Vi. Talyanskii et al., SINGLE-ELECTRON TRANSPORT IN A ONE-DIMENSIONAL CHANNEL BY HIGH-FREQUENCY SURFACE ACOUSTIC-WAVES, Physical review. B, Condensed matter, 56(23), 1997, pp. 15180-15184
We report a detailed experimental study of the quantized acoustoelectr
ic current induced by a surface acoustic wave in a one-dimensional cha
nnel defined in a GaAs-AlxGa1-xAs heterostructure by a split gate. The
current measured as a function of the gate voltage demonstrates quant
ized plateaus in units of I = ef where e is the electron charge and f
is the surface acoustic wave frequency, the effect first observed by S
hilton et al. The quantization is due to trapping of electrons in the
moving potential wells induced by the surface acoustic wave, with the
number of electrons in each well controlled by electron-electron repul
sion. The experimental results demonstrate that acoustic charge transp
ort in a one-dimensional channel may be a viable means of producing a
standard of electrical current.