Letter abstract
Nature Physics 3, 243 - 247 (2007)
Published online: 11 March 2007 | doi:10.1038/nphys564
Subject Categories: Statistical physics, thermodynamics and nonlinear dynamics | Electronics, photonics and device physics | Nanotechnology
Conditional statistics of electron transport in interacting nanoscale conductors
Eugene V. Sukhorukov1, Andrew N. Jordan2, Simon Gustavsson3, Renaud Leturcq3, Thomas Ihn3 & Klaus Ensslin3
There is an intimate connection between the acquisition of information and how this information changes the remaining uncertainty in the system. This trade-off between information and uncertainty plays a central role in the context of detection. Recent advances in the ability to make accurate, on-chip measurements of individual-electron current through a quantum dot1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 (QD) have been enabled by exploiting the sensitivity of a second current, passing through a nearby quantum point contact (QPC), to the fluctuating charge on the QD4, 5, 6, 7, 8. An important characteristic of QPC detectors is their minimal influence on the systems they probe. Here we show that even the operation of an effectively non-invasive QPC detector can statistically alter the system's behaviour. By observing a particular QPC current, the statistical distribution of the QD conditional current undergoes a substantial change in comparison to that expected for unconditional shot noise9. These results are in almost perfect agreement with a theoretical model we develop to predict the joint current probability distribution and conditional transport statistics of interacting nanoscale systems.
- Département de Physique Théorique, Université de Genève, CH-1211 Genève 4, Switzerland
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Rochester, Rochester, New York 14627, USA
- Solid State Physics Laboratory, ETH Zurich, CH-8093 Zurich, Switzerland
Correspondence to: Eugene V. Sukhorukov1 e-mail: eugene.sukhorukov@physics.unige.ch
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