We present a resistance bridge which uses a SQUID to measure the shot noise in low impedance samples. The experimental requirements are high DC bias currents (typically 10mA) together with high AC sensitivity (pA/VHz). This system is used to investigate the shot noise in Superconductor/Normal/Superconductor junctions where Andreev reflection enhanced shot noise is expected. Because our setup has an intrinsic noise much smaller than the thermal noise of the resistance bridge at 4.2K, reliable results can be obtained on impedances out of the range of classical measurement schemes.
We designed and fabricated a new type of superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) susceptometers for magnetic imaging of quantum materials. The 2-junction SQUID sensors employ 3D Nb nano-bridges fabricated using electron beam lithography. The two counter-wound balanced pickup loops of the SQUID enable gradiometric measurement and they are surrounded by a one-turn field coil for susceptibility measurements. The smallest pickup loop of the SQUIDs were 1 ${mu}m$ in diameter and the flux noise was around 1 $mu{Phi}_0/sqrt{Hz}$ at 100 Hz. We demonstrate scanning magnetometry, susceptometry and current magnetometry on some test samples using these nano-SQUIDs.
The demand for a fast high-frequency read-out of high impedance devices, such as quantum dots, necessitates impedance matching. Here we use a resonant impedance matching circuit (a stub tuner) realized by on-chip superconducting transmission lines to measure the electronic shot noise of a carbon nanotube quantum dot at a frequency close to 3 GHz in an efficient way. As compared to wide-band detection without impedance matching, the signal to noise ratio can be enhanced by as much as a factor of 800 for a device with an impedance of 100 k$Omega$. The advantage of the stub resonator concept is the ease with which the response of the circuit can be predicted, designed and fabricated. We further demonstrate that all relevant matching circuit parameters can reliably be deduced from power reflectance measurements and then used to predict the power transmission function from the device through the circuit. The shot noise of the carbon nanotube quantum dot in the Coulomb blockade regime shows an oscillating suppression below the Schottky value of $2eI$, as well an enhancement in specific regions.
We present the first measurements of the third moment of the voltage fluctuations in a conductor. This technique can provide new and complementary information on the electronic transport in conducting systems. The measurement was performed on non-superconducting tunnel junctions as a function of voltage bias, for various temperatures and bandwidths up to 1GHz. The data demonstrate the significant effect of the electromagnetic environment of the sample.
We measured the shot noise in fully epitaxial Fe/MgAl2OX/Fe-based magnetic tunneling junctions (MTJs). While the Fano factor to characterize the shot noise is very close to unity in the antiparallel configuration, it is reduced to 0.98 in the parallel configuration. This observation shows the sub-Poissonian process of electron tunneling in the parallel configuration, indicating the coherent tunneling through the spinel-based tunneling barrier of the MTJ.
We report on shot noise measurements in carbon nanotube based Fabry-Perot electronic interferometers. As a consequence of quantum interferences, the noise power spectral density oscillates as a function of the voltage applied to the gate electrode. The quantum shot noise theory accounts for the data quantitatively. It allows to confirm the existence of two nearly degenerate orbitals. At resonance, the transmission of the nanotube approaches unity, and the nanotube becomes noiseless, as observed in quantum point contacts. In this weak backscattering regime, the dependence of the noise on the backscattering current is found weaker than expected, pointing either to electron-electron interactions or to weak decoherence.