Spectroscopy of equilibrium and nonequilibrium charge transfer in semiconductor quantum structures

Abstract

We investigate equilibrium and nonequilibrium charge-transfer processes by performing high-resolution transport spectroscopy. Using electrostatically defined quantum dots for energy-selective emission and detection, we achieved very high spectral resolution and a high degree of tunability of relevant experimental parameters. Most importantly, we observe that the spectral width of elastically transferred electrons can be substantially smaller than the linewidth of a thermally broadened Coulomb peak. This finding indicates that the charge-transfer process is fast compared to the electron-phonon interaction time. By drawing an analogy to double quantum dots, we argue that the spectral width of the elastic resonance is determined by the lifetime broadening hΓ of the emitter and detector states. Good agreement with the model is found also in an experiment in which the charge transfer is in the regime hΓkBT. By performing spectroscopy below the Fermi energy, we furthermore observe elastic and inelastic transfer of holes. © 2014 American Physical Society.