Quantum limit in resonant vacuum tunneling transducers

TL;DR

This paper introduces a resonant-tunneling electromechanical transducer that enhances tunneling currents and explores its quantum noise limits, with potential experimental observation of quantum-mechanical noise at mesoscopic scales.

Contribution

It proposes a novel resonant-tunneling transducer design that increases tunneling currents and analyzes its quantum noise limits compared to standard transducers.

Findings

Resonant-tunneling transducers can achieve higher tunneling currents.

Momentum noise can dominate over Brownian noise at low temperatures.

Potential for observing quantum-mechanical noise at mesoscopic scales.

Abstract

We propose an electromechanical transducer based on a resonant-tunneling configuration that, with respect to the standard tunneling transducers, allows larger tunneling currents while using the same bias voltage. The increased current leads to an increase of the shot noise and an increase of the momentum noise which determine the quantum limit in the system under monitoring. Experiments with micromachined masses at 4.2 K could show dominance of the momentum noise over the Brownian noise, allowing observation of the quantum-mechanical noise at the mesoscopic scale.