Interaction-induced backscattering in short quantum wires

Journal Article · Mon Oct 06 00:00:00 EDT 2014 · Physical Review. B, Condensed Matter and Materials Physics

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.90.165405· OSTI ID:1357037

Rieder, M. -T. ^[1]; Micklitz, T. ^[2]; Levchenko, A. ^[3]; Matveev, K. A. ^[4]

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1. Freie Univ., Berlin (Germany). Dahlem Center for Complex Quantum Systems and Inst. fur Theoretische Physik
2. Freie Univ., Berlin (Germany). Dahlem Center for Complex Quantum Systems and Inst. fur Theoretische Physik; Brazilian Center for Physics Research, Rio de Janeiro (Brazil)
3. Michigan State Univ., East Lansing, MI (United States). Dept. of Physics and Astronomy; Karlsruhe Inst. of Technology (KIT) (Germany). Inst. fur Nanotechnologie
4. Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States). Materials Science Division

We study interaction-induced backscattering in clean quantum wires with adiabatic contacts exposed to a voltage bias. Particle backscattering relaxes such systems to a fully equilibrated steady state only on length scales exponentially large in the ratio of bandwidth of excitations and temperature. Here in this paper we focus on shorter wires in which full equilibration is not accomplished. Signatures of relaxation then are due to backscattering of hole excitations close to the band bottom which perform a diffusive motion in momentum space while scattering from excitations at the Fermi level. This is reminiscent to the first passage problem of a Brownian particle and, regardless of the interaction strength, can be described by an inhomogeneous Fokker-Planck equation. From general solutions of the latter we calculate the hole backscattering rate for different wire lengths and discuss the resulting length dependence of interaction-induced correction to the conductance of a clean single channel quantum wire.

• Research Organization: Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: National Counsel of Technological and Scientific Development (CNPq); National Science Foundation (NSF); USDOE; USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES) (SC-22)
• Grant/Contract Number: AC02-06CH11357
• OSTI ID: 1357037
• Alternate ID(s): OSTI ID: 1180502
• Journal Information: Physical Review. B, Condensed Matter and Materials Physics, Journal Name: Physical Review. B, Condensed Matter and Materials Physics Journal Issue: 16 Vol. 90; ISSN 1098-0121; ISSN PRBMDO
• Publisher: American Physical Society (APS)
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE