Interaction induced magnetic field asymmetry of nonlinear mesoscopic electrical transport

TL;DR

This paper shows that nonlinear electrical transport in mesoscopic conductors exhibits magnetic field asymmetry due to Coulomb interactions, violating Onsager symmetry and providing a way to measure interaction strength.

Contribution

It reveals that second-order nonlinear conductance is asymmetric in magnetic field because of Coulomb interactions, challenging Onsager's microreversibility in weakly nonlinear regimes.

Findings

Nonlinear I-V characteristics are not even functions of magnetic field.

Coulomb interactions cause magnetic field asymmetry in nonlinear conductance.

Phase-breaking reduces the observed asymmetry.

Abstract

We demonstrate that the nonlinear I-V characteristics of a two probe conductor is not an even function of magnetic field. While the conductance of a two-probe conductor is even in magnetic field, we find that already the contributions to the current which are second order in voltage, are in general not even. This implies a departure from the Onsager microreversibility principle already in the weakly nonlinear regime. Interestingly, the effect that we find is due to the Coulomb interaction. A measurement of the magnetic field asymmetry can be used to determine the effective interaction strength. As a generic example, we discuss the I-V characteristics of a chaotic quantum dot. The ensemble averaged I-V of such a cavity is linear: nonlinearities are due to quantum interference. Consequently, phase-breaking reduces the asymmetry. We support this statement with a calculation which treats inelastic scattering with the help of a voltage probe.