The conductance and the Fano factor in a graphene sheet in the ballistic regime are calculated. The electrostatic potential in the sheet is modeled by a trapezoid barrier, which allows to use the exact solution of the Dirac equation in a uniform electric field in the slope areas (the two lateral sides of the trapezoid). A special attention is devoted to asymmetry with respect to the sign of the gate voltage, which is connected with the difference between the Klein tunneling and the over-barrier reflection. The comparison of the developed theory with the experiment supports the conclusion that the Klein tunneling was revealed experimentally.
We introduce a non-linear frequency dependent D+1 terminal conductance that characterizes a D dimensional Fermi gas, generalizing the Landauer conductance in D=1. For a 2D ballistic conductor we show that this conductance is quantized and probes the Euler characteristic of the Fermi sea. We critically address the roles of electrical contacts and of Fermi liquid interactions, and we propose experiments on 2D Dirac materials such as graphene using a triple point contact geometry.
The nonlinear electronic transport properties of a ballistic Aharonov-Bohm ring are investigated. It is demonstrated how the electronic interaction breaks the phase rigidity in a two-probe mesoscopic device as the voltage bias is increased. The possibility of studying interference effects in the nonlinear regime is addressed. The occurrence of magnetic feld symmetries in higher order conductance coefficients is analyzed. The results are compared with recent experimental data.
We study the thermal conductance of ballistic point contacts. These contacts are realized as few nanometer long pillars in so called air-gap heterostructures (AGHs). The pillar length being much smaller that the mean free path of the phonons up to room temperature. Due to the small dimension and the low density of the pillars the thermal conductance of the AGHs is several orders of magnitude reduced in comparison to bulk structures. The measurement results are in quantitative agreement with a simple model that based on the Boltzmann transport equation.
Is there Ballistic Conductance Quantization in Real Life Metals Nanocontacts?
一个世纪以来，理论和大量的金属实验工作似乎表明，实际金属中传导电子的平均自由程大约是min（体平均自由程，金属的最小横向尺寸），这一结果已经由J. J. Thomson在1901年提出。这建立，如在这项工作中讨论的，严重的困难，以证明电导量化和弹道输运在原子/纳米接触或纳米收缩的现实生活中的金属。导线的欧姆电阻被证明与收缩的弹道电阻一样重要。
Today the availability of high mobility graphene up to room temperature makes ballistic transport in nanodevices achievable. In particular, p-n-p transistor in the ballistic regime gives access to the Klein tunneling physics and allows the realization of devices exploiting the optics-like behavior of Dirac Fermions (DF) as in the Vesalego lens or the Fabry Pérot cavity. Here we propose a Klein tunneling transistor based on geometrical optics of DF. We consider the case of a prismatic active region delimited by a triangular gate, where total internal reflection may occur, which leads to the tun…
Fractional quantization of ballistic conductance in 1D hole systems
本文分析了Si、Ge和GaAs系统中轻、重空穴带的弹道电导的分数量子化。结果表明，在连接两个准一维空穴引线的量子点接触区域中局域空穴态的形成大大改变了电导模式。局域空穴与传播空穴之间的交换作用导致了不同于电子系统的弹道电导分数量子化。附加平台处的电导值取决于轻空穴和重空穴能带之间的偏移Δ和交换相互作用常数的符号。对于Δ=0和铁磁交换作用，我们观察到在7 e ^{2}/4 h、3e^{2}/h和15 e ^{2}/4 h附近的额外平台，而反铁磁作用平台在e^{2}/4 h、e^{2}/h和9 e ^{2}/4 h附近形成。当Δ较大时，在e^2/h处形成单一平台。
In the present article we give a brief overview of the theories of the 0.7 anomaly of the ballistic conductance. The special attantion is given to the concept of a fractional quantization of the ballistic conductance arising from exchange interaction of the Heisenberg type between the carrier localized in the region of the quantum point contact and freely propagating carriers in electron and hole systems. ----- Brotaskömmtun skotleiðninnar í einvíðum rafeinda og holukerfum Í grein þessari verður skömmtun skotleiðninnar í einvíðum kerfum útskýrð og farið yfir nýjustu og helstu fræðilíkön á svið…
The realization of p-n junctions in graphene, combined with the gapless and chiral nature of its massless Dirac fermions has led to the observation of many intriguing phenomena such as quantum Hall effect in bipolar regime, Klein tunneling, and Fabry-Pérot interferences all of which involve electronic transport across p-n junctions. Ballistic snake states propagating along the p-n junctions have been predicted to induce conductance oscillations, manifesting their twisting nature. However, transport studies along p-n junctions have so far only been performed in low mobility devices. Here, we re…
We study spin conductance in a ballistic and quasi-ballistic two dimensional electron system with Rasbha spin-orbit coupling. The system has a four-terminal geometry with round corners at the connection to the leads. It is found that by going from sharp corners to more round corners in the ballistic system the energy depended spin conductance goes from being relatively flat to a curve showing a series of minima and maxima. It is also found that when changing the size of the terminal area by modifying the roundness of the terminal corners the maxima and minima in the transverse spin conductance…
We calculated the effects of spin-orbit interaction (SOI) on the energy bands, ballistic conductance and the electron-diffusion thermoelectric power of a nanowire by varying the temperature, electron density and width of the wire. The potential barriers at the edges of the wire are assumed to be very high. A consequence of the boundary conditions used in this model is determined by the energy band structure, resulting in wider plateaus when the electron density is increased due to larger energy-level separation as the higher subbands are occupied by electrons. The nonlinear dependence of the t…
We compute the magneto-conductance of a short junction made out of a Weyl semi-metal. We show that it displays quantum oscillations at low magnetic field and low temperature, before reaching a universal high-field regime where it increases linearly with the field. Besides identifying a new characterization of the physics of materials with Weyl singularities in their energy spectrum, this ballistic regime corresponds to the simplest setup to study and understand the manifestation of the so-called chiral anomaly of massless relativistic particles in condensed matter. At low fields the algebraic …
Fundamental quantum and relativistic formulation of thermal noise and linear conductance in an 1D quasi-particle ensemble under ballistic transport-regime
We demonstrate that branching of the electron flow in semiconductor nanostructures can strongly affect macroscopic transport quantities and can significantly change their dependence on external parameters compared to the ideal ballistic case even when the system size is much smaller than the mean free path. In a corner-shaped ballistic device based on a GaAs/AlGaAs two-dimensional electron gas we observe a splitting of the commensurability peaks in the magnetoresistance curve. We show that a model which includes a random disorder potential of the two-dimensional electron gas can account for th…
Quantum point contact with large localized spin: fractional quantization of the ballistic conductance
我们分析了包含大的局域自旋J的量子点接触的电导。如果只有一个传播通道呈现导电，则在弹道电导阶梯上形成额外的平台。该平台处的电导值强烈依赖于J，当J从1/2增加到无穷大时，电导值从3e^2/2 h减小到e^2/h，这与实验观察结果非常一致[D. J. Reilly等人，Phys.Rev.B63，121311（2001）]。
At high magnetic fields the conductance of graphene is governed by the half-integer quantum Hall effect. By local electrostatic gating a \textit{p-n} junction perpendicular to the graphene edges can be formed, along which quantum Hall channels co-propagate. It has been predicted by Tworzidło and co-workers that if only the lowest Landau level is filled on both sides of the junction, the conductance is determined by the valley (isospin) polarization at the edges and by the width of the flake. This effect remained hidden so far due to scattering between the channels co-propagating along the \tex…
The coherent charge transport through an illuminated graphene ribbon is studied as function of electronic doping, frequency and strength of the electromagnetic driving, for monochromatic circularly polarized light. We focus on the DC current carried by 2D bulk carriers which is dominant (over edge transport) for short and wide enough samples. Broad dips in conductance are predicted for one-photon and multi-photon resonances between the valence and conductance bands. The residual conductance can be associated with evanescent states and related to dynamical gaps in the Floquet quasi-energy spect…
Electric-field effect control of two-dimensional electron gases (2-DEG) has enabled the exploration of nanoscale electron quantum transport in semiconductors. Beyond these classical materials, transition metal-oxide-based structures have d-electronic states favoring the emergence of novel quantum orders absent in conventional semiconductors. In this context, the LaAlO3/SrTiO3 interface that combines gate-tunable superconductivity and sizeable spin-orbit coupling is emerging as a promising platform to realize topological superconductivity. However, the fabrication of nanodevices in which the el…
Graphene nanoribbons (GNRs) are natural waveguides for electrons in graphene. Nevertheless, unlike micron-sized samples, conductance is nearly suppressed in these narrow graphene stripes, mainly due to scattering with edge disorder generated during synthesis or cut. A possible way to circumvent this effect is to define an internal waveguide that isolates specific modes from the edge disorder and allows ballistic conductance. There are several proposals for defining waveguides in graphene; in this manuscript, we consider strain folds and scalar potentials and numerically evaluate these proposal…
An experimental method for detection of bound states around an antidot formed from a hole in a graphene sheet is proposed by measuring the ballistic two terminal conductances. In particularly, we consider the effect of bound states formed by magnetic field on the two terminal conductance and show that one can observe Breit-Wigner like resonances in the conductance as a function of the Fermi level close to the energies of the bound states. In addition, we develop a new numerical method in which the computational effort is proportional to the linear dimensions, instead of the area of the scatter…
We investigate the effect of confinement and orientation on the phonon transport properties of ultra-thin silicon layers of thicknesses between 1 nm-16 nm. We employ the modified valence force field method to model the lattice dynamics and the ballistic Landauer transport formalism to calculate the thermal conductance. We consider the major thin layer surface orientations {100}, {110}, {111}, and {112}. For every surface orientation, we study thermal conductance as a function of the transport direction within the corresponding surface plane. We find that the ballistic thermal conductance in th…
Quantum conductance fluctuations are investigated in disordered 3D topological insulator quantum wires. Both experiments and theory reveal a new transport regime in a mesoscopic conductor, pseudo-ballistic transport, for which ballistic properties persist beyond the transport mean free path, characteristic of diffusive transport. It results in non-universal conductance fluctuations due to quasi-1D surface modes, as observed in long and narrow Bi$_2$Se$_3$ nanoribbons. Spin helical Dirac fermions in quantum wires retain pseudo-ballistic properties over an unusually broad energy range, due to st…
We present a theoretical model accounting for the anomalous Fabry-Perot pattern observed in the ballistic conductance of a single-wall carbon nanotubes. Using the scattering field theory, it is shown that the presence of a limited number of impurities along the nanotube can be identified by a measurement of the conductance and their position determined. Impurities can be made active or silent depending on the interaction with the substrate via the back-gate. The conceptual steps for designing a bio-molecules detector are briefly discussed.
We study a ballistic spin field-effect transistor (SFET) with special attention to the issue of multi-channel effects. The conductance modulation of the SFET as a function of the Rashba spin-orbit coupling strength is numerically examined for the number of channels ranging from a few to close to 100. Even with the ideal spin injector and collector, the conductance modulation ratio, defined as the ratio between the maximum and minimum conductances, decays rapidly and approaches one with the increase of the channel number. It turns out that the decay is considerably faster when the Rashba spin-o…
We report an experimental study of one-dimensional (1D) electronic transport in an InSb semiconducting nanowire. Three bottom gates are used to locally deplete the nanowire creating a ballistic quantum point contact with only a few conducting channels. In a magnetic field, the Zeeman splitting of the corresponding 1D subbands is revealed by the emergence of conductance plateaus at multiples of $e^2$/h, yet we find a quantized conductance pattern largely dependent on the configuration of voltages applied to the bottom gates. In particular, we can make the first plateau disappear leaving a first…
CO adsorption on an Au monatomic chain is studied within density functional theory in nanocontact geometries as a function of the contact stretching. We compare the bridge and atop adsorption sites of CO, finding that the bridge site is energetically favored at all strains studied here. Atop adsorption gives rise to an almost complete suppression of the ballistic conductance of the nanocontact, while adsorption at the bridge site results in a conductance value close to 0.6 G0, in agreement with previous experimental data. We show that only the bridge site can qualitatively account for the evol…
A non-equilibrium Green function formalism (NEGF) is used to study the conductance of a side-gated quantum point contact (QPC) in the presence of lateral spin-orbit coupling (LSOC). A small difference of bias voltage between the two side gates (SGs) leads to an inversion asymmetry in the LSOC between the opposite edges of the channel. In single electron modeling of transport, this triggers a spontaneous but insignificant spin polarization in the QPC. However, the spin polarization of the QPC is enhanced substantially when the effect of electron-electron interaction is included. The spin polari…
We study the superconducting proximity effect in an InAs nanowire contacted by Ta-based superconducting electrodes. Using local bottom gates, we control the potential landscape along the nanowire, tuning its conductance to a quasi-ballistic regime. At high magnetic field ($B$), we observe approximately quantized conductance plateaus associated with the first two spin-polarized one-dimensional modes. For $B < 1$ T, the onset of superconductivity occurs in concomitance with the development of sizeable charge localization leading to a 0.7-type conductance anomaly. In this regime, the proximity su…
We consider conductance mapping of systems based on the two-dimensional electron gas with scanning gate microscopy using two and more tips of the atomic force microscope. The paper contains results of numerical simulations for a model tip potential with a proposal of a few procedures for extraction and manipulation the ballistic transport properties. In particular, we demonstrate that the multi-tip techniques can be used for readout of the Fermi wavelength, detection of potential defects, filtering specific transverse modes, tuning the system into resonant conditions under which a stable map o…
Strongly interacting electrons can move in a neatly coordinated way, reminiscent of the movement of viscous fluids. Here we show that in viscous flows interactions facilitate transport, allowing conductance to exceed the fundamental Landauer's ballistic limit $G_{\rm ball}$. The effect is particularly striking for the flow through a viscous point contact, a constriction exhibiting the quantum-mechanical ballistic transport at $T=0$ but governed by electron hydrodynamics at elevated temperatures. We develop a theory of the ballistic-to-viscous crossover using an approach based on quasi-hydrodyn…
We report experimental evidence of ballistic hole transport in one-dimensional quantum wires gate-defined in a strained SiGe/Ge/SiGe quantum well. At zero magnetic field, we observe conductance plateaus at integer multiples of 2e^2/h. At finite magnetic field, the splitting of these plateaus by Zeeman effect reveals largely anisotropic g-factors, with absolute values below 1 in the quantum-well plane, and exceeding 10 out of plane. This g-factor anisotropy is consistent with a heavy-hole character of the propagating valence-band states, in line with a predominant confinement in the growth dire…
Two dimensional electron gases based on SrTiO$_3$ are an intriguing platform for exploring mesoscopic superconductivity combined with spin-orbit coupling, offering electrostatic tunability from insulator to metal to superconductor within a single material. So far, however, quantum effects in SrTiO$_3$ nanostructures have been complicated by disorder. Here we introduce a facile approach to achieving high mobility and patterning gate-tunable structures in SrTiO$_3$, and use it to demonstrate ballistic constrictions with clean normal state conductance quantization. Conductance plateaus show two-f…
We present studies of ballistic transport in three terminal T-shaped junction in a linear and non-linear regime. The floating electrode acts as a scatterer and modifies the conductance in a direct channel (between source and drain electrode). In the low voltage limit, the conductance shows the Wigner threshold effect and the bend resistance. A specific shape of the Wigner singularities can be changed by applied voltage to the floating electrode as well as by a shift of the Fermi level. The system also exhibits filtering properties with current distribution between different modes propagating i…
