Electronic transport in quantum point contacts for undergraduate

students

Kiyohito Iigaya and Morgan May

Department of Physics, Columbia University, NY 10027
(Dated: August 4, 2008)

Abstract
We review the electronic classical transport, quantum transport and quantum tunnelling for the
quantum point contact experiment in Columbia Physics Department.

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I. CLASSICAL CONDUCTANCE

Quantum mechanics states that electrons behave like waves. In macroscopic systems,
however, we hardly observe their wavelike properties. For example, the electron transport
σ in normal metals (more precisely, diffusive metals [1]) is sufficiently explained by classical
mechanical analysis.
To see it, let us suppose electrons moving in a metal in a external field E. Then the
classical equation of motion for the electron is the balance between electron’s momentum
loss per unit time and the electrostatic force by the external field E:

mv
= eE, (1)
τ
where m, v, τ and e are electron’s mass, average velocity, mean free time, charge, respectively.
The conductance σ is now mere a ratio of the current density j

j = evne (2)

to the external field E in Eq. (1), where ne , is the electron number density. Here we obtain

ne e2 τ
σ= . (3)
m
Equation (3) is called Drude’s formula [2], which well explains the macroscopic electronic
transport.

II. QUANTIZED CONDUCTANCE

As the system becomes smaller and the temperature goes down, however, Drude’s for-
mula (3) no longer explains the electronic transport. In fact, Eq. (3) is obviously invalid
when the system is smaller than the mean free path of electrons, since the average scattering
time τ is meaningless as there is no inelastic scattering between electrons. In this meso-
scopic system [1], the electrons are free from inelastic scattering. This type of transport
is called ballistic transport [1], which can be achieved in a quantum point contact, and its
non-classical conductance is now quantized.

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 Let us give an intuitive explanation of the quantized conductance [3]. Imagine a ballistic
wire (very narrow and short wire) between two reservoirs. In the extreme quantum limit, we
can imagine that there is only one electron transporting through the wire from one reservoir
to the other. Then the current I and the potential difference ∆V between the reservoirs
are expressed respectively as I = e/∆t and ∆V = ∆E/e, where ∆E is the electrochemical
potential difference in the two reservoirs. Then, the conductance G is written as

I e/∆t
G= = . (4)
∆V ∆E/e
Now we recall Heisenberg’s uncertainty relationship:

∆t∆E = h. (5)

From Eqs. (6) and (5), we obtain the unit of quantized conductance G:

e2
G= . (6)
h
Due to the spin degeneracy, the actual step G0 is the double of Eq. (6)

2e2
G0 = . (7)
h
This gives the conductance in an ideal ballistic metal wire. From Eq. (7), we find that there
is a finite resistance 1/G0

1/G0 ≅ 1.29 × 104 [Ω], (8)

even though there is no inelastic scattering in the wire.

In general, however, some electrons are reflected at the contact. In other words, there is
a tunneling transmission probability T ≤ 1 of electrons transmitting through the contact.
In fact, strictly speaking, the uncertain relationship Eq. (5) should instead be ∆t∆E ≥ h,
2e2
providing the maximum of the ballistic transport step G ≥ h
. Thus more accurately, the
conductance G0 is written as

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 FIG. 1: The image of a clean Au(100) surface by STM. Public domain image.

2e2
G0 (T ) = T. (9)
h

Equation (9) is the Landauer Formula [4] for a single channel, which explains the electronic
transport in atomic size contacts [1, 5].

III. QUANTUM TUNNELING

There is another quantum phenomenon that we might observe in the point contact ex-
periment. Suppose that the wire having connected the two reservoirs is now totally broken.
Then the potential barrier between the reservoirs are higher than the electron’s energy. In
this case, the classical mechanics assumes that there is no current between them; however,
the quantum mechanics shows that there is a certain chance of tunneling through the bar-
rier. In plain words, electrons can penetrate through the wall. This quantum tunneling is
another wave-like property of electrons [6].
As our intuition suggests, (although our intuition might not suggest the quantum tun-
neling itself), the thicker the wall is, the less likely electrons penetrate through it. In fact,
the tunneling probability Pt and the tunneling current It are exponentially proportional to
the distance δ of the gap between the metals:

It ∝ Pt ∝ e−Cδ , (10)

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 (a) (b) (c)

FIG. 2: The figurative image of the gold contact experiment. Courtesy Masha Kamenetska and
Latha Venkataraman.

where C > 0 is a material constant [7].

Equation (10) shows that we can find the gap distance by measuring the tunneling current
It . One can apply this phenomenon to reveal the microscopic detail of metallic surface. In
other words, with an atomic size scanning tip, we can investigate the surface of a sample
metal by measuring the tunneling current It from the sample to the tip. In fact, this is the
basic idea of the Scanning Tunneling Microscope (STM) [8]. By measuring the tunneling
current It and the distance δ from the sample surface, STM reveals the image of the surface
with atomic resolutions (see Fig.1).

IV. SUMMARY

We have briefly reviewed the classical conductance, the quantum conductance and the
quantum tunneling. In the point contact experiment, we may observe each of them depend-
ing on the contact state. When the gold contact is large and wide enough, we may observe
the classical transport described by Eq.(3). As the contact size gets smaller (Fig.2(a)), we
may gradually observe the integral multiple of quantum conductance G in Eq. (9) (series of
plateaus). The quantized conductance finally reaches to its minimum value given by Eq. (9),
when the size of the contact is of the single atom (Fig.2(b)). If the contact is disconnected,
we should find the quantum tunneling of electrons given by Eq. (10) (FIg.2(c)). For more
details on the quantum point contact, see Ref. [5].

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 Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Masha Kamenetska and Latha Venkataraman for their
excellent figures and valuable advice. Mike May’s comments are also greatly acknowledged.

[1] Y. Imry, Introduction to mesoscopic physics (Oxford University Press, New York, 1997).
[2] P. Drude, Ann. d. Phys. 1, 556 (1900).
[3] I. P. Batra, Solid State Commun. 124 463 (2002).
[4] R. Landauer, IBM J. Res. Deb. 1, 223 (1953).
[5] N. Agrait, A. Levy Yeyati, and J. M. van Ruitenbeek, Phys. Rep. 377, 81 (2003).
[6] L. D. Landau and E. M. Lifshitz, Quantum Mechanics (Addison-Wesley, Reading, Mass., 1958).
[7] O. Yu. Kolesnychenko, O. I. Shklyarevskii, and H. van Kempen, Rev. Sci. Instrum. 70, 1442
(1999).
[8] G. Binnig and H. Rohrer, Surface Sci. 152 17 (1985).