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arXiv:cond-mat/0101157 · Physical review. B, Condensed matter

Possibility of an electromechanical which-path interferometer

Andrew D. Armour, M. P. Blencowe

Published Jun 20, 2001• 37 citations

Abstract

We investigate the possibility of an electromechanical which-path interferometer, in which electrons traveling through an Aharonov-Bohm ring incorporating a quantum dot in one of the arms are dephased by an interaction with the fundamental flexural mode of a radio-frequency cantilever. The cantilever is positioned so that its tip lies just above the dot and a bias is applied so that an electric field exists between the dot and the tip. This electric field is modified when an additional electron hops onto the dot, coupling the flexural mode of the cantilever and the microscopic electronic degrees of freedom. We analyze the transmission properties of this system and the dependence of interference fringe visibility on the cantilever-dot coupling and on the mechanical properties of the cantilever. The fringes are progressively destroyed as the interaction with the cantilever is turned up, in part due to dephasing arising from the entanglement of the electron and cantilever states and also due to the thermal smearing that results from fluctuations in the state of the cantilever. When the dwell time of the electron on the dot is comparable to or longer than the cantilever period, we find coherent features in the transmission amplitude. These features are washed out when the cantilever is decohered by its coupling to the environment.

DOI: 10.1103/physrevb.64.035311

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We investigate the possibility of an electromechanical which-path interferometer, in which electrons traveling through an Aharonov-Bohm ring incorporating a quantum dot in one of the arms are dephased by an interaction with the fundamental flexural mode of a radio-frequency cantilever. The cantilever is positioned so that its tip lies just above the dot and a bias is applied so that an electric field exists between the dot and the tip. This electric field is modified when an additional electron hops onto the dot, coupling the flexural mode of the cantilever and the microscopic electronic degrees of freedom. We analyze the transmission properties of this system and the dependence of interference fringe visibility on the cantilever-dot coupling and on the mechanical properties of the cantilever. The fringes are progressively destroyed as the interaction with the cantilever is turned up, in part due to dephasing arising from the entanglement of the electron and cantilever states and also due to the thermal smearing that results from fluctuations in the state of the cantilever. When the dwell time of the electron on the dot is comparable to or longer than the cantilever period, we find coherent features in the transmission amplitude. These features are washed out when the cantilever is decohered by its coupling to the environment.

Phase relaxation of electrons transferring through an electromechanical transistor is studied using the Aharonov-Bohm interferometer. Using the quantum master equation approach, the phase properties of an electron are numerically analyzed based on the interference fringes. The coherence of the electron is partially destroyed by its scattering on excited levels of the local nanomechanical oscillator. The transmission amplitudes with respect to two adjacent mechanical vibrational levels have a phase difference of π. The character of the π phase shift depends on the oscillator frequency only and is robust over a wide range of values of the applied voltage, tunneling length and damping rate of the mechanical oscillator.

A which–way device is one which is designed to detect which of 2 paths is taken by a quantum particle, whether Schrödinger's cat is dead or alive. One possible such device is represented by an Aharonov–Bohm ring with a quantum dot on one branch. A charged cantilever or spring is brought close to the dot as a detector of the presence of an electron. The conventional view of such a device is that any change in the state of the cantilever implies a change in the electron state which will in turn destroy the interference effects. In this paper we show that it is in fact possible to change the state of the oscillator while preserving the quantum interference phenomenon.

Motivated by a recent experiment by Buks et al. ( Nature 391 (1998) 871) we consider electron transport through an Aharonov-Bohm interferometer with a quantum dot in one of its arms. The quantum dot is coupled to a quantum system with a finite number of states acting as a which-path detector. The Aharonov-Bohm interference is calculated using a two-particle scattering approach for the joint transitions in detector and quantum dot. Tracing over the detector yields dephasing and a reduction of the interference amplitude. We show that the interference can be restored by a suitable measurement on the detector and propose a mesoscopic quantum eraser based on this principle.

We study complementarity in a two-terminal closed-loop Aharonov-Bohm interferometer with a quantum dot embedded in an arm of the ring and a nearby charge detector capacitively coupled to the quantum dot. We show that perfect charge detection does riot give full information of the electronic path, so it does not completely suppress the interference. We propose that this property can be verified even in the limit of weak charge detection by investigating the dephasing of the first and the second harmonics of the Aharonov-Bohm oscillation. The first harmonic of the AB oscillation is reduced monotonically as a function of the charge detection strength. In contrast, the second harmonic interference remains unaffected due to the fact that charge detection is not able to detect the electronic path responsible for the second harmonic. Our theory confirms that the particle-like behavior of an electron emerges from the path information itself rather than from the disturbance.

In controlled dephasing a controlled environment causes dephasing of transport through a mesoscopic system. As a result of their interaction the states of the two subsystems are entangled. In this paper we discuss how their entanglement influences dephasing using as an example the ``which path detector,'' where the dephasing of transport through a quantum dot (QD) due to the interaction with a quantum point contact (QPC) is detected by means of an Aharonov-Bohm (AB) interferometer. In particular, we calculate the suppression $\ensuremath{\nu}$ of AB oscillations as a function of the bias

\mathrm{eV}

applied to the QPC and the coupling $\ensuremath{\Gamma}$ of the QD to the leads. At low temperatures the entanglement produces a smooth crossover from $\ensuremath{\nu}\ensuremath{\propto}(eV/\ensuremath{\Gamma}{)}^{2},$ when $\mathrm{eV}\ensuremath{\ll}\ensuremath{\Gamma}$ to $\ensuremath{\nu}\ensuremath{\propto}eV/\ensuremath{\Gamma},$ for $\mathrm{eV}\ensuremath{\gg}\ensuremath{\Gamma}.$

Matter-wave interferometry is a highly sensitive tool to measure small perturbations in a quantum system.This property allows the creation of precision sensors for dephasing mechanisms such as mechanical vibrations.They are a challenge for phase measurements under perturbing conditions that cannot be perfectly decoupled from the interferometer, e.g.for mobile interferometric devices or vibrations with a broad frequency range.Here, we demonstrate a method based on second-order correlation theory in combination with Fourier analysis, to use an electron interferometer as a sensor that precisely characterizes the mechanical vibration spectrum of the interferometer.Using the high spatial and temporal single-particle resolution of a delay line detector, the data allows to reveal the original contrast and spatial periodicity of the interference pattern from 'washed-out' matter-wave interferograms that have been vibrationally disturbed in the frequency region between 100 and 1000 Hz.Other than with electromagnetic dephasing, due to excitations of higher harmonics and additional frequencies induced from the environment, the parts in the setup oscillate with frequencies that can be different to the applied ones.The developed numerical search algorithm is capable to determine those unknown oscillations and corresponding amplitudes.The technique can identify vibrational dephasing and decrease damping and shielding requirements in electron, ion, neutron, atom and molecule interferometers that generate a spatial fringe pattern on the detector plane.