Characterization and control of charge transfer in a tunnel junction

Abstract

Charge transfer in a tunnel junction is studied under dc and ac voltage bias using quantum shot noise. Under dc voltage bias $V$, spectral density of noise measured within a very large bandwidth enables to deduce the current-current correlator in the time domain by Fourier transform. This correlator exhibits regular oscillations proving that electrons try to cross the junction regularly, every $h/eV$. Using harmonic and bi-harmonic ac voltage bias, we then show that quasiparticles excitations can be transferred through the junction in a controlled way. By measuring the reduction of the excess shot noise, we are able to determine the number of electron-hole pairs surrounding the injected electrons and demonstrate that bi-harmonic voltage pulses realize an on-demand electron source with a very small admixture of electron-hole pairs.

8 pages, 8 figures

References in corpus (6)

• An On-Demand Coherent Single Electron Source
• Minimal excitation states of electrons in one-dimensional wires
• Dynamics of Quantum Noise in a Tunnel Junction under ac Excitation
• Decoherence and relaxation of a single electron in a one dimensional conductor
• Elementary Charge Transfer Processes in Mesoscopic Conductors
• Pauli-Heisenberg Blockade of Electron Quantum Transport