Electron and hole Hong-Ou-Mandel interferometry

TL;DR

This paper explores the electronic analog of the Hong-Ou-Mandel interferometer in condensed matter, revealing how electron-electron and electron-hole interferences affect current correlations, providing insights into quantum coherence and wavepacket properties.

Contribution

It introduces a realistic condensed matter implementation of electron and hole Hong-Ou-Mandel interferometry, highlighting unique Fermi statistics effects on current correlations.

Findings

Electron-electron collisions produce a dip in current correlations.

Electron-hole interferences can generate a positive peak in correlations.

The study provides experimental parameter insights for observing these effects.

Abstract

We consider the electronic analog of the quantum optics Hong-Ou-Mandel interferometer, in a realistic condensed matter device based on single electron emission in chiral edge states. For electron-electron collisions, we show that the measurement of the zero-frequency current correlations at the output of a quantum point contact produces a dip giving precious information on the electronic wavepackets and coherence. As a feature truly unique to Fermi statistics and condensed matter, we show that two-particle interferences between electron and hole in the Fermi sea can produce a positive peak in the current correlations, which we study for realistic experimental parameters.