No Arabic abstract
We report on the realization of a high sensitivity RF noise measurement scheme to study small current fluctuations of mesoscopic systems at milliKelvin temperatures. The setup relies on the combination of an interferometric ampli- fication scheme and a quarter-wave impedance transformer, allowing the mea- surement of noise power spectral densities with GHz bandwith up to five orders of magnitude below the amplifier noise floor. We simultaneously measure the high frequency conductance of the sample by derivating a portion of the signal to a microwave homodyne detection. We describe the principle of the setup, as well as its implementation and calibration. Finally, we show that our setup allows to fully characterize a subnanosecond on-demand single electron source. More generally, its sensitivity and bandwith make it suitable for applications manipulating single charges at GHz frequencies.
In this paper, we present a very simple design based on commercial devices for the all-optical generation of ultra-low phase noise microwave signals. A commercial, fibered femtosecond laser is locked to a laser that is stabilized to a commercial ULE Fabry-Perot cavity. The 10 GHz microwave signal extracted from the femtosecond laser output exhibits a single sideband phase noise $mathcal{L}(f)=-104 mathrm{dBc}/mathrm{Hz}$ at 1 Hz Fourier frequency, at the level of the best value obtained with such microwave photonics laboratory experiments cite{Fortier2011}. Close-to-the-carrier ultra-low phase noise microwave signals will now be available in laboratories outside the frequency metrology field, opening up new possibilities in various domains.
We have performed thermal conductance measurements on individual single crystalline silicon suspended nanowires. The nanowires (130 nm thick and 200 nm wide) are fabricated by e-beam lithography and suspended between two separated pads on Silicon On Insulator (SOI) substrate. We measure the thermal conductance of the phonon wave guide by the 3 method. The cross-section of the nanowire approaches the dominant phonon wavelength in silicon which is of the order of 100 nm at 1K. Above 1.3K the conductance behaves as T3, but a deviation is measured at the lowest temperature which can be attributed to the reduced geometry.
Scanning nanoscale superconducting quantum interference devices (nanoSQUIDs) are of growing interest for highly sensitive quantitative imaging of magnetic, spintronic, and transport properties of low-dimensional systems. Utilizing specifically designed grooved quartz capillaries pulled into a sharp pipette, we have fabricated the smallest SQUID-on-tip (SOT) devices with effective diameters down to 39 nm. Integration of a resistive shunt in close proximity to the pipette apex combined with self-aligned deposition of In and Sn, have resulted in SOT with a flux noise of 42 n$Phi_0$Hz$^{-1/2}$, yielding a record low spin noise of 0.29 $mu_B$Hz$^{-1/2}$. In addition, the new SOTs function at sub-Kelvin temperatures and in high magnetic fields of over 2.5 T. Integrating the SOTs into a scanning probe microscope allowed us to image the stray field of a single Fe$_3$O$_4$ nanocube at 300 mK. Our results show that the easy magnetization axis direction undergoes a transition from the (111) direction at room temperature to an in-plane orientation, which could be attributed to the Verwey phase transition in Fe$_3$O$_4$.
We describe a dispersive nanoSQUID magnetometer comprised of two variable thickness aluminum weak-link Josephson junctions shunted in parallel with an on-chip capacitor. This arrangement forms a nonlinear oscillator with a tunable 4-8 GHz resonant frequency with a quality factor Q = 30 when coupled directly to a 50 $Omega$ transmission line. In the presence of a near-resonant microwave carrier signal, a low frequency flux input generates sidebands that are readily detected using microwave reflectometry. If the carrier excitation is sufficiently strong then the magnetometer also exhibits parametric gain, resulting in a minimum effective flux noise of 30 n$Phi_0$/Hz$^{1/2}$ with 20 MHz of instantaneous bandwidth. If the magnetometer is followed with a near quantum-noise-limited Josephson parametric amplifier, we can increase the bandwidth to 60 MHz without compromising sensitivity. This combination of high sensitivity and wide bandwidth with no on-chip dissipation makes this device ideal for local sensing of spin dynamics, both classical and quantum.
In low-dimensional systems, the combination of reduced dimensionality, strong interactions, and topology has led to a growing number of many-body quantum phenomena. Thermal transport, which is sensitive to all energy-carrying degrees of freedom, provides a discriminating probe of emergent excitations in quantum materials. However, thermal transport measurements in low dimensions are dominated by the phonon contribution of the lattice. An experimental approach to isolate the electronic thermal conductance is needed. Here, we show how the measurement of nonlocal voltage fluctuations in a multiterminal device can reveal the electronic heat transported across a mesoscopic bridge made of low-dimensional materials. By using graphene as a noise thermometer, we demonstrate quantitative electronic thermal conductance measurements of graphene and carbon nanotubes up to 70K, achieving a precision of ~1% of the thermal conductance quantum at 5K. Employing linear and nonlinear thermal transport, we observe signatures of long-range interaction-mediated energy transport in 1D, in agreement with a theoretical model. Our versatile nonlocal noise thermometry allows new experiments probing energy transport in emergent states of matter in low dimensions.