Simulations of interference effects in gated two-dimensional ballistic electron systems
arXiv:cond-mat/9901149 · doi:10.1103/PhysRevB.60.8191
Abstract
We present detailed simulations addressing recent electronic interference experiments, where a metallic gate is used to locally modify the Fermi wave-length of the charge carriers. Our numerical calculations are based on a solution of the one-particle Schroedinger equation for a realistic model of the actual sample geometry, including a Poisson equation based determination of the potential due to the gate. The conductance is determined with the multiprobe Landauer-Buettiker formula, and in general we find conductance vs. gate voltage characteristics which closely resemble the experimental traces. A detailed examination based on quantum mechanical streamlines suggests that the simple one-dimensional semiclassical model often used to describe the experiments has only a limited range of validity, and that certain 'unexpected' periodicities should not be assigned any particular significance, they arise due to the complicated multiple scattering processes occurring in certain sample geometries.
7 pages, 10 embedded figures, higher quality figures available in tif-format (or as a hard copy) from [email protected]