Effect of impurity scattering on the linear and nonlinear conductances of quasi-one-dimensionaldisordered quantum wires by asymmetrically lateral confinement

Abstract

We have studied the linear conductance and source–drain bias spectroscopies of clean anddisordered quantum wires (QWs) against thermal cycling and lateral shifting, which changethe impurity configuration. Conductance quantization and the zero bias anomaly (ZBA)are robust in clean QWs. In contrast, disordered QWs show complexities in the ways ofconductance resonance, peak splitting and trace crossing in source–drain biasspectroscopies. The experimental results and theoretical predictions are in congruence.Moreover, the resonant state arising from the impurities results in either a single peak ordouble-splitting peaks in the spectroscopies from the detailed impurity configurations. Theresonant splitting peaks are found to influence the ZBA, indicating that a cleanQW is crucial for investigating the intrinsic characteristics of the ZBA of QWs.