Ballistic electronic conductance of two parallel channels

Y. Avishai, M. Kaveh, S. Shatz, Y. B. Band

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

27 Scopus citations

Abstract

For the ballistic motion of a two dimensional non-interacting electron gas at the Fermi momentum k the authors compute the quantum mechanical conductance (at zero temperature) of two narrow parallel channels of length L and lateral dimensions a and b. The basic global structure of the conductance reveals quantised plateaux of integer multiples of 2e2/h. The onset of each step occurs whenever one of the channels can populate a new subband. In the special cases where the relation k mod a-b mod =n pi (n=0, 1, 2, . . .) holds, the quantised steps are of two units. Experimentally, k mod a-b mod can be determined with some uncertainty (about 0.2 pi ) around certain values. Taking these uncertainties into account in our calculations, they find that the quantised conductance pattern is somewhat smeared and the two unit jumps become more profound. A closer inspection of the theoretical curves shows an oscillatory behavior which results mainly from longitudinal wave resonances in each channel, but interference effects between the two channels may also be present.

Original languageEnglish
Article number017
Pages (from-to)6907-6912
Number of pages6
JournalJournal of Physics: Condensed Matter
Volume1
Issue number38
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Dec 1989

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Materials Science
  • Condensed Matter Physics

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