Spin Blockades in the Transport through Quantum Dots

Abstract

The low-temperature electronic transport properties of sub-micrometer sized quantum dots, coupled to leads via tunnel barriers [1], are among the most promising areas of present-day research in mesoscopic physics [2,3]. In particular, the interest of numerous research groups is focused on spin effects in quantum dots. This effort is motivated by the recent development of a novel kind of electronics which makes use of the spin degree of freedom of the electrons (spintronics), and proposals of using spins in quantum dots for quantum computing [4,5]. Moreover, the electronic properties of quantum dots contain informations about the many-electron system inside the dot, providing a marvellous laboratory to study systematically the many-body effects in confined structures. For this reason, quantum dots are sometimes called “artificial atoms” [6]. The subject is therefore of large fundamental interest as well as extremely promising in the view of possible applications. Spin effects in the electronic transport through quantum dots have become a hot subject in recent years. This was anticipated by Bernhard Kramer when he opened the research line in his group very early, initiating among others the work on spin blockades.