Coherent time evolution of a single-electron wave function

Phys Rev Lett. 2009 Apr 17;102(15):156801. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.102.156801. Epub 2009 Apr 13.

Abstract

Observation of coherent single-electron dynamics is severely limited by experimental bandwidth. We present a method to overcome this using moving quantum dots defined by surface acoustic waves. Each dot holds a single electron, and travels through a static potential landscape. When the dot passes abruptly between regions of different confinement, the electron is excited into a superposition of states, and oscillates unitarily from side to side. We detect these oscillations by using a weak, repeated measurement of the current across a tunnel barrier, and find close agreement with simulations.