The realization of integrated quantum circuits requires precise on-chip control of charge carriers. Aiming at the coherent coupling of distant nanostructures at zero magnetic field, here we study the ballistic electron transport through two quantum point contacts (QPCs) in series in a three terminal configuration. We enhance the coupling between the QPCs by electrostatic focusing using a field effect lens. To study the emission and collection properties of QPCs in detail we combine the electrostatic focusing with magnetic deflection. Comparing our measurements with quantum mechanical and classical calculations we demonstrate how the coherent and ballistic dynamics depend on the details of the QPC confinement potentials.
For metallic point contacts with Be and Al the magnetoquantum oscillations in the contact resistance have been investigated as a function of the applied voltage over the contact. For one set of point contacts the oscillation amplitude is found to vary nonmonotonously with the applied voltage with similarities to the point-contact spectrum of the electron-phonon interaction. The other part of the investigated point contacts shows a decrease of the oscillation amplitude with increasing bias voltage. For the understanding of the voltage dependence of the amplitude of the point-contact magnetoresi…
We report the study of ballistic transport in normal metal/graphene/superconductor junctions in edge-contact geometry. While in the normal state, we have observed Fabry-Pérot resonances suggesting that charge carriers travel ballistically, the superconducting state shows that the Andreev reflection at the graphene/superconductor interface is affected by these interferences. Our experimental results in the superconducting state have been analyzed and explained with a modified Octavio-Tinkham-Blonder-Klapwijk model taking into account the magnetic pair-breaking effects and the two different inte…
Modification of optical phonon spectra in contacting nanoparticles as compared to the single ones is studied. Optical phonons in dielectric and semiconducting particles obey the Euclidean metric Klein-Fock-Gordon equation with Dirichlet boundary conditions. The latter is supposed to be solved numerically for manifolds of interpenetrating spheres. It is proposed to replace this problem with the simpler-to-solve coupled oscillators model (COM), where an oscillator is attributed to each phonon mode of a particle and the particles overlap leads to appearance of additional couplings for these oscil…
Graphene has proven to host outstanding mesoscopic effects involving massless Dirac quasiparticles travelling ballistically resulting in the current flow exhibiting light-like behaviour. A new branch of 2D electronics inspired by the standard principles of optics is rapidly evolving, calling for a deeper understanding of transport in large-scale devices at a quantum level. Here we perform large-scale quantum transport calculations based on a tight-binding model of graphene and the non-equilibrium Green's function method and include the effects of $p-n$ junctions of different shape, magnetic fi…
We propose a new approach to coherent control of transport via molecular junctions, which bypasses several of the hurdles to experimental realization of optically manipulated nanoelectronics noted in the previous literature. The method is based on the ap-plication of intrinsic semiconductor contacts and optical frequencies below the semiconductor bandgap. It relies on a simple and general concept, namely the controllable photonic replication of molecular levels through the dipole driving the molecular bridge by an electromagnetic field. We predict the effect of coherent destruction of induced …
Graphene is a 2-dimensional (2D) carbon allotrope with the atoms arranged in a honeycomb lattice. The low-energy electronic excitations in this 2D crystal are described by massless Dirac fermions that have a linear dispersion relation similar to photons. Taking advantage of this optics-like electron dynamics, generic optical elements like lenses, beam splitters and wave guides have been proposed for electrons in engineered ballistic graphene. Tuning of these elements relies on the ability to adjust the carrier concentration in defined areas, including the possibility to create bipolar regions …
A Quantum Point Contact (QPC) causes a one-dimensional constriction on the spatial potential landscape of a two-dimensional electron system. By tuning the voltage applied on a QPC at low temperatures the resulting regular step-like electron conductance quantization can show an additional kink near pinch-off around 0.7(2$e^2$/h), called 0.7-anomaly. In a recent publication, we presented a combination of theoretical calculations and transport measurements that lead to a detailed understanding of the microscopic origin of the 0.7-anomaly. Functional Renormalization Group-based calculations were p…
Visible and infra-red light emitted at a Ag-Ag(111) junction has been investigated from tunneling to single atom contact conditions with a scanning tunneling microscope. The light intensity varies in a highly nonlinear fashion with the conductance of the junction and exhibits a minimum at conductances close to the conductance quantum. The data are interpreted in terms of current noise at optical frequencies, which is characteristic of partially open transport channels.
Electrons in a metal are indistinguishable particles that strongly interact with other electrons and their environment. Isolating and detecting a single flying electron after propagation to perform quantum optics like experiments at the single electron level is therefore a challenging task. Up to date, only few experiments have been performed in a high mobility two-dimensional electron gas where the electron propagates almost ballistically. Flying electrons were detected via the current generated by an ensemble of electrons and electron correlations were encrypted in the current noise. Here we…
We present a novel method to establish inner point contacts on hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) encapsulated graphene heterostructures with dimensions as small as 100 nm by pre-patterning the top-hBN in a separate step prior to dry-stacking. 2 and 4-terminal field effect measurements between different lead combinations are in qualitative agreement with an electrostatic model assuming pointlike contacts. The measured contact resistances are 0.5-1.5 k$Ω$ per contact, which is quite low for such small contacts. By applying a perpendicular magnetic fields, an insulating behaviour in the quantum Hall …
I. Introduction II. Electrons at the Fermi level III. Conductance quantization of a quantum point contact IV. Optical analogue of the conductance quantization V. Classical electron focusing VI. Electron focusing as a transmission problem VII. Coherent electron focusing (Experiment, Skipping orbits and magnetic edge states, Mode-interference and coherent electron focusing) VIII. Other mode-interference phenomena
Ohmic contacts are crucial elements of electron optics that have not received a clear theoretical description yet. We propose a model of an Ohmic contact as a piece of metal of the finite capacitance $C$ attached to a quantum Hall edge. It is shown that charged quantum Hall edge states may have weak coupling to neutral excitations in an Ohmic contact. Consequently, despite being a reservoir of neutral excitations, an Ohmic contact is not able to efficiently equilibrate edge states if its temperature is smaller than $\hbarΩ_c$, where $Ω_c$ is the inverse RC time of the contact. This energy scal…
The analog of two seminal quantum optics experiments are considered in a condensed matter setting with single electron sources injecting electronic wave packets on edge states coupled through a quantum point contact. When only one electron is injected, the measurement of noise correlations at the output of the quantum point contact corresponds to the Hanbury-Brown and Twiss setup. When two electrons are injected on opposite edges, the equivalent of the Hong-Ou-Mandel collision is achieved, exhibiting a dip as in the coincidence measurements of quantum optics. The Landauer-Buttiker scattering t…
We study the many-body electronic state created by a time-dependent drive of a mesoscopic contact. The many-body state is expressed manifestly in terms of single-electron and electron-hole quasiparticle excitations with the amplitudes and probabilities of creation which depend on the details of the applied voltage. We experimentally probe the time dependence of the constituent electronic states by using an analog of the optical Hong-Ou-Mandel correlation experiment where electrons emitted from the terminals with a relative time delay collide at the contact. The electron wave packet overlap is …
The light emission from a scanning tunneling microscope operated on a Ag(111) surface at 6 K is analyzed from low conductances to values approaching the conductance quantum. Optical spectra recorded at a sample voltages V reveal emission with photon energies hv> 2eV. A model of electrons interacting coherently via a localized plasmon-polariton mode reproduces the experimental data, in particular the kinks in the spectra at eV and 2eV as well as the scaling of the intensity at low and intermediate conductances.
The angular momentum of evanescent light fields has been studied in nano-optics and plasmonics, but not in the microwave regime. Here we predict non-contact pumping of electron spin currents in conductors by the evanescent stray fields of excited magnetic nanostructures. The coherent transfer of the photon to the electron spin is proportional to the $g$-factor, which is large in narrow-gap semiconductors and surface states of topological insulators. The spin pumping current is chiral when the spin susceptibility displays singularities that indicate collective states. However, 1D systems with l…
We present a scheme for high sensitivity charge detection in the integer quantum Hall regime using two point contacts in a series. The setup is an electronic analog of an optical Fabry-Perot interferometer. We show that for small transmission through the point contacts the sensitivity of the interferometer is very high due to multiple reflections at the point contacts. The sensitivity can be further enhanced twice by using electrons in spin entangled state. We show that for point contacts having different reflection probabilities, the interferometer can be tuned for the quantum limited measure…
Ultrafast photocurrent experiments are performed on semiconducting, single-walled carbon nanotubes under a resonant optical excitation of their subbands. The photogenerated excitons are dissociated at large electric fields and the resulting transport of the charge carriers turns out to be ballistic. Thermionic emission processes to the contacts dominate the photocurrent. The charge current without laser excitation is well described by a Fowler-Nordheim tunneling. The time-averaged photocurrent changes polarity as soon as sufficient charge carriers are injected from the contacts, which can be e…
We compare energy spectra, electron localization and optical absorption of square and diamond quantum rings and analyze how sample geometry affects those features. We show that low energy levels of diamond rings form two groups delocalized between opposite corners which results in increased number of optical transitions. We also show that contacts applied to corner areas allow for continuous change between square- and diamond-like behavior of the same sample, irrespective of its shape.
The observation of quantum conductance oscillations in mesoscopic systems has traditionally required the confinement of the carriers to a phase space of reduced dimensionality. While electron optics such as lensing and focusing have been demonstrated experimentally, building a collimated electron interferometer in two unconfined dimensions has remained a challenge due to the difficulty of creating electrostatic barriers that are sharp on the order of the electron wavelength. Here, we report the observation of conductance oscillations in extremely narrow graphene heterostructures where a resona…
This introduction to Green's functions is based on their role as kernels of differential equations. The procedures to construct solutions to a differential equation with an external source or with an inhomogeneity term are put together to derive the Dyson equation for the Green's function of the inhomogeneous system. Very different areas of physics such as, for example, electrodynamics and quantum transport, can profit from this Green's function formalism. The fundamental homogeneous-medium Green's tensor of electrodynamics is deduced from the field of a dipole. Based upon that a numerical pro…
We discuss the effects of built-in fields and contact configuration on the photovoltaic characteristics of ultrathin GaAs solar cells. The investigation is based on advanced quantum-kinetic simulations reaching beyond the standard semi-classical bulk picture concerning the consideration of charge carrier states and dynamics in complex potential profiles. The thickness dependence of dark and photocurrent in the ultra-scaled regime is related to the corresponding variation of both, the built-in electric fields and associated modification of the density of states, and the optical intensity in the…
We describe optical characterisation of a Strained Silicon Cold Electron Bolometer (CEB), operating on a $350~\mathrm{mK}$ stage, designed for absorption of millimetre-wave radiation. The silicon Cold Electron Bolometer utilises Schottky contacts between a superconductor and an n++ doped silicon island to detect changes in the temperature of the charge carriers in the silicon, due to variations in absorbed radiation. By using strained silicon as the absorber, we decrease the electron-phonon coupling in the device and increase the responsivity to incoming power. The strained silicon absorber is…
Single electron sources enable electron quantum optics experiments where single electrons emitted in a ballistic electronic interferometer plays the role of a single photons emitted in an optical medium in Quantum Optics. A qualitative step has been made with the recent generation of single charge levitons obtained by applying Lorentzian voltage pulse on the contact of the quantum conductor. Simple to realize and operate, the source emits electrons in the form of striking minimal excitation states called levitons. We review the striking properties of levitons and their possible applications in…
We implement a microscopic spin filter for cold fermionic atoms in a quantum point contact (QPC) and create fully spin-polarized currents while retaining conductance quantization. Key to our scheme is a near-resonant optical tweezer inducing a large effective Zeeman shift inside the QPC while its local character limits dissipation. We observe a renormalization of this shift due to interactions of a few atoms in the QPC. Our work represents the analog of an actual spintronic device and paves the way to studying the interplay between spin-splitting and interactions far from equilibrium.
