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Nanomechanical pump–probe measurements of insulating electronic states in a carbon nanotube

Nature Nanotechnology volume 14, pages 161–167 (2019)Cite this article

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Abstract

Transport measurements have been an indispensable tool in studying conducting states of matter. However, there exists a large set of interesting states that are insulating, often due to electronic interactions or topology, and are difficult to probe via transport. Here, through an experiment on carbon nanotubes, we present a new approach capable of measuring insulating electronic states through their back action on nanomechanical motion. We use a mechanical pump–probe scheme, allowing the detection of shifts in both frequency and dissipation rate of mechanical vibrational modes, in an overall insulating system. As an example, we use this method to probe the non-conducting configurations of a double quantum dot, allowing us to observe the theoretically predicted signature of nanomechanical back action resulting from a coherently tunnelling electron. The technique opens a new way for measuring the internal electronic structure of a growing variety of insulating states in one- and two-dimensional systems.

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Fig. 1: Measurement set-up and transport characterization of carbon NT devices.
Fig. 2: Nanomechanical measurements of conducting states in a single quantum dot configuration.
Fig. 3: Nanomechanical measurements of insulating states in a single quantum dot configuration.
Fig. 4: Time-domain measurement of insulating states in a double quantum dot.
Fig. 5: Coupling between nanomechanics and a coherently-tunnelling electron in a double quantum dot.

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Data availability

The data that support the plots within this paper and other findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon request.

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Acknowledgements

We thank A. Bachtold, F. Pistolesi and F. von Oppen for stimulating discussions and D. Mahalu for the e-beam writing. We further acknowledge support from the Minerva Foundation grant (712290).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Condensed Matter Physics, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel

    Ilya Khivrich & Shahal Ilani

  2. Institute for Molecular Engineering, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA

    Aashish A. Clerk

Authors
  1. Ilya Khivrich
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  2. Aashish A. Clerk
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  3. Shahal Ilani
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Contributions

I.K. performed the experiments and analysed the data. I.K. and S.I. designed the experiments. I.K. and A.A.C. wrote the theoretical model. I.K. performed the numerical simulations. I.K., A.A.C. and S.I. contributed to its theoretical interpretation. I.K. and S.I. wrote the paper.

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Correspondence to Shahal Ilani.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Supplementary text and supplementary figures 1–7

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Khivrich, I., Clerk, A.A. & Ilani, S. Nanomechanical pump–probe measurements of insulating electronic states in a carbon nanotube. Nature Nanotech 14, 161–167 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41565-018-0341-6

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