Dynamic response of isolated Aharonov-Bohm rings coupled to an electromagnetic resonator

TL;DR

This study measures the flux-dependent ac conductance of isolated mesoscopic rings using a superconducting resonator, revealing significant diamagnetic oscillations and differences from connected ring behaviors, advancing understanding of mesoscopic quantum effects.

Contribution

It introduces a non-invasive method to investigate ac conductance in isolated mesoscopic rings, highlighting differences from connected geometries and confirming theoretical predictions.

Findings

Observed /2 flux periodic oscillations in conductance

Imaginary conductance oscillations are diamagnetic and thrice larger than Drude conductance

Real conductance oscillations are about 0.2 G_0 and negative at low fields

Abstract

We have measured the flux dependence of both real and imaginary conductance of $GaAs/GaAlAs$ isolated mesoscopic rings at 310 MHz. The rings are coupled to a highly sensitive electromagnetic superconducting micro-resonator and lead to a perturbation of the resonance frequency and quality factor. This experiment provides a new tool for the investigation of the conductance of mesoscopic systems without any connection to invasive probes. It can be compared with recent theoretical predictions emphasizing the differences between isolated and connected geometries and the relation between ac conductance and persistent currents. We observe $\Phi_0/2$ periodic oscillations on both components of the magnetoconductance. The oscillations of the imaginary conductance whose sign corresponds to diamagnetism in zero field, are 3 times larger than the Drude conductance $G_0$. The real part of the periodic magnetoconductance is of the order of $0.2 G_0$ and is apparently negative in low field. It is thus notably different from the weak localisation oscillations observed in connected rings, which are much smaller and opposite in sign.