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Surface physics

Electron wrangling in quantum corrals

Nature Physics volume 4, pages 443–444 (2008)Cite this article

Unprecedented control over the superposition of electronic states in a 'quantum corral', exerted by changing the position of a single atom within it, provides a powerful tool for studying the quantum behaviour of matter.

The ability to image electron waves propagating along a metal surface was discovered by accident in the early 1990s by Don Eigler, Christopher Lutz and Michael Crommie at IBM Almaden. While trying to resolve atomic-scale features on a copper substrate with a scanning tunnelling microscope (STM), they noticed unexpectedly long, periodic undulations in the STM conductance signal as a function of tip position. Despite being initially dismissed as noise, these undulations were soon recognized as the signature of surface-confined electron waves whose de Broglie wavelength is much bigger than the lattice constant of the underlying metal1. Eigler and colleagues went on to show that these waves could be confined within a closed arrangement of adatoms placed on the surface, a structure they called a quantum corral2. On page 454 of this issue3, Moon, Lutz and Manoharan take these ideas to the next level to achieve the ultimate degree of solid-state atomic-scale coherent manipulation. Not content to merely wrangle surface waves within a quantum corral, they demonstrate the ability to selectively breed new surface-wave eigenfunctions by deliberately combining multiple quasi-degenerate eigenfunctions.

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Figure 1: The principle underlying the selective breeding of quantum states from a combination of degenerate states.

References

  1. Crommie, M. F., Lutz, C. P. & Eigler, D. M. Nature 363, 524–527 (1993).

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  3. Moon, C. R., Lutz, C. P. & Manoharan, H. C. Nature Phys. 4, 454–458 (2008).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Eric J. Heller is in the Department of Physics and Department of Chemistry, Harvard University, 17 Oxford Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA. heller@physics.harvard.edu,

    Eric J. Heller

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  1. Eric J. Heller
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Heller, E. Electron wrangling in quantum corrals. Nature Phys 4, 443–444 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys991

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys991

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