Observation of the frozen charge of a Kondo resonance

TL;DR

This study uses circuit QED to probe the charge dynamics of the Kondo effect in quantum dots, revealing charge freezing despite conduction, and demonstrates the potential of cavity QED for condensed matter research.

Contribution

It introduces a novel microwave cavity technique to directly measure charge response in the Kondo regime, uncovering charge freezing phenomena.

Findings

Kondo resonance is transparent to microwave photons.

Charge dynamics are frozen despite finite conduction.

Circuit QED can probe many-body electron correlations.

Abstract

The ability to control electronic states at the nanoscale has contributed to our modern understanding of condensed matter. In particular, quantum dot circuits represent model systems for the study of strong electronic correlations, epitomized by the Kondo effect. Here, we show that circuit Quantum Electrodynamics architectures can be used to study the internal degrees of freedom of such a many-body phenomenon. We couple a quantum dot to a high finesse microwave cavity to measure with an unprecedented sensitivity the dot electronic compressibility i.e. the ability of the dot to accommodate charges. Because it corresponds solely to the charge response of the electronic system, this quantity is not equivalent to the conductance which involves in general other degrees of freedom such as spin. By performing dual conductance/compressibility measurements in the Kondo regime, we uncover directly the charge dynamics of this peculiar mechanism of electron transfer. Strikingly, the Kondo resonance, visible in transport measurements, is transparent to microwave photons trapped in the high finesse cavity. This reveals that, in such a many body resonance, finite conduction is achieved from a charge frozen by Coulomb interaction. This previously elusive freezing of charge dynamics is in stark contrast with the physics of a free electron gas. Our setup highlights the power of circuit quantum electrodynamics architectures to study condensed matter problems. The tools of cavity quantum electrodynamics could be used in other types of mesoscopic circuits with many-body correlations and bring a promising platform to perform quantum simulation of fermion-boson problems.