Levitons for electron quantum optics

Abstract

Single electron sources enable electron quantum optics experiments where single electrons emitted in a ballistic electronic interferometer plays the role of a single photons emitted in an optical medium in Quantum Optics. A qualitative step has been made with the recent generation of single charge levitons obtained by applying Lorentzian voltage pulse on the contact of the quantum conductor. Simple to realize and operate, the source emits electrons in the form of striking minimal excitation states called levitons. We review the striking properties of levitons and their possible applications in quantum physics to electron interferometry and entanglement. W Schematic generation of time resolved single charges called levitons using Lorentzian voltage pulses applied on a contact. A Quantum Point Contact is used to partition the levitons for further analysis. Injecting levitons on opposite contacts with a delay $\τ$ enables to probe electronic like Hong Ou Mandel correlations. Copyright line will be provided by the publisher 1 Single electron sources In this introduction, we will distinguish single charge sources from coherent single electrons sources. The former have been developed for quantum metrology where the goal is to transfer an integer charge at high frequency f through a conductor with good accuracy to realize a quantized current source whose current I = ef shows metrological accuracy. The latter, the coherent single electrons source, aims at emitting (injecting) a single electron whose wave-function is well defined and controlled to realize further single electron coherent manipulation via quantum gates. The gates are provided by electronic beam-splitters made with Quantum Point Contacts or provided by electronic Mach-Zehnder and Fabry-Prot interferometers. Here it is important that the injected single electron is the only excitation created in the conductor. The frequency f of injection is not chosen to have a large current, as current accuracy is not the goal, but only to get sufficient statistics on the electron transfer events to extract physical information. 1.1 single charge sources for current standards The first manipulation of single charges trace back to the early 90's where physicists took advantage of charge quan-tization of a submicronic metallic island nearly isolated from leads by tunnel barriers. The finite energy E C = e 2 /2C to charge the small capacitor C with a single charge being larger than temperature (typically one kelvin for