No Arabic abstract
Correlation among particles in finite quantum systems leads to complex behaviour and novel states of matter. One remarkable example is predicted to occur in a semiconductor quantum dot (QD) where at vanishing density the Coulomb correlation among electrons rigidly fixes their relative position as that of the nuclei in a molecule. In this limit, the neutral few-body excitations are roto-vibrations, which have either rigid-rotor or relative-motion character. In the weak-correlation regime, on the contrary, the Coriolis force mixes rotational and vibrational motions. Here we report evidence of roto-vibrational modes of an electron molecular state at densities for which electron localization is not yet fully achieved. We probe these collective modes by inelastic light scattering in QDs containing four electrons. Spectra of low-lying excitations associated to changes of the relative-motion wave function -the analogues of the vibration modes of a conventional molecule- do not depend on the rotational state represented by the total angular momentum. Theoretical simulations via the configuration-interaction (CI) method are in agreement with the observed roto-vibrational modes and indicate that such molecular excitations develop at the onset of short-range correlation.
The thermopower of a Kondo-correlated gate-defined quantum dot is studied using a current heating technique. In the presence of spin correlations the thermopower shows a clear deviation from the semiclassical Mott relation between thermopower and conductivity. The strong thermopower signal indicates a significant asymmetry in the spectral density of states of the Kondo resonance with respect to the Fermi energies of the reservoirs. The observed behavior can be explained within the framework of an Anderson-impurity model. Keywords: Thermoelectric and thermomagnetic effects, Coulomb blockade, single electron tunneling, Kondo-effect PACS Numbers: 72.20.Pa, 73.23.Hk
We investigate dynamical transport aspects of a combined nanomechanical-superconducting device in which Cooper pair tunneling interfere with the mechanical motion of a vibrating molecular quantum dot embedded in a Josephson junction. Six different regimes for the tunneling dynamics are identified with respect to the electron level and the charging energy in the quantum dot. In five of those regimes new time-scales are introduced which are associated with the energies of the single electron transitions within the quantum dot, while there is one regime where the internal properties of the quantum dot are static.
Universal properties of entangled many-body states are controlled by their symmetry and quantum fluctuations. By magnetic-field tuning of the spin-orbital degeneracy in a Kondo-correlated quantum dot, we have modified quantum fluctuations to directly measure their influence on the many-body properties along the crossover from $SU(4)$ to $SU(2)$ symmetry of the ground state. High-sensitive current noise measurements combined with the non-equilibrium Fermi liquid theory clarify that the Kondo resonance and electron correlations are enhanced as the fluctuations, measured by the Wilson ratio, increase along the symmetry crossover. Our achievement demonstrates that non-linear noise constitutes a measure of quantum fluctuations that can be used to tackle quantum phase transitions.
The Coulomb interaction generally limits the quantum propagation of electrons. However, it can also provide a mechanism to transfer their quantum state over larger distances. Here, we demonstrate such a form of teleportation, across a metallic island within which the electrons are trapped much longer than their quantum lifetime. This effect originates from the low temperature freezing of the islands charge $Q$ which, in the presence of a single connected electronic channel, enforces a one-to-one correspondence between incoming and outgoing electrons. Such high-fidelity quantum state imprinting is established between well-separated injection and emission locations, through two-path interferences in the integer quantum Hall regime. The added electron quantum phase of $2pi Q/e$ can allow for strong and decoherence-free entanglement of propagating electrons, and notably of flying qubits.
We report transport measurements on a semiconductor quantum dot with a small number of confined electrons. In the Coulomb blockade regime, conduction is dominated by cotunneling processes. These can be either elastic or inelastic, depending on whether they leave the dot in its ground state or drive it into an excited state, respectively. We are able to discriminate between these two contributions and show that inelastic events can occur only if the applied bias exceeds the lowest excitation energy. Implications to energy-level spectroscopy are discussed.