Experimental tunneling ratchets.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 10600735.
- No licence information is recorded for this record.
- Because redistribution is not established, this page shows the abstract only. Follow the links below for the full text.
Abstract
Adiabatically rocked electron ratchets, defined by quantum confinement in semiconductor heterostructures, were experimentally studied in a regime where tunneling contributed to the particle flow. The rocking-induced electron flow reverses direction as a function of temperature. This result confirms a recent prediction of fundamentally different behavior of classical versus quantum ratchets. A wave-mechanical model reproduced the temperature-induced current reversal and provides an intuitive explanation.