Highly symmetric and tunable tunnel couplings in InAs/InP nanowire heterostructure quantum dots

Abstract

We present a comprehensive electrical characterization of an InAs/InP nanowire (NW) heterostructure, comprising of two InP barriers forming a quantum dot (QD), two adjacent lead segments and two metallic contacts. We demonstrate how to extract valuable quantitative information of the QD. The QD shows very regular Coulomb blockade resonances over a large gate voltage range. By analyzing the resonance line shapes, we map the evolution of the tunnel couplings from the few to the many electron regime, with electrically tunable tunnel couplings from <1 μeV to >600 μeV, and a transition from the temperature to the lifetime broadened regime. The InP segments form tunnel barriers with almost fully symmetric tunnel couplings and a barrier height of ∼350 meV. All of these findings can be understood in great detail based on the deterministic material composition and geometry. Our results demonstrate that integrated InAs/InP QDs provide a promising platform for electron tunneling spectroscopy in InAs NWs, which can readily be contacted by a variety of superconducting materials to investigate subgap states in proximitized NW regions, or be used to characterize thermoelectric nanoscale devices in the quantum regime.