Trapping and Counting Ballistic Nonequilibrium Electrons

authored by
Lars Freise, Thomas Gerster, David Reifert, Thomas Weimann, Klaus Pierz, Frank Hohls, Niels Ubbelohde
Abstract

We demonstrate the trapping of electrons propagating ballistically at far-above-equilibrium energies in GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructures in high magnetic field. We find low-loss transport along a gate-modified mesa edge in contrast to an effective decay of excess energy for the loop around a neighboring, mesa-confined node, enabling high-fidelity trapping. Measuring the full counting statistics via single-charge detection yields the trapping (and escape) probabilities of electrons scattered (and excited) within the node. Energetic and arrival-time distributions of captured electron wave packets are characterized by modulating tunnel barrier transmission.

External Organisation(s)
National Metrology Institute of Germany (PTB)
Type
Article
Journal
Physical review letters
Volume
124
ISSN
0031-9007
Publication date
27.03.2020
Publication status
Published
Peer reviewed
Yes
ASJC Scopus subject areas
Physics and Astronomy(all)
Electronic version(s)
https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.124.127701 (Access: Open)