Magnetoconductance of a magnetic double barrier in a quantum wire

Abstract

Magnetotransport measurements of a ballistic quantum wire exposed to two magnetic barriers of opposite polarity in series are reported. We find two types of conductance resonances with quite different characteristic magnetic fields. Numerical simulations show that the first type, characterized by a larger fluctuation period of the magnetoconductance, originates from bound states localized at the magnetic barrier oriented in the same direction with the perpendicular component of the external magnetic field, and the second type of conductance fluctuation can be traced back to states that reside close to the second magnetic barrier with antiparallel alignment. The simulations furthermore show that the confinement mechanism for these states can be understood in terms of spatially varying diamagnetic shifts of the one-dimensional wire modes.