Impact of electron heating on the equilibration between quantum Hall edge channels

Abstract

When two separately contacted quantum Hall (QH) edge channels are brought into interaction, they can equilibrate their imbalance via scattering processes. In the present work we use a tunable QH circuit to implement a junction between co-propagating edge channels whose length can be controlled with continuity. Such a variable device allows us to investigate how current-voltage characteristics evolve when the junction length d is changed. Recent experiments with fixed geometry reported a significant reduction of the threshold voltage for the onset of photon emission, whose origin is still under debate. Our spatially resolved measurements reveal that this threshold shift depends on the junction length. We discuss this unexpected result on the basis of a model which demonstrates that a heating of electrons is the dominant process responsible for the observed reduction of the threshold voltage.

References in corpus (2)

• Finite bias visibility of the electronic Mach-Zehnder interferometer
• Selective control of edge-channel trajectories by scanning gate microscopy

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• Measuring the Luttinger liquid parameter with shot noise
• Long lifetimes of ultra-hot particles in interacting Fermi systems