiative transfer models based on a static spherically symmetric structure, a dynamic spherical structure, and a static flattened structure. The maps of CO and its isotopic variations exhibit elongated geometries on scales of ~100", and smaller scale substructure is found in maps of N2H+, o-H2CO, CS, SO2, CCH, and methanol lines. A velocity gradient is apparent in maps of all molecular lines presented here, except SO, SO2, and H2CO. We find two emission peaks in warm (Eup~200K) methanol separated by 12", indicative of a secondary heating source in the envelope. The spherical models are able to explain the distribution of emission for the optically thin H13CO+ and C34S, but not for the optically thick HCN, HCO+, and CS, nor for the optically thin C17O. The introduction of velocity structure mitigates the optical depth effects, but does not fully explain the observations, especially in the spectral dimension. A static flattened envelope viewed at a small inclination angle does slightly better. We conclude that a geometry of the envelope other than an isotropic static sphere is needed to circumvent line optical depth effects. We propose that this could be achieved in envelope models with an outflow cavity and/or inhomogeneous structure at scales smaller than ~10^4 AU. The picture of inhomogeneity is supported by observed substructure in at least six species.Comment: 17 pages; accepted for publication in A&