Quantization and anomalous structures in the conductance of Si/SiGe quantum point contacts

Abstract

Quantum point contacts (QPCs) are fabricated on modulation-doped Si/SiGe heterostructures and ballistic transport is studied at low temperatures. We observe quantized conductance with subband separations up to 4 meV and anomalies in the first conductance plateau at 4e2/h. At a temperature of T = 22 mK in the linear transport regime, a weak anomalous kink structure arises close to 0.5(4e2/h), which develops into a distinct plateau-like structure as temperature is raised up to T = 4 K. Under magnetic field parallel to the wire up to B = 14 T, the anomaly evolves into the Zeeman spin-split level at 0.5(4e2/h), resembling the "0.7 anomaly" in GaAs/AlGaAs QPCs. Additionally, a zero-bias anomaly (ZBA) is observed in nonlinear transport spectroscopy. At T = 22 mK, a parallel magnetic field splits the ZBA peak up into two peaks. At B = 0, elevated temperatures lead to similar splitting, which differs from the behavior of ZBAs in GaAs/AlGaAs QPCs. Under finite dc bias, the differential resistance exhibits additional plateaus approximately at 0.8(4e2/h) and 0.2(4e2/h) known as "0.85 anomaly" and "0.25 anomaly" in GaAs/AlGaAs QPCs. Unlike the first regular plateau at 4e2/h, the 0.2(4e2/h) plateau is insensitive to dc bias voltage up to at least VDS = 80 mV, in-plane magnetic fields up to B = 15 T, and to elevated temperatures up to T = 25 K. We interpret this effect as due to pinching off one of the reservoirs close to the QPC. We do not see any indication of lifting of the valley degeneracy in our samples.