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Four-terminal resistance of a ballistic quantum wire

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Abstract

The electrical resistance of a conductor is intimately related to the relaxation of the momentum of charge carriers. In a simple model, the accelerating force exerted on electrons by an applied electric field is balanced by a frictional force arising from their frequent collisions with obstacles such as impurities, grain boundaries or other deviations from a perfect crystalline order1. Thus, in the absence of any scattering, the electrical resistance should vanish altogether. Here, we observe such vanishing four-terminal resistance in a single-mode ballistic quantum wire. This result contrasts the value of the standard two-probe resistance measurements of h/2e2≈ 13 kΩ. The measurements are conducted in the highly controlled geometry afforded by epitaxial growth onto the cleaved edge of a high-quality GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructure. Two weakly invasive voltage probes are attached to the central section of a ballistic quantum wire to measure the inherent resistance of this clean one-dimensional conductor.

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Figure 1: Electronic transport in cleaved-edge overgrowth quantum wires. a, Geometry of the CEO device.
Figure 2: Two- and four-terminal resistances of a ballistic quantum wire.
Figure 3: Magnetic field dependence of probe coupling.

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Acknowledgements

We thank A. L. Moustakas, S. H. Simon, A. Yacoby and C. M. Varma for fruitful discussions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Bell-Labs, Lucent Technologies, Murray Hill, 07974, New Jersey, USA

    R. de Picciotto, H. L. Stormer, L. N. Pfeiffer, K. W. Baldwin & K. W. West

  2. Departments of Physics and Applied Physics, Columbia University, New York, 10003, USA

    H. L. Stormer

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  1. R. de Picciotto
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  2. H. L. Stormer
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  3. L. N. Pfeiffer
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  4. K. W. Baldwin
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  5. K. W. West
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Correspondence to R. de Picciotto.

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de Picciotto, R., Stormer, H., Pfeiffer, L. et al. Four-terminal resistance of a ballistic quantum wire. Nature 411, 51–54 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1038/35075009

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