Mesoscopic Coulomb Blockade in One-channel Quantum Dots

TL;DR

This paper reports the observation of mesoscopic Coulomb blockade in a quantum dot with a fully transmitting contact, highlighting its quantum coherence dependence and distinctive magnetic and temperature effects.

Contribution

It demonstrates the existence of mesoscopic Coulomb blockade in a one-channel quantum dot, a phenomenon requiring quantum coherence unlike traditional Coulomb blockade.

Findings

Reduction of Coulomb blockade with magnetic field

Large fluctuations in peak positions due to magnetic field

Strong temperature dependence on quantum level spacing

Abstract

Signatures of "mesoscopic Coulomb blockade" are reported for quantum dots with one fully transmitting point-contact lead, T1 = 1, T2 << 1. Unlike Coulomb blockade (CB) in weak-tunneling devices (T1, T2 << 1), one-channel CB is a mesoscopic effect requiring quantum coherence. Several distinctive features of mesoscopic CB are observed, including a reduction in CB upon breaking time-reversal symmetry with a magnetic field, relatively large fluctuations of peak position as a function of magnetic field, and strong temperature dependence on the scale of the quantum level spacing.