Nonlinear transport in a quantum point contact due to soft-disorder-induced coherent mode mixing
- 15 August 1994
- journal article
- research article
- Published by American Physical Society (APS) in Physical Review B
- Vol. 50 (7) , 4909-4912
- https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevb.50.4909
Abstract
We show that the coherent mixing of different transverse modes, due to forward scattering of carriers by soft impurity or boundary potentials leads to a nonlinear, asymmetric current response of quantum point contacts (QPC’s). The oscillating contribution to the current is sensitive both to driving voltage and to gate voltage in direct analogy to the electrostatic Aharonov-Bohm effect. Our calculations are in good agreement with recent experimental data showing small-scale conductivity nonlinearities and asymmetry in QPC’s.Keywords
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