Temperature Dependent Suppression of Conductance in Quantum Wires: Anomalous Activation Energy from Pinning of the Band Edge

Abstract

For unpolarized electrons in a clean quantum wire, density functional theory reveals a thermally activated suppression of conductance. The activation temperature T_A grows slowly (roughly quadratically) with gate voltage due to pinning of the band edge at the chemical potential. Similar results were obtained experimentally by Kristensen et al. [Phys. Rev. B62, 10950 (2000)] for the temperature dependence of the anomalous conductance plateau near 0.7 (2e^2/h) in a quantum point contact.

9 pages, 2 figures

References in corpus (1)

• The anomalous 0.5 and 0.7 conductance plateaus in quantum point contacts

Cited by in corpus (5)

• The Low-Temperature Fate of the 0.7 Structure in a Point Contact: A Kondo-like Correlated State in an Open System
• Density dependent spin polarisation in ultra low-disorder quantum wires
• Local moment formation in quantum point contacts
• Phenomenology of the 0.7 conductance feature
• Influence of Magnetic Moment Formation on the Conductance of Coupled Quantum Wires