Electronic Fabry-Perot Interferometer Research Articles

Quantum Interferences in Ultraclean Carbon Nanotubes.

Electronic analogs of optical interferences are powerful tools to investigate quantum phenomena in condensed matter. In carbon nanotubes (CNTs), it is well established that an electronic Fabry-Perot interferometer can be realized. Other types of quantum interferences should also arise in CNTs, but have proven challenging to realize. In particular, CNTshave been identified as a system to realize the electronic analog of a Sagnac interferometer-the most sensitive optical interferometer. To realize this Sagnac effect, interference between nonidentical transmission channels in a single CNT must be observed. Here, we use suspended, ultraclean CNTs of known chiral index to study both Fabry-Perot and Sagnac electron interferences. We verify theoretical predictions for the behavior of Sagnac oscillations and the persistence of the Sagnac oscillations at high temperatures. As suggested by existing theoretical studies, our results show that these quantum interferences may be used for electronic structure characterization of carbon nanotubes and the study of many-body effects in these model one-dimensional systems.

Direct observation of anyonic braiding statistics

Anyons are quasiparticles that, unlike fermions and bosons, show fractional statistics when two of them are exchanged. Here, we report the experimental observation of anyonic braiding statistics for the ν = 1/3 fractional quantum Hall state by using an electronic Fabry–Perot interferometer. Strong Aharonov–Bohm interference of the edge mode is punctuated by discrete phase slips that indicate an anyonic phase θanyon = 2π/3. Our results are consistent with a recent theory that describes an interferometer operated in a regime in which device charging energy is small compared to the energy of formation of charged quasiparticles, which indicates that we have observed anyonic braiding.

Interaction-induced interference in the integer quantum Hall effect

In recent interference experiments with an electronic Fabry-Perot interferometer (FPI), implemented in the integer quantum Hall effect regime, a flux periodicity of $h/2e$ was observed at bulk fillings $\nu_B>2.5$. The halved periodicity was accompanied by an interfering charge $e^*=2e$, determined by shot noise measurements. Here, we present measurements, demonstrating that, counterintuitively, the coherence and the interference periodicity of the interfering chiral edge channel are solely determined by the coherence and the enclosed flux of the adjacent edge channel. Our results elucidate the important role of the latter and suggest that a neutral chiral edge mode plays a crucial role in the pairing phenomenon. Our findings reveal that the observed pairing of electrons is not a curious isolated phenomenon, but one of many manifestations of unexpected edge physics in the quantum Hall effect regime.

Robust electron pairing in the integer quantum hall effect regime.

Electron pairing is a rare phenomenon appearing only in a few unique physical systems; for example, superconductors and Kondo-correlated quantum dots. Here, we report on an unexpected electron pairing in the integer quantum Hall effect regime. The pairing takes place within an interfering edge channel in an electronic Fabry-Perot interferometer at a wide range of bulk filling factors, between 2 and 5. We report on three main observations: high-visibility Aharonov-Bohm conductance oscillations with magnetic flux periodicity equal to half the magnetic flux quantum; an interfering quasiparticle charge equal to twice the elementary electron charge as revealed by quantum shot noise measurements, and full dephasing of the pairs' interference by induced dephasing of the adjacent inner edge channel-a manifestation of inter-channel entanglement. Although this pairing phenomenon clearly results from inter-channel interaction, the exact mechanism that leads to electron-electron attraction within a single edge channel is not clear. We believe that substantial efforts are needed in order to clarify these intriguing and unexpected findings.

Influence of Coulomb interaction on the Aharonov-Bohm effect in an electronic Fabry-Pérot interferometer

We study the role of Coulomb interaction in an electronic Fabry-Perot interferometer (FPI) realized with chiral edge states in the integer quantum Hall regime in the limit of weak backscattering. Assuming that a compressible Coulomb island in a bulk region of the FPI is formed, we develop a capacitance model which explains the plethora of experimental data on the flux and gate periodicity of conductance oscillations. It is also shown that a suppression of finite-bias visibility stems from a combination of weak Coulomb blockade and a nonequilibrium dephasing by the quantum shot noise.

Low-field quantum Hall transport in an electron Fabry-Perot interferometer: Dependence of constriction filling on front-gate voltage

We report systematic quantum Hall transport experiments on Fabry-Perot electron interferometers at ultralow temperatures. The GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructure devices consist of two constrictions defined by etch trenches in the two-dimensional electron layer, enclosing an approximately circular island. Front gates deposited in etch trenches allow one to change the constriction filling, relative to the bulk. A systematic variation of the front-gate voltage affects the constriction and the island electron density, while the bulk density remains unaffected. This results in quantized plateaus in longitudinal resistance, while the Hall resistance is dominated by the low-density, low-filling constriction. At lower fields, when the quantum Hall plateaus fail to develop, we observe bulk Shubnikov-de Haas oscillations in series corresponding to an integer filling of the magnetoelectric subbands in the constrictions. This shows that the whole interferometer region is still quantum coherent at these lower fields at 10 mK. Analyzing the data within a Fock-Darwin model, we obtain the constriction electron density as a function of the front-gate bias and, extrapolating to the zero field, the number of electric subbands (conductance channels) resulting from the electron confinement in the constrictions.

Electron Fabry–Perot interferometer with two entangled magnetic impurities

We consider a one-dimensional (1D) wire along which single conduction electrons can propagate in the presence of two spin-1/2 magnetic impurities. The electron may be scattered by each impurity via a contact-exchange interaction and thus a spin-flip generally occurs at each scattering event. Adopting a quantum waveguide theory approach, we derive the stationary states of the system at all orders in the electron–impurity exchange coupling constant. This allows us to investigate electron transmission for arbitrary initial states of the two impurity spins. We show that for suitable electron wave vectors, the triplet and singlet maximally entangled spin states of the impurities can respectively largely inhibit the electron transport or make the wire completely transparent for any electron spin state. In the latter case, a resonance condition can always be found, representing an anomalous behaviour compared to typical decoherence induced by magnetic impurities. We provide an explanation for these phenomena in terms of the Hamiltonian symmetries. Finally, a scheme to generate maximally entangled spin states of the two impurities via electron scattering is proposed.

Effect of static disorder in an electron Fabry-Perot interferometer with two quantum scattering centers

In a recent paper—F. Ciccarello et al., New J. Phys. 8, 214 (2006)—we have demonstrated that the electron transmission properties of a one-dimensional (1D) wire with two identical embedded spin-1/2 impurities can be significantly affected by entanglement between the spins of the scattering centers. Such an effect is of particular interest in the control of the transmission of quantum information in nanostructures and can be used as a detection scheme of maximally entangled states of two localized spins. In this letter, we relax the constraint that the two magnetic impurities are equal and investigate how the main results presented in the above paper are affected by a static disorder in the exchange coupling constants of the impurities. Good robustness against deviation from impurity symmetry is found for both the entanglement dependent transmission and the maximally entangled states generation scheme.