Accurate characterization of tip-induced potential using electron interferometry

TL;DR

This paper presents a method to accurately characterize the electrostatic potential induced by a scanning probe tip on a 2DEG using electron interferometry and Fabry-Pérot fringes, validated by a semi-classical model.

Contribution

It introduces a precise technique to measure tip-induced potentials in nanoscale systems through interference patterns and modeling.

Findings

Fabry-Pérot fringes reveal tip-induced depletion effects

Electron interferometry quantifies depletion radius changes

Semi-classical model aligns well with experimental data

Abstract

Using the tip of a scanning probe microscope as a local electrostatic gate gives access to real space information on electrostatics as well as charge transport at the nanoscale, provided that the tip-induced electrostatic potential is well known. Here, we focus on the accurate characterization of the tip potential, in a regime where the tip locally depletes a two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) hosted in a semiconductor heterostructure. Scanning the tip in the vicinity of a quantum point contact defined in the 2DEG, we observe Fabry-P\'erot interference fringes at low temperature in maps of the device conductance. We exploit the evolution of these fringes with the tip voltage to measure the change in depletion radius by electron interferometry. We find that a semi-classical finite-element self-consistent model taking into account the conical shape of the tip reaches a faithful correspondence with the experimental data.