Fabrizio Dolcini
Electron Transport in Luttinger liquids
Luttinger liquid in a two-terminal setup
Luttinger liquid in a three-terminal setup
Several interesting effects have been predicted.
Interaction-induced oscillations: the current-voltage characteristics exhibits oscillations as a function of applied bias, due to the combined effect of the impurity, the finite length of the wire and electron interaction in the wire.
charge fractionalization: while the zero frequency noise only yields the bare electron charge, the analysis of the finite frequency noise gives access to the fractional charge of the elementary excitations of the interacting wire.
3-terminal transport: electron tunneling from a third terminal into the interacting wire: due to the presence of the leads, the (interaction-induced) current partitioning predicted by the standard Luttinger liquid theory is suppressed. Nevertheless, interaction signatures do appear in the non linear tunneling conductance.
Applied techniques
Luttinger Liquid Theory, Bosonization, Keldysh Technique (quantum filed theory for out-of-equilibrium systems)
In collaboration with H. Grabert (Freiburg, DE), B. Trauzettel (Wuerzburg, DE) and I. Safi (Orsay, FR), we have investigated electron transport properties of 1D interacting quantum wires (Luttinger liquids). The idea underlying our study is to account for some aspects that are present in any realistic experimental setup but that theoretical models often neglect, such as the finite length of the wire, the contacts with the metallic electrodes, and the presence of impurities in the wire. We have investigated both the electronic current and its fluctuations (noise) in the quantum regime, in both two-terminal and three-terminals setups.
References
S. Pugnetti, F. Dolcini, D. Bercioux, and H. Grabert, Electron Tunneling into a quantum wire in the Fabry-Pérot regime, Phys. Rev. B 79, 035121 (2009).
F. Dolcini, B. Trauzettel, I. Safi, and H. Grabert, Negativity of the excess noise in a quantum wire capacitively coupled to a gate, Phys. Rev. B 75, 45332 (2007).
F. Dolcini, B. Trauzettel, I. Safi, and H. Grabert, Transport properties of single channel quantum wires with an impurity: Influence of finite length and temperature on average current and noise, Phys. Rev. B 71, 165309 (2005).
B. Trauzettel, I. Safi, F. Dolcini, and H. Grabert, Appearance of fractional charge in the noise of non-chiral Luttinger liquids, Phys. Rev. Lett. 92, 226405 (2004).
F. Dolcini, H. Grabert, I. Safi, and B. Trauzettel, Oscillatory nonlinear conductance of an interacting quantum wire with an impurity, Phys. Rev. Lett. 91, 266402 (2003).
