Imaging electron wave functions inside open quantum rings

F. Martins , B. Hackens (1) , Marco G. Pala (2) , Thierry Ouisse , Hermann Sellier (3) , X. Wallart (4) , S. Bollaert (4) , A. Cappy (4) , Joël Chevrier (5) , V. Bayot (1) , Serge Huant (5)

1 DICE - MLG - Dispositifs Intégrés et Circuits Electroniques Machine Learning Group
2 IMEP-LAHC - Institut de Microélectronique, Electromagnétisme et Photonique - Laboratoire d'Hyperfréquences et Caractérisation
3 NEEL - QuNES - Nano-Electronique Quantique et Spectroscopie
4 IEMN - Institut d’Électronique, de Microélectronique et de Nanotechnologie - UMR 8520
5 NEEL - NOF - Nano-Optique et Forces

Combining Scanning Gate Microscopy (SGM) experiments and simulations, we demonstrate low temperature imaging of electron probability density $|\Psi|^{2}(x,y)$ in embedded mesoscopic quantum rings (QRs). The tip-induced conductance modulations share the same temperature dependence as the Aharonov-Bohm effect, indicating that they originate from electron wavefunction interferences. Simulations of both $|\Psi|^{2}(x,y)$ and SGM conductance maps reproduce the main experimental observations and link fringes in SGM images to $|\Psi|^{2}(x,y)$.

Domains: Mesoscopic Systems and Quantum Hall Effect [cond-mat.mes-hall]

F. Martins, B. Hackens, Marco G. Pala, Thierry Ouisse, Hermann Sellier, et al.. Imaging electron wave functions inside open quantum rings. Physical Review Letters, 2007, 99, pp.136807. ⟨10.1103/PhysRevLett.99.136807⟩. ⟨hal-00193197⟩