No Arabic abstract
We have observed the Kondo effect in strongly coupled semiconducting nanowire quantum dots. The devices are made from indium arsenide nanowires, grown by molecular beam epitaxy, and contacted by titanium leads. The device transparency can be tuned by changing the potential on a gate electrode, and for increasing transparencies the effects dominating the transport changes from Coulomb Blockade to Universal Conductance Fluctuations with Kondo physics appearing in the intermediate region.
We report measurements of the nonlinear conductance of InAs nanowire quantum dots coupled to superconducting leads. We observe a clear alternation between odd and even occupation of the dot, with sub-gap-peaks at $|V_{sd}|=Delta/e$ markedly stronger(weaker) than the quasiparticle tunneling peaks at $|V_{sd}|=2Delta/e$ for odd(even) occupation. We attribute the enhanced $Delta$-peak to an interplay between Kondo-correlations and Andreev tunneling in dots with an odd number of spins, and substantiate this interpretation by a poor mans scaling analysis.
We experimentally verify hitherto untested theoretical predictions about the thermoelectric properties of Kondo correlated quantum dots (QDs). The specific conditions required for this study are obtained by using QDs epitaxially grown in nanowires, combined with a recently developed method for controlling and measuring temperature differences at the nanoscale. This makes it possible to obtain data of very high quality both below and above the Kondo temperature, and allows a quantitative comparison with theoretical predictions. Specifically, we verify that Kondo correlations can induce a polarity change of the thermoelectric current, which can be reversed either by increasing the temperature or by applying a magnetic field.
We investigate a tunable two-impurity Kondo system in a strongly correlated carbon nanotube double quantum dot, accessing the full range of charge regimes. In the regime where both dots contain an unpaired electron, the system approaches the two-impurity Kondo model. At zero magnetic field the interdot coupling disrupts the Kondo physics and a local singlet state arises, but we are able to tune the crossover to a Kondo screened phase by application of a magnetic field. All results show good agreement with a numerical renormalization group study of the device.
Quantum dots (QDs) made from semiconductors are among the most promising platforms for the developments of quantum computing and simulation chips, and have advantages over other platforms in high density integration and in compatibility to the standard semiconductor chip fabrication technology. However, development of a highly tunable semiconductor multiple QD system still remains as a major challenge. Here, we demonstrate realization of a highly tunable linear quadruple QD (QQD) in a narrow bandgap semiconductor InAs nanowire with fine finger gate technique. The QQD is studied by electron transport measurements in the linear response regime. Characteristic two-dimensional charge stability diagrams containing four groups of resonant current lines of different slopes are found for the QQD. It is shown that these current lines can be individually assigned as arising from resonant electron transport through the energy levels of different QDs. Benefited from the excellent gate tunability, we also demonstrate tuning of the QQD to regimes where the energy levels of two QDs, three QDs and all the four QDs are energetically on resonance, respectively, with the fermi level of source and drain contacts. A capacitance network model is developed for the linear QQD and the simulated charge stability diagrams based on the model show good agreements with the experiments. Our work presents a solid experimental evidence that narrow bandgap semiconductor nanowires multiple QDs could be used as a versatile platform to achieve integrated qubits for quantum computing and to perform quantum simulations for complex many-body systems.
Spin properties of two interacting electrons in a quantum dot (QD) embedded in a nanowire with controlled aspect ratio and longitudinal magnetic fields are investigated by using a configuration interaction (CI) method and exact diagonalization (ED) techniques. The developed CI theory based on a three-dimensional (3D) parabolic model provides explicit formulations of the Coulomb matrix elements and allows for straightforward and efficient numerical implementation. Our studies reveal fruitful features of spin singlet-triplet transitions of two electrons confined in a nanowire quantum dot (NWQD), as a consequence of the competing effects of geometry-controlled kinetic energy quantization, the various Coulomb interactions, and spin Zeeman energies. The developed theory is further employed to study the spin phase diagram of two quantum-confined electrons in the regime of cross over dimensionality, from quasi-two-dimensional (disk-like) QDs to finite one-dimensional (rod-like) QDs.