Abstract
In quantum nanoelectronics, time-dependent electrical currents are built from few elementary excitations emitted with well-defined wavefunctions. However, despite the realization of sources generating quantized numbers of excitations, and despite the development of the theoretical framework of time-dependent quantum electronics, extracting electron and hole wavefunctions from electrical currents has so far remained out of reach, both at the theoretical and experimental levels. In this work, we demonstrate a quantum tomography protocol which extracts the generated electron and hole wavefunctions and their emission probabilities from any electrical current. It combines two-particle interferometry with signal processing. Using our technique, we extract the wavefunctions generated by trains of Lorentzian pulses carrying one or two electrons. By demonstrating the synthesis and complete characterization of electronic wavefunctions in conductors, this work offers perspectives for quantum information processing with electrical currents and for investigating basic quantum physics in many-body systems.
Highlights
In quantum nanoelectronics, time-dependent electrical currents are built from few elementary excitations emitted with well-defined wavefunctions
The electronic excitations correspond to the filling of the states above the Fermi sea and the hole excitations to the emptying of the states below the Fermi sea
They provide information on the time and energy distributions, but cannot access the phase of electronic wavefunctions, which requires the use of interferometry techniques
Summary
Time-dependent electrical currents are built from few elementary excitations emitted with well-defined wavefunctions. We demonstrate a quantum tomography protocol which extracts the generated electron and hole wavefunctions and their emission probabilities from any electrical current It combines two-particle interferometry with signal processing. These emitted electron and hole wavefunctions form a set of mutually orthogonHaelrset,abteys:choφmlð′α;bi′′Þijnφinðl;αigÞit1⁄4woδ-ip;ia′ δrtαi;cαl′eδli;nl′.terferometry[13] with signal processing[14], we demonstrate a quantum current analyzer, which l – 1 l l +1 h– ≥ 0 electron states. By identifying specific singleelectron and hole wavefunctions and determining their emission probabilities for various types of time-dependent currents, our work opens the way to a precise and systematic characterization of quantum information carried by electrical currents
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