High-resolution error detection in the capture process of a single-electron pump

Abstract

The dynamic capture of electrons in a semiconductor quantum dot (QD) by raising a potential barrier is a crucial stage in metrological quantized charge pumping. In this work, we use a quantum point contact (QPC) charge sensor to study errors in the electron capture process of a QD formed in a GaAs heterostructure. Using a two-step measurement protocol to compensate for $1/f$ noise in the QPC current, and repeating the protocol more than $10^6$ times, we are able to resolve errors with probabilities of order $10^{-6}$. For the studied sample, one-electron capture is affected by errors in $\sim 30$ out of every million cycles, while two-electron capture was performed more than $10^6$ times with only one error. For errors in one-electron capture, we detect both failure to capture an electron, and capture of two electrons. Electron counting measurements are a valuable tool for investigating non-equilibrium charge capture dynamics, and necessary for validating the metrological accuracy of semiconductor electron pumps.

arXiv comment5 pages, 4 figures

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Cited by in corpus (8)

• Thermal-error regime in high-accuracy gigahertz single-electron pumping
• Precision measurement of an electron pump at 2 GHz
• High-resolution error detection in the capture process of a single-electron pump
• Waiting time distributions in a two-level fluctuator coupled to a superconducting charge detector
• Electron counting capacitance standard and quantum metrology triangle experiments at PTB
• Non-adiabatic single-electron pump in a dopant-free GaAs/AlGaAs 2DEG
• Transport fluctuation relations in interacting quantum pumps
• Single electron routing in a silicon quantum-dot array