arXiv subjects

Werner Wegscheider

Publications and source records attributed to Werner Wegscheider.

At least 109 records · Page 6Linked to original sources

arXiv2015

Transport Spectroscopy of a Spin-Coherent Dot-Cavity System

Quantum engineering requires controllable artificial systems with quantum coherence exceeding the device size and operation time. This can be achieved with geometrically confined low-dimensional electronic structures embedded within ultraclean materials, with prominent examples being artificial atoms (quantum dots) and quantum corrals (electronic cavities). Combining the two structures, we implement a mesoscopic coupled dot-cavity system in a high-mobility two-dimensional electron gas, and obtain an extended spin-singlet state in the regime of strong dot-cavity coupling. Engineering such extended quantum states presents a viable route for nonlocal spin coupling that is applicable for quantum information processing.

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arXiv2015

Single-Spin CCD

Spin-based electronics or spintronics relies on the ability to store, transport and manipulate electron spin polarization with great precision. In its ultimate limit, information is stored in the spin state of a single electron, at which point also quantum information processing becomes a possibility. Here we demonstrate the manipulation, transport and read-out of individual electron spins in a linear array of three semiconductor quantum dots. First, we demonstrate single-shot read-out of three spins with fidelities of 97% on average, using an approach analogous to the operation of a charge-coupled-device (CCD). Next, we perform site-selective control of the three spins thereby writing the content of each pixel of this "Single-Spin CCD". Finally, we show that shuttling an electron back and forth in the array hundreds of times, covering a cumulative distance of 80 $μ$m, has negligible influence on its spin projection. Extrapolating these results to the case of much larger arrays, points at a diverse range of potential applications, from quantum information to imaging and sensing.

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arXiv2015

Capacitive coupling in hybrid Graphene-GaAs nanostructures

Coupled hybrid nanostructures are demonstrated using the combination of lithographically patterned graphene on top of a two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) buried in a GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructure. The graphene forms Schottky barriers at the surface of the heterostructure and therefore allows tuning the electronic density of the 2DEG. Conversely, the 2DEG potential can tune the graphene Fermi energy. Graphene-defined quantum point contacts in the 2DEG show half-plateaus of quantized conductance in finite bias spectroscopy and display the 0.7 anomaly for a large range of densities in the constriction, testifying to their good electronic properties. Finally, we demonstrate that the GaAs nanostructure can detect charges in the vicinity of the heterostructure's surface. This confirms the strong coupling of the hybrid device: localized states in the graphene ribbon could in principle be probed by the underlying confined channel. The present hybrid graphene/GaAs nanostructures are promising for the investigation of strong interactions and coherent coupling between the two fundamentally different materials.

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arXiv2015

Influence of etching processes on electronic transport in mesoscopic InAs/GaSb quantum well devices

We report the electronic characterization of mesoscopic Hall bar devices fabricated from coupled InAs/GaSb quantum wells sandwiched between AlSb barriers, an emerging candidate for two-dimensional topological insulators. The electronic width of the etched structures was determined from the low field magneto-resistance peak, a characteristic signature of partially diffusive boundary scattering in the ballistic limit. In case of dry-etching the electronic width was found to decrease with electron density. In contrast, for wet etched devices it stayed constant with density. Moreover, the boundary scattering was found to be more specular for wet-etched devices, which may be relevant for studying topological edge states.

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arXiv2015

Generation and Detection of Spin Currents in Semiconductor Nanostructures with Strong Spin-Orbit Interaction

Storing, transmitting, and manipulating information using the electron spin resides at the heart of spintronics. Fundamental for future spintronics applications is the ability to control spin currents in solid state systems. Among the different platforms proposed so far, semiconductors with strong spin-orbit interaction are especially attractive as they promise fast and scalable spin control with all-electrical protocols. Here we demonstrate both the generation and measurement of pure spin currents in semiconductor nanostructures. Generation is purely electrical and mediated by the spin dynamics in materials with a strong spin-orbit field. Measurement is accomplished using a spin-to-charge conversion technique, based on the magnetic field symmetry of easily measurable electrical quantities. Calibrating the spin-to-charge conversion via the conductance of a quantum point contact, we quantitatively measure the mesoscopic spin Hall effect in a multiterminal GaAs dot. We report spin currents of 174 pA, corresponding to a spin Hall angle of 34%.

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arXiv2015

Non-local transport via edge-states in InAs/GaSb coupled quantum wells

We have investigated low-temperature electronic transport on InAs/GaSb double quantum wells, a system which promises to be electrically tunable from a normal to a topological insulator. Hall bars of $50\,μ$m in length down to a few $μ$m gradually develop a pronounced resistance plateau near charge-neutrality, which comes along with distinct non-local transport along the edges. Plateau resistances are found to be above or below the quantized value expected for helical edge channels. We discuss these results based on the interplay between imperfect edges and residual local bulk conductivity.

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arXiv2015

Equilibrium free energy measurement of a confined electron driven out of equilibrium

We study out-of equilibrium properties of a quantum dot in a GaAs/AlGaAs two-dimensional electron gas. By means of single electron counting experiments, we measure the distribution of work and dissipated heat of the driven quantum dot and relate these quantities to the equilibrium free energy change, as it has been proposed by C. Jarzynski [Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf78}, 2690 (1997)]. We discuss the influence of the degeneracy of the quantized energy state on the free energy change as well as its relation to the tunnel rates between the dot and the reservoir.

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arXiv2014

On the relation between the 0.7-anomaly and the Kondo effect: Geometric Crossover between a Quantum Point Contact and a Kondo Quantum Dot

Quantum point contacts (QPCs) and quantum dots (QDs), two elementary building blocks of semiconducting nanodevices, both exhibit famously anomalous conductance features: the 0.7-anomaly in the former case, the Kondo effect in the latter. For both the 0.7-anomaly and the Kondo effect, the conductance shows a remarkably similar low-energy dependence on temperature $T$, source-drain voltage $V_{\rm sd}$ and magnetic field $B$. In a recent publication [F. Bauer et al., Nature, 501, 73 (2013)], we argued that the reason for these similarities is that both a QPC and a KQD feature spin fluctuations that are induced by the sample geometry, confined in a small spatial regime, and enhanced by interactions. Here we further explore this notion experimentally and theoretically by studying the geometric crossover between a QD and a QPC, focussing on the $B$-field dependence of the conductance. We introduce a one-dimensional model that reproduces the essential features of the experiments, including a smooth transition between a Kondo QD and a QPC with 0.7-anomaly. We find that in both cases the anomalously strong negative magnetoconductance goes hand in hand with strongly enhanced local spin fluctuations. Our experimental observations include, in addition to the Kondo effect in a QD and the 0.7-anomaly in a QPC, Fano interference effects in a regime of coexistence between QD and QPC physics, and Fabry-Perot-type resonances on the conductance plateaus of a clean QPC. We argue that Fabry-Perot-type resonances occur generically if the electrostatic potential of the QPC generates a flatter-than-parabolic barrier top.

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arXiv2014

Scanning Gate Imaging of quantum point contacts and the origin of the 0.7 Anomaly

The origin of the anomalous transport feature appearing at conductance G \approx 0.7 x (2e2/h) in quasi-1D ballistic devices - the so-called 0.7 anomaly - represents a long standing puzzle. Several mechanisms were proposed to explain it, but a general consensus has not been achieved. Proposed explanations are based on quantum interference, Kondo effect, Wigner crystallization, and more. A key open issue is whether point defects that can occur in these low-dimensional devices are the physical cause behind this conductance anomaly. Here we adopt a scanning gate microscopy technique to map individual impurity positions in several quasi-1D constrictions and correlate these with conductance characteristics. Our data demonstrate that the 0.7 anomaly can be observed irrespective of the presence of localized defects, and we conclude that the 0.7 anomaly is a fundamental property of low-dimensional systems.

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arXiv2014

Experimental probe of topological orders and edge excitations in the second Landau level

We measure weak quasiparticle tunneling across a constriction in the second Landau level. At $ν$ = 7/3, 8/3 and 5/2, comparison of temperature and DC bias dependence to weak tunneling theory allows extracting parameters that describe the edges' quasiparticle excitations. At $ν$ = 8/3, our results are well described by a particle-hole conjugate Laughlin state, but not compatible with proposed non-Abelian quasiparticle excitations. For $ν$ = 5/2, our measurements are in good agreement with previous experiments and favor the Abelian (3,3,1) or (1,1,3)-states. At these filling factors, we further investigate the influence of the backscattering strength on the extracted scaling parameters. For $ν$ = 7/3, the backscattering strength strongly affects the scaling parameters, whereas quasiparticle tunneling at $ν$ = 8/3 and 5/2 appears more robust. Our results provide important additional insight about the physics in the second Landau level and contribute to the understanding of the physics underlying the fractional quantum Hall states at $ν$ = 7/3, 8/3 and 5/2.

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arXiv2014

Spectroscopy of Equilibrium and Non-Equilibrium Charge Transfer in Semiconductor Quantum Structures

We investigate equilibrium and non-equilibrium charge-transfer processes by performing high-resolution transport spectroscopy. Using electrostatically defined quantum dots for energy-selective emission and detection, we achieved unprecedented spectral resolution and a high degree of tunability of relevant experimental parameters. Most importantly, we observe that the spectral width of elastically transferred electrons can be substantially smaller than the linewidth of a thermally broadened Coulomb peak. This finding indicates that the charge-transfer process is fast compared to the electron--phonon interaction time. By drawing an analogy to double quantum dots, we argue that the spectral width of the elastic resonance is determined by the lifetime broadening $h\itΓ$ of the emitter and detector states. Good agreement with the model is found also in an experiment in which the charge transfer is in the regime $h\itΓ\gg k_{\rm{B}}T$. By performing spectroscopy below the Fermi energy, we furthermore observe elastic and inelastic transfer of holes.

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arXiv2014

Ultrastrong Coupling in the Near-field of Complementary Split Ring Resonators

The ultrastrong light-matter interaction regime was investigated in metallic and superconducting complementary split ring resonators coupled to the cyclotron transition of two dimensional electron gases. The sub-wavelength light confinement and the large optical dipole moment of the cyclotron transition yield record high normalized coupling rates of up to $\frac{Ω_R}{ω_c}=$ 0.87. We observed a blue-shift of both polaritons due to the diamagnetic term of the interaction Hamiltonian.

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arXiv2014

Edge-mode Superconductivity in a Two Dimensional Topological Insulator

Topological superconductivity is an exotic state of matter that supports Majorana zero-modes, which are surface modes in 3D, edge modes in 2D or localized end states in 1D. In the case of complete localization these Majorana modes obey non-Abelian exchange statistics making them interesting building blocks for topological quantum computing. Here we report superconductivity induced into the edge modes of semiconducting InAs/GaSb quantum wells, a two-dimensional topological insulator. Using superconducting quantum interference, we demonstrate gate-tuning between edge-dominated and bulk-dominated regimes of superconducting transport. The edge-dominated regime arises only under conditions of high-bulk resistivity, which we associate with the 2D topological phase. These experiments establish InAs/GaSb as a robust platform for further confinement of Majoranas into localized states enabling future investigations of non-Abelian statistics.

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arXiv2014

Characterization of spin-orbit interactions of GaAs heavy holes using a quantum point contact

We present transport experiments performed in high quality quantum point contacts embedded in a GaAs two-dimensional hole gas. The strong spin-orbit interaction results in peculiar transport phenomena, including the previously observed anisotropic Zeeman splitting and level-dependent effective g-factors. Here we find additional effects, namely the crossing and the anti-crossing of spin-split levels depending on subband index and magnetic field direction. Our experimental observations are reconciled in an heavy hole effective spin-orbit Hamiltonian where cubic- and quadratic-in-momentum terms appear. The spin-orbit components, being of great importance for quantum computing applications, are characterized in terms of magnitude and spin structure. In the light of our results, we explain the level dependent effective g-factor in an in-plane field. Through a tilted magnetic field analysis, we show that the QPC out-of-plane g-factor saturates around the predicted 7.2 bulk value.

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arXiv2014

Evaluating charge noise acting on semiconductor quantum dots in the circuit quantum electrodynamics architecture

We evaluate the charge noise acting on a GaAs/GaAlAs based semiconductor double quantum dot dipole-coupled to the voltage oscillations of a superconducting transmission line resonator. The in-phase ($I$) and the quadrature ($Q$) components of the microwave tone transmitted through the resonator are sensitive to charging events in the surrounding environment of the double dot with an optimum sensitivity of $8.5\times10^{-5} \mbox{e}/\sqrt{\mbox{Hz}}$. A low frequency $1/f$ type noise spectrum combined with a white noise level of $6.6\times10^{-6}$ $\mbox{e}^2/\mbox{Hz}$ above $1$ Hz is extracted, consistent with previous results obtained with quantum point contact charge detectors on similar heterostructures. The slope of the $1/f$ noise allows to extract a lower bound for the double-dot charge qubit dephasing rate which we compare to the one extracted from a Jaynes-Cummings Hamiltonian approach. The two rates are found to be similar emphasizing that charge noise is the main source of dephasing in our system.

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arXiv2014

Increasing the ν = 5 / 2 gap energy: an analysis of MBE growth parameters

The fractional quantized Hall state (FQHS) at the filling factor ν = 5/2 is of special interest due to its possible application for quantum computing. Here we report on the optimization of growth parameters that allowed us to produce two-dimensional electron gases (2DEGs) with a 5/2 gap energy up to 135 mK. We concentrated on optimizing the MBE growth to provide high 5/2 gap energies in "as-grown" samples, without the need to enhance the 2DEGs properties by illumination or gating techniques. Our findings allow us to analyse the impact of doping in narrow quantum wells with respect to conventional DX-doping in AlxGa1-xAs. The impact of the setback distance between doping layer and 2DEG was investigated as well. Additionally, we found a considerable increase in gap energy by reducing the amount of background impurities. To this end growth techniques like temperature reductions for substrate and effusion cells and the reduction of the Al mole fraction in the 2DEG region were applied.

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arXiv2014

Spin-orbit splitting and effective masses in p-type GaAs two-dimensional hole gases

We present magnetotransport measurements performed on two-dimensional hole gases embedded in carbon doped p-type GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructures grown on [001] oriented substrates. A pronounced beating pattern in the Shubnikov-de Haas oscillations proves the presence of strong spin-orbit interaction in the device under study. We estimate the effective masses of spin-orbit split subbands by measuring the temperature dependence of the Shubnikov-de Haas oscillations at different hole densities. While the lighter heavy-hole effective mass is not energy dependent, the heavier heavy-hole effective mass has a prominent energy dependence, indicating a strong spin-orbit induced non parabolicity of the valence band. The measured effective masses show qualitative agreement with self-consistent numerical calculations.

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arXiv2013

Insulating state and giant non-local response in an InAs/GaSb quantum well in the quantum Hall regime

We present transport measurements performed in InAs/GaSb double quantum wells. At the electron-hole crossover tuned by a gate voltage, a strong increase in the longitudinal resistivity is observed with increasing perpendicular magnetic field. Concomitantly with a local resistance exceeding the resistance quantum by an order of magnitude, we find a pronounced non-local resistance signal of almost similar magnitude. The co-existence of these two effects is reconciled in a model of counter-propagating and dissipative quantum Hall edge channels providing backscattering, shorted by a residual bulk conductivity.

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