Single-electron pump with highly controllable plateaus

Abstract

Future quantum based electronic systems will demand robust and highly accurate on-demand sources of current. The ultimate limit of quantized current sources is a highly controllable device that manipulates individual electrons. We present a GaAs single-electron pump, where electrons are pumped through a one-dimensional split-gate saddle point confinement potential, which show quantized plateaus with length and width that can be independently tuned with the application of a source-drain bias and RF amplitude. The plateaus can be over two orders of magnitude longer than conventional pumps, and flatness improves with the application of a source-drain bias.