Quantum dot circuits: Single-electron switch and few-electron quantum dots

A strongly capacitively-coupled parallel double quantum dot was studied as a single-electron switch. The double dot was fabricated in a two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) in a GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructure. An electrically-floating coupling gate increased capacitive-coupling between the dots, while an etched trench prevented tunnel-coupling between them. Split Coulomb blockade peaks were observed in each dot, and the Coulomb blockade conductance of the double dot formed a hexagonal pattern characteristic of coupled dots. A fractional peak splitting f = 0.34 was measured, which corresponds to a fractional capacitive-coupling α ≡ C_INT/C_Σ = 0.20. This is an order of magnitude larger than reported for similar lateral quantum dots, and shows that the coupling gate works. The strong capacitive-coupling in our device allowed the charge state of one dot to strongly influence the conductance of the other dot and enabled it to work as a single-electron switch. By moving in a combination of gate voltages, electrons are induced in one dot (the “trigger” dot) only. In response to the change in the charge state, the conductance of the other dot (the “switched” dot) is turned on and off. The abruptness of the conductance switching in gate voltage (the switching lineshape) is determined by how well charge is quantized on the trigger dot, and was found to follow tanh and arctan forms for (respectively) good and poor charge quantization in the trigger dot.; A few-electron tunnel-coupled series double dot was studied for possible application to quantum computing. The device was fabricated in a square-well 2DEG in a GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructure. The dots were emptied of electrons in order to define the absolute number of electrons in the dot. Finite bias Coulomb blockade measurements on each dot showed that the last Coulomb blockade diamonds did not close and thus that both dots could be emptied. A three-dimensional conductance measurement of one dot in the one sidegate and the two quantum point contact voltages also showed that Coulomb blockade peaks ended, and corroborated that the dot could be emptied of electrons. The Zeeman energy of electrons in a few-electron dot, deduced from the Coulomb blockade peak spacings, was measured with an in-plane magnetic field of up to 7 T. The g-factor was found to be no different from that of bulk GaAs | g| = 0.44. Tunnel-coupling between the few-electron double dot was demonstrated, and a tunnel-coupling strength of 1.2e 2/h was estimated from the fractional peak splitting f = 0.3.