Elastic scattering and absorption of surface acoustic waves by a quantum dot

The piezoelectric interaction of a surface acoustic wave (SAW) with a quantum dot is studied. Electron-electron interactions are accounted for by solving the screening problem in real space. The absorption and the scattering cross sections for SAWșs as a function of the area of the dot, A, the sound wave vector, q, and the diffusion coefficient, D, of the electrons are calculated analytically in all cases where the quantities (Formula presented)A and Aω/D are larger or smaller than unity; ω is the SAW frequency. Numerical results cover the intermediate regimes. Based on the calculation of the weak localization corrections to the cross sections it is argued that scattering and absorption of sound as noninvasive probes may be advantageous in comparison to transport experiments for the investigation of small electronic systems, because for the former the phase coherence is enhanced as the system size shrinks.