Transport suppression in heterostructures driven by an ac gate voltage

TL;DR

This paper investigates how an ac gate voltage can induce coherent current suppression in heterostructures, providing analytical and numerical insights into controlling transport properties via driving parameters.

Contribution

It introduces a theoretical framework for current suppression in heterostructures driven by ac voltages, extending concepts from nanoscale conductors to new systems.

Findings

Current suppression is largely independent of transport voltage.

Suppression can be controlled by driving amplitude and frequency.

Analytical results agree with numerical transfer-matrix calculations.

Abstract

We explore the possibility of inducing in heterostructures driven by an ac gate voltage the coherent current suppression recently found for nanoscale conductors in oscillating fields. The destruction of current is fairly independent of the transport voltage, but can be controlled by the driving amplitude and frequency. Within a tight-binding approximation, we obtain analytical results for the average current in the presence of driving. These results are compared against an exact numerical treatment based on a transfer-matrix approach.