No Arabic abstract
We report the experimental realization of a non-galvanic, primary thermometer capable of measuring the electron temperature of a two-dimensional electron gas with negligible thermal load. Such a thermometer consists of a quantum dot whose temperature-dependent, single-electron transitions are detected by means of a quantum-point-contact electrometer. Its operating principle is demonstrated for a wide range of electron temperatures from 40 to 800 mK. This noninvasive thermometry can find application in experiments addressing the thermal properties of micrometer-scale mesoscopic electron systems, where heating or cooling electrons requires relatively low thermal budgets.
Temperature is a fundamental parameter in the study of physical phenomena. At the nanoscale, local temperature differences can be harnessed to design novel thermal nanoelectronic devices or test quantum thermodynamical concepts. Determining temperature locally is hence of particular relevance. Here, we present a primary electron thermometer that allows probing the local temperature of a single electron reservoir in single-electron devices. The thermometer is based on cyclic electron tunneling between a system with discrete energy levels and a single electron reservoir. When driven at a finite rate, close to a charge degeneracy point, the system behaves like a variable capacitor whose magnitude and line-shape varies with temperature. In this experiment, we demonstrate this type of thermometer using a quantum dot in a CMOS nanowire transistor. We drive cyclic electron tunneling by embedding the device in a radio-frequency resonator which in turn allows us to read the thermometer dispersively. We find that the full width at half maximum of the resonator phase response depends linearly with temperature via well known physical law by using the ratio $k_text{B}/e$ between the Boltzmann constant and the electron charge. Overall, the thermometer shows potential for local probing of fast heat dynamics in nanoelectronic devices and for seamless integration with silicon-based quantum circuits.
We study local density of electron states of a two-dimentional conductor with a smooth disorder potential in a non-quantizing magnetic field, which does not cause the standart de Haas-van Alphen oscillations. It is found, that despite the influence of such ``classical magnetic field on the average electron density of states (DOS) is negligibly small, it does produce a significant effect on the DOS correlations. The corresponding correlation function exhibits oscillations with the characteristic period of cyclotron quantum $hbaromega_c$.
Using scanning gate microscopy (SGM), we probe the scattering between a beam of electrons and a two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) as a function of the beams injection energy, and distance from the injection point. At low injection energies, we find electrons in the beam scatter by small-angles, as has been previously observed. At high injection energies, we find a surprising result: placing the SGM tip where it back-scatters electrons increases the differential conductance through the system. This effect is explained by a non-equilibrium distribution of electrons in a localized region of 2DEG near the injection point. Our data indicate that the spatial extent of this highly non-equilibrium distribution is within ~1 micrometer of the injection point. We approximate the non-equilibrium region as having an effective temperature that depends linearly upon injection energy.
Motivated by the possibility of creating non-Abelian fields using cold atoms in optical lattices, we explore the richness and complexity of non-interacting two-dimensional electron gases (2DEGs) in a lattice, subjected to such fields. In the continuum limit, a non-Abelian system characterized by a two-component magnetic flux describes a harmonic oscillator existing in two different charge states (mimicking a particle-hole pair) where the coupling between the states is determined by the non-Abelian parameter, namely the difference between the two components of the magnetic flux. A key feature of the non-Abelian system is a splitting of the Landau energy levels, which broaden into bands, as the spectrum depends explicitly on the transverse momentum. These Landau bands result in a coarse-grained moth, a continuum version of the generalized Hofstadter butterfly. Furthermore, the bands overlap, leading to effective relativistic effects. Importantly, similar features also characterize the corresponding two-dimensional lattice problem when at least one of the components of the magnetic flux is an irrational number. The lattice system with two competing magnetic fluxes penetrating the unit cell provides a rich environment in which to study localization phenomena. Some unique aspects of the transport properties of the non-Abelian system are the possibility of inducing localization by varying the quasimomentum, and the absence of localization of certain zero-energy states exhibiting a linear energy-momentum relation. Furthermore, non-Abelian systems provide an interesting localization scenario where the localization transition is accompanied by a transition from relativistic to non-relativistic theory.
At low energy, electrons in doped graphene sheets behave like massless Dirac fermions with a Fermi velocity which does not depend on carrier density. Here we show that modulating a two-dimensional electron gas with a long-wavelength periodic potential with honeycomb symmetry can lead to the creation of isolated massless Dirac points with tunable Fermi velocity. We provide detailed theoretical estimates to realize such artificial graphene-like system and discuss an experimental realization in a modulation-doped GaAs quantum well. Ultra high-mobility electrons with linearly-dispersing bands might open new venues for the studies of Dirac-fermion physics in semiconductors.