Magneto-transport in a quantum network: evidence of a mesoscopic switch

Abstract

We investigate magneto-transport properties of a θ shaped three-arm mesoscopic ring where the upper and lower sub-rings are threaded by Aharonov-Bohm fluxes φ ₁ and φ ₂, respectively, within a non-interacting electron picture. A discrete lattice model is used to describe the quantum network in which two outer arms are subjected to binary alloy lattices while the middle arm contains identical atomic sites. It is observed that the presence of the middle arm provides localized states within the band of extended regions and lead to the possibility of switching action from a high conducting state to a low conducting one and vice versa. This behavior is justified by studying persistent current in the network. Both the total current and individual currents in three separate branches are computed by using second-quantized formalism and our idea can be utilized to study magnetic response in any complicated quantum network. The nature of localized eigenstates are also investigated from probability amplitudes at different sites of the quantum device.