For free parallel RLC voltage decay, measure and branch currents from A to B. Then
There is no external current, so Kirchhoff's current law gives . Differentiating yields
For the characteristic equation is . Its underdamped roots give
The supplied inequality makes real. A real physical voltage has the general form , the real part of the printed complex expression. A general complex-valued solution uses both roots, . The inductor's initial current is fixed consistently by the undifferentiated current balance; it is not an arbitrary additional voltage-mode constant.
In series the same current passes through both resistors, while their voltage drops add: . In parallel the same voltage drives currents and , which add. Thus and .
Use phasors proportional to . Then and . The printed diagram places C in parallel with the series RL branch, so the input admittance is
Its nonzero zero-phase frequency exists for :
At zero frequency, and . At , , giving
For , , so current lags voltage. At very high frequency, , so current leads by . Zero phase need not coincide exactly with the minimum current magnitude in this lossy network.
The three measured limits determine the components in order:
For the changed resistance, the quoted is an ordinary frequency, so . Keeping L and C fixed gives
For sinusoidal steady state with convention , complex impedance is the voltage phasor divided by the current phasor. Its modulus is the amplitude ratio and its argument is the voltage-current phase difference. Since ,
The original circuit is a series RLC circuit with output across the inductor. Its transfer function is
For the original capacitance, the outputs are at and at , a ratio . The current resonance is , so the circuit favors the first transmitter.
The resistor voltage is in phase with the current; the inductor voltage leads it by and the capacitor voltage lags by . Large reactive voltages therefore nearly cancel in their phasor sum. A large inductor voltage is consistent with a small supply voltage: it is inductor voltage magnification, not power gain in a passive circuit.
Reducing the capacitance raises to , between the two transmitters. Direct evaluation gives and , respectively. Their similar detunings give approximately equal amplitudes; they are not exactly equal, partly because the numerator of also depends on frequency.
The two-tone output of a linear resonant circuit, for coherent monochromatic sources of equal input amplitude and arbitrary fixed input phases, is
With , this is approximately
Thus a rapid oscillation has a beat envelope repeating in magnitude at . The signed envelope cosine has frequency . Unequal amplitudes leave a small nonzero envelope minimum; independently drifting transmitter phases make the beating drift. No new frequency is generated by this ideal linear circuit.
Figure 1.
Original calculated inductor-voltage gains and illustrative two-tone output, including the circuit's frequency-dependent phase shifts
. Details.
Faraday's law relates induced electromotive force to the rate of change of magnetic flux linkage. For a coil with turns and a consistent right-hand orientation,
Flux can change through field variation or circuit motion. Lenz's law is the minus sign: the induced current's field opposes the flux change, consistent with energy conservation. It opposes the change rather than necessarily opposing the original field.
For a linear fixed-geometry inductor, and the self-induced electromotive force is . The passive terminal voltage drop is instead . The stored magnetic energy is
Inductance is measured in henries. Transformers use mutual inductance: changing one winding's current induces an electromotive force in another.
Use phasors. The relation gives . The three branches form a parallel RLC circuit and share the source voltage. The source-current phasor and its real time dependence are
Consequently its amplitude is and its phase relative to the voltage is . At low frequency it is inductive and lags toward ; at high frequency it is capacitive and leads toward . The ideal amplitude diverges at either extreme and has a finite minimum between them; real component losses and source electrical impedance limit those asymptotes.
Figure 1.
Original normalized source-current amplitude, phase and resistor-to-source-current ratio for an illustrative ideal parallel RLC circuit
. Details.
Zero phase requires cancellation of electrical susceptances:
The inductor and capacitor currents are nonzero, equal in magnitude and opposite in phase, while the resistor supplies the in-phase source current. energy oscillates between the reactive elements; dissipation occurs in the shunt resistor. A source-current maximum would describe a different, series-resonant circuit.
The specified ratio is
It exceeds when . Define and . The two positive endpoints are , so
The endpoints have geometric mean . Increasing the parallel resistance reduces dissipative loading and narrows this band, in contrast with increasing the resistance of a series RLC circuit. Equivalently, , with and . The parallel RLC bandwidth here belongs to the explicitly defined current ratio, not a half-maximum rule applied to a source-current peak that does not exist.
Use an RC low-pass filter: put the resistor in series with the input and the capacitor between the output node and the return conductor. Measure the output voltage across the capacitor, with negligible output loading. The voltage divider then has transfer function
At the high frequency, the attenuation requirement is
At the low frequency, approximately unchanged amplitude means , so
The upper relation is an asymptotic design condition, because “approximately” specifies no numerical tolerance. For example, retaining at least of the low-frequency amplitude would sharpen the upper bound to approximately .
A practical illustrative choice is . Its voltage gain is approximately at and at : the latter amplitude is reduced by a factor of about . Its cutoff frequency is .
Figure 1.
An original RC low-pass circuit and its amplitude response for a 22 microfarad capacitor
. Details.
Put . The initial conditions give
The printed electric current arrow points toward the positively labelled capacitor plate, so its signed electric current is , not the positive discharge magnitude. Hence
For the stated electrical resistance,
The voltage starts at with zero slope; the signed electric current starts at zero and initially becomes negative. Its initial slope is . Both oscillate with an envelope and a amplitude time constant. The phase difference is close to a quarter period, with the small damping correction displayed explicitly in .
Figure 1.
Signed capacitor voltage and printed-arrow current, with the exchange and dissipation of circuit energy over three periods
. Details.
The capacitor stores electrostatic energy, the inductor stores magnetic energy, and the resistor converts energy into heat. Their instantaneous values are
The sign convention for electric current does not change these expressions. With the initial voltage, and .
Here is magnetic field intensity, free electric current density, and electric displacement. In vacuum, and . Integrating the equation gives Ampère's circuital law with displacement current; in a steady state the displacement term vanishes.
Take upward and define . Neglect fringing and use the low-frequency thin-capacitor approximation. Then
Inside the gap, a circular Ampère loop encloses only displacement current:
Because , the Poynting vector is
It points inward while the electrical energy is increasing and outward while it decreases. The net power entering the curved side is
This is the leading quasistatic energy balance. The time-averaged field energies are
For the axisymmetric high-frequency capacitor field when is not small, induction and radial propagation prevent a spatially uniform . In an ideal axially uniform axisymmetric interior model, Faraday's and Ampère's equations give
The solution regular at the axis and normalized to the central voltage is approximately
At , the radial profile is : its first zero is at , and the edge has opposite phase, . This is an illustrative thin-disc interior profile; the exact driven high-frequency field also depends on the feed and edge/radiation boundary conditions. Continuing the uniform quasistatic field would be inconsistent.
Figure 1.
Original ideal axisymmetric capacitor field profiles, comparing the uniform quasistatic limit with the Bessel radial profile at angular frequency pi times c over a
. Details.
Take the two-dimensional electron gas in the plane, the Hall bar along , and with perpendicular to it. An electron has charge . The confining electron potential energy is approximately flat inside a wide strip and rises at either boundary; smooth quenched disorder adds hills and valleys. For a slowly varying edge, each spin-resolved Landau level approximately follows
Here , and is the guiding centre. For , and the edge group velocity is
Thus electrons move along at the upper edge and at the lower edge. The Lorentz force gives counterclockwise bulk cyclotron motion in this convention. At a hard boundary its interrupted circles become directed skipping orbits; a smooth boundary gives the corresponding guiding-centre drift. Smooth bulk quenched disorder generally gives closed drift contours around localized hills or valleys, with extended trajectories appearing near a broadened level's critical energy. Realistic electrostatic screening can produce alternating compressible quantum Hall edge strips and incompressible quantum Hall edge strips, so the unscreened bending curves are an effective sketch rather than an exact self-consistent edge profile.
In the original diagram, contacts are ordered around the electron propagation direction: upper-left , then lower-right . Let , and the other leads be ideal equilibrating voltage probes. Define and . These choices fix the voltage sign; reversing the field reverses chirality and the Hall polarity. For spin-resolved plateau index ,
At fixed sheet carrier density and increasing field, decreases, giving successively higher Hall plateaus; longitudinal peaks occur between them. Unresolved spin branches can suppress odd plateaus. The sketch uses resistance magnitudes, and every integer step is not promised in an arbitrary sample.
Figure 1.
Hall states and resistance
. Details.
For Fermi-energy oscillations in a two-dimensional electron gas, first distinguish fixed density from fixed reservoir chemical potential. At negligible temperature the former is determined by state counting. Each resolved Landau level contains states per unit area, so
Ignoring spin and broadening for the counting illustration, if then levels are full and level is partly full: . At fixed , increasing increases both level energy and degeneracy. The partly filled level rises in energy until the lower levels can contain all electrons; then drops to the next lower level. The resulting sawtooth is periodic in , with per resolved branch. At an exactly integer filling in an ideal gap, any chemical potential within the gap gives the same zero-temperature particle number; the plotted discontinuity denotes its limiting values.
At fixed while increases, the ideal chemical potential stays at a partly occupied level and steps upward after each additional density . It therefore has a staircase superposed on the rising zero-field trend, not a repeated downward sawtooth. Landau-level broadening and finite temperature smooth both ideal graphs. With an externally pinned chemical potential, density changes instead; the fixed-density sawtooth cannot simultaneously be imposed. In a realistic disordered sample, the Fermi energy sweeps localized states between transport-carrying level centres. The following schematic omits spin for clarity and does not attempt an interaction-corrected density of states.
For transmitted spin-resolved quantum Hall edge states, the Landauer-Büttiker formula reduces, in that contact order, to
Zero probe currents imply and . Hence and the boxed resistance results follow. The spin-resolved conductance quantum arises because the one-dimensional density of states times velocity is per unit energy; a reservoir imbalance supplies per channel. Its value does not depend on edge slope or sample width.
On a plateau, opposite-moving edge channels are separated by a wide bulk with a mobility gap. Ordinary elastic scattering on one edge has no counterpropagating channel into which to reflect; closed bulk orbits do not connect the contacts. Changing or can alter the occupancy of localized states without changing the number of transmitting edge channels. This accounts for the finite plateau width, which an entirely clean set of sharp levels would not explain. Accuracy requires negligible backscattering between opposite edges, low enough current to avoid breakdown, equilibrating contacts and negligible probe loading. The finite-width plateau and the precision of its quantized value are related but distinct observations.
An antidot is a depleted potential hill, not a potential well. Its closed edge circulates oppositely to the outer boundary. In a constriction, tunnelling through an antidot orbit can transfer an electron from a forward edge into the returning edge: resonant antidot backscattering produces conductance dips. For otherwise open spin-resolved channels and one active resonance,
At symmetric coupling a single resonance can remove ; asymmetry or thermal averaging reduces its depth. If the background constriction is closed and the resonant route instead supplies forward transmission, peaks occur. The lead connectivity must therefore accompany the conductance sketch. In the fixed-area single-particle limit, successive alignments change enclosed flux by , giving the Aharonov-Bohm antidot period
The effective orbit area, not merely the etched island area, enters. Charging, screening and spin can modify this simple sequence; two coupled spin branches can yield a near- pattern without changing the elementary flux quantum.[ref]
Figure 3.
Antidot resonant backscattering
. Details.
Exchange-split bands in a ferromagnet generally give a different spin-resolved density of states for each spin branch, and . If spin is approximately conserved across a multilayer, its two spin channels conduct in parallel. A spin valve combines a comparatively fixed reference-layer magnetization with a soft free layer that rotates in a small applied field. Its readout depends on the relative angle, not simply the absolute spin population. Biasing the layers near a perpendicular alignment gives a useful linear response instead of operating at the flat parallel/antiparallel extrema.
In giant magnetoresistance, a metallic spacer separates ferromagnetic layers. Spin-dependent bulk and interface scattering make their channel resistances unequal. The density of available final states influences scattering of more mobile states; however, a large total density of states does not by itself guarantee a large conductivity. The scattering-weighted spin-channel asymmetry also involves velocity and scattering matrix elements. In the elementary identical-layer two-current resistor model, let each magnetic layer have resistances in the two spin channels and neglect spacer resistance. Parallel moments give channels and , while antiparallel moments give in each channel. Therefore
One favorable spin channel traverses both aligned layers efficiently; reversal removes that common easy path. A conducting spacer adds resistance, and spin mixing weakens the separate-channel approximation. The channel asymmetry is material/interface dependent, so positive magnetoresistance is not a theorem for every pair of different ferromagnets.[ref]
In tunnelling magnetoresistance, the spacer is an ultrathin insulator and current flows across a magnetic tunnel junction. In the simple spin-conserving density-of-states tunnelling magnetoresistance model, assume spin-independent matrix elements and low voltage. Available initial and final states give
Writing and , these become and . Thus
The effective tunnelling polarization can depend on the barrier and orbital symmetry, not just a bulk density-of-states sketch. Crystalline MgO junctions exploit symmetry-selective transmission, so the elementary product model is not a quantitative universal formula for them.[ref]
Both devices convert a free-layer rotation into an electrical change. A useful approximate GMR interpolation is ; the elementary tunnelling model instead gives . The spin-valve small-field sensitivity is a chain rule,
magnetic anisotropy, biasing and pinning set the rotation susceptibility. Conducting-spacer GMR usually offers low resistance and supports current-in-plane or current-perpendicular geometries. TMR uses perpendicular tunnelling, often offers a larger fractional signal and a larger resistance-area product, but demands uniform, stable barriers and has bias dependence and breakdown limits. Neither is automatically the better small-field sensor: heating, Johnson and low-frequency noise, domain switching, hysteresis and stability set the detectable field. Reverse sweep direction, vary current and temperature, and independently test reference-layer pinning to distinguish a reproducible magnetic signal from drift or heating.
Figure 1.
Spin-dependent sensor response
. Details.
For the spin separation at a smooth quantum Hall edge, linearize the confinement energy at a crossing. Compensating a spin energy difference by a potential-energy change gives
Here is interpreted as the specified slope of electron potential energy. If it denotes electrostatic voltage per length instead, the denominator is . The two edges of a neck and the two sides of an antidot have oppositely directed slopes; the formula is a positive local separation on any one edge. For local filling two, only the spin pair is occupied at the neck minimum: . Raising both branches with the confinement produces two crossings on each side, as shown in the original neck sketch. This fixed-slope estimate precedes self-consistent electrostatic screening.
An antidot is a depleted potential hill. guiding centres circulate around its closed equipotentials, with chirality opposite to the outer sample edge. A phase-coherent round trip contributes magnetic phase , with . A localized orbit resonant with the incident energy can transfer an electron between extended channels. If the outgoing channel returns toward the injecting reservoir, the process is resonant reflection and reduces electrical conductance. If coupling instead connects an otherwise blocked incident channel to the far reservoir, it is resonant transmission and adds electrical conductance. Transmission peaks require that forward connectivity; a closed orbit by itself does not guarantee them. Interchannel scattering can change which orbit participates.[ref]
For the antidot resonance conductance bounds with one active spin-resolved resonance, write
Here are energy broadenings; the corresponding escape rates are . In a reflection-dominated configuration with two otherwise transmitted channels, : a background can dip to . In a transmission-dominated configuration with one spectator channel and the second otherwise blocked, : peaks rise from toward . These are the two ideal channel-count examples plotted below. More generally, or ; a different spectator count changes the integer offset. The constriction filling alone does not specify every tunnel coupling or resonance height. Equal couplings permit unit resonant transfer in the isolated-level model; asymmetry, temperature and dephasing reduce the contrast. Holding the effective orbit area approximately fixed gives for one branch, not a universal charging-corrected period.
Figure 1.
Original neck spectrum, alternative channel connectivities and illustrative antidot conductance dips and peaks
. Details.
In quantum-dot versus antidot resonance topology, a quantum dot is a potential well holding a finite electron island. Its closed guiding-centre circulation is reversed relative to an antidot at the same field. With two barriers in series, current follows source dot drain; off resonance there need not be a direct conducting path. A gate shifts a level or an addition electrochemical potential into alignment with the reservoirs and produces a electrical conductance peak. For an isolated coherent spin-resolved level, the zero-temperature peak is at most and reaches it only for equal couplings; unresolved noninteracting spin degeneracy doubles this bound. In weak sequential tunnelling, peak height depends on rates and temperature rather than being quantized. Charging produces Coulomb blockade peaks with spacing set by addition energy and gate lever arm. An antidot also supports discrete orbit/charging resonances, but can be side-coupled to already open channels and produce dips. Gate voltage changes both orbit area and confinement, whereas a magnetic sweep directly changes enclosed flux.
Figure 2.
Original series-dot paths and gate resonances compared with a side-coupled antidot
. Details.
Coulomb interactions require a self-consistent confinement potential. A gradual decrease in electron density cannot leave arbitrary uncompensated donor charge at no cost. Partly occupied Landau levels have a large charge response: electrostatic screening flattens their effective energy near the Fermi energy over compressible quantum Hall edge strips. Between them, integer-filled incompressible quantum Hall edge strips have a gap, weak density response and most of the potential variation. In an idealized cross-section the effective branch thus alternates between flat, partially occupied portions and rising portions crossing a gap; its carrier density varies oppositely. The bare levels still have Landau level and spin splittings locally, but the common electrostatic potential is no longer an imposed straight slope. exchange interaction can additionally renormalize spin gaps. Widths must follow electrostatics and the density gradient, so the unscreened separation is not a quantitative screened-strip width.[ref]
A modulation-doped GaAs-AlGaAs electron gas is confined on the GaAs side of the interface. The larger-gap AlGaAs supplies a conduction-band barrier; charge transfer from remote donors and the resulting electric field bend the bands into an approximately triangular well. transverse electronic mode wavefunctions are confined normal to the interface but free in its plane. electrons settle into the well until their electrochemical potential agrees with the donor/contact environment. An undoped spacer separates mobile electrons from ionized donors, reducing impurity scattering. Equilibrium has one Fermi level across the structure; the conduction-band edge is not flat. Surface depletion and the cap also affect the profile. The original drawing illustrates one occupied confinement transverse electronic mode; a single spatial electron gas need not in general imply only one occupied vertical transverse electronic mode.
molecular beam epitaxy can grow a clean GaAs buffer/channel, an undoped AlGaAs spacer, a Si-doped AlGaAs supply region and a protective GaAs cap on a suitable substrate. Control composition, interface quality and background impurities during growth; placing dopants directly in the channel defeats the principal mobility advantage. Define a mesa or isolation region, fabricate low-resistance ohmic contacts to the buried gas, and pattern fine metal split gates by electron beam lithography and the lift-off process. Negative gate bias depletes the underlying gas, leaving a narrow channel between the gates. Check contact resistance, leakage, carrier density and mobility; operation with ballistic electron transport requires channel length shorter than the relevant scattering lengths and smooth confinement on the wavelength scale. The lithographic gap does not equal the electrical width because of lateral depletion.
Figure 1.
Original qualitative conduction-band profile, epitaxial layer order and electrostatic split-gate channel
. Details.
For a long uniform channel supporting ballistic electron transport, transverse confinement creates thresholds with continuous longitudinal propagation above each threshold. One directed spin branch of a transverse electronic mode has states per length and group velocity . Hence : velocity cancels the one-dimensional density of states. Including two unresolved spin states,
For low temperature and small bias, a fully open transverse electronic mode has , giving
The assumptions are ideal reservoirs/contacts, negligible reflection and interactions that would invalidate the independent-subband description, and unresolved spin splitting. A resolved spin branch contributes . The finite two-terminal electrical resistance is a contact/mode-injection effect, despite the absence of dissipative scattering inside the ideal channel.
For voltage partition in a ballistic constriction, a short saddle has strong local electric-field and electrostatic screening variation near its entrances and barrier, rather than the uniform Ohmic voltage gradient of a diffusive wire. Right-moving incident states inherit the source distribution and left-moving states the drain distribution; there is no unique local equilibrium chemical potential inside an ideal ballistic saddle. The electrostatic potential must be determined self-consistently. In a symmetric rigid-barrier approximation, the barrier follows the mean lead potential and half the electrochemical bias lies on each side. This is a stated approximation, not a universal spatial voltage profile.
For a saddle , transverse electronic mode thresholds are . The smooth-barrier transmission is , approaching a step for a sharp threshold on the bias/thermal scale.[ref]
Let and assume no additional bias dependence of . At zero temperature,
When the source and drain sample and thresholds, the differential electrical conductance is . These half plateaus arise from the two ends of the bias window, not fractional carriers. The dc ratio need not share their plateau values. Heating, spin splitting and interaction-induced features must be distinguished experimentally.
In bias spectroscopy of one-dimensional subbands, plot differential electrical conductance or its gate derivative against gate bias and source-drain bias. Threshold branches occur where or . When one bias-window edge meets and the other ,
Thus the intersections of adjacent threshold branches calibrate the one-dimensional spacing directly in energy. A gate lever arm can then convert gate intervals to energy; it should be measured rather than guessed. Asymmetric bias partition, a moving barrier or a gate-dependent spacing modifies slopes and plateau weights, requiring the corresponding self-consistent bias model.
Figure 2.
Original rigid-saddle bias spectroscopy and differential half plateaus
. Details.
graphene is a two-dimensional honeycomb lattice with two sublattices. Nearest-neighbour hopping gives two bands . They touch at two inequivalent valleys. Expanding near valley gives
The two-component spinor describes sublattice amplitudes, not real spin. This is a massless two-dimensional Dirac Hamiltonian with material velocity in place of . The emergent band quasiparticles are relativistic in this mathematical sense; the electron's vacuum rest mass is not set to zero. Real spin and valley each contribute a degeneracy of two in the ideal low-energy model.
A single-walled carbon nanotube is a rolled graphene sheet with carbon nanotube chiral vector . Periodicity requires , selecting lines through graphene momentum space and producing one-dimensional transverse electronic modes. Near a valley,
A quantization line through one of the Dirac valleys in graphene gives a metallic branch; ideal nanotube zone folding gives the criterion . Otherwise the nearest line misses the valley and opens . The transverse momentum gives a carbon-nanotube Dirac mass, with . For a large-radius ideal semiconducting tube, and , showing the inverse-diameter gap. Curvature, strain, spin-orbit coupling and interactions can change the simple classification; nominally metallic non-armchair tubes can acquire small gaps. One-dimensional transverse electronic mode thresholds give Van Hove singularities, unlike graphene's low-energy density of states proportional to .
A gate changes occupation and the Fermi level in both systems. Ideal monolayer graphene can be tuned through charge neutrality from holes to electrons, but an ordinary scalar gate does not open a bulk band gap. Including spin and valley,
The gate relation includes geometric and quantum capacitances, so one should not equate gate voltage to Fermi energy without the capacitance model. A semiconducting carbon nanotube can instead be depleted when its Fermi level lies in a gap and turned on in electron or hole bands. Contact Schottky barriers can strongly influence the observed nanotube field effect. A truly gapless ideal metallic tube cannot be switched off simply by moving the Fermi level through its band crossing. These gate responses reflect band structure and contacts, not a change of wrapping indices.
Figure 1.
Original low-energy graphene cut and metallic or gapped nanotube subbands
. Details.
A trajectory-resolving ballistic experiment. Use a high-mobility modulation-doped GaAs-AlGaAs heterostructure with a two-dimensional electron gas. Grow the layers by molecular-beam epitaxy, separate the donor layer from the conducting interface with an undoped spacer, and pattern an isolated mesa with ohmic reservoir contacts. Electron-beam lithography defines metal split gates; negative gate voltage depletes the underlying electron gas, leaving narrow adjustable injector and collector quantum point contacts along an edge. Keep the relevant path shorter than the momentum-relaxation mean free path, cool to suppress phonon scattering and thermal smearing, and use a small excitation to avoid heating.
Inject a low-frequency current through one contact to a distant drain and measure the collector's open-circuit voltage with a high-input-impedance amplifier. Sweep perpendicular magnetic field and gate settings. The cyclotron radius is , with for a spin-degenerate single-valley gas. For contact separation , semicircular or skipping trajectories focus into the collector when
The appropriate field sign bends carriers toward the collector; the opposite sign suppresses the peaks. Density-dependent focusing positions, suppression with increased scattering and reproducible gate control distinguish directional ballistic propagation from an ordinary diffusive voltage. Quantum interference may add fine structure, but the basic focusing signal does not require phase coherence over every path. Split-gate injection and collection in a two-dimensional gas were directly demonstrated in the original focusing experiment.[ref]
Multi-probe current bookkeeping. For one directed spin-resolved mode, velocity times one-dimensional density of states gives a particle flux . A small reservoir electrochemical-energy shift therefore supplies excess flux . Let be the number of propagating modes at lead , their summed return probability, and the total transmission from reservoir into lead . Multiplying outgoing-minus-incoming electron flux by charge gives the source's convention,
The reservoirs equilibrate arriving carriers; an ideal voltage probe adjusts its chemical potential until its net current vanishes. Here is an energy, not a voltage. Choose the lead-voltage convention and positive conventional current injected into the junction. The working equation is then
Conservation of scattering probability and gauge invariance require both column and row balance: every outgoing channel is accounted for and equal voltages give zero current. The counts below include every occupied internal channel; an extra factor of two must not be inserted if spin is already counted. If one instead counts orbital channels with unresolved spin degeneracy, double all transmission counts consistently.
Zero-field routing. The original diagram labels lead 1 at the left, 2 above, 3 at the right and 4 below. With columns denoting injectors and rows collectors, straight-through ballistic routing and the stipulated excess-wide-channel rule give
There is no reflection in this ideal routing model. Set , , and . The two probe equations give
Thus
The derivation assumes . At , the ideal network splits into two disconnected opposite-lead pairs and cannot carry the imposed 1-to-4 current at finite voltage; the divergence diagnoses failure of that limiting transport configuration, not an infinite dissipative resistance of each channel. Negative bend resistance is a nonlocal voltage sign, compatible with positive total dissipated power.
Positive field. At , left-deflected incoming carriers go , , . Lead 4 supplies modes to narrow lead 1; the remaining enter wide lead 3. The balanced transmission matrix is
Therefore , and , giving
Negative field. Reversing the chirality gives , as expected from reciprocity for this spin-independent routing model. With , the zero-current conditions become and . Thus
This does not contradict reciprocity: the general relation interchanges the current and voltage lead pairs when reversing field; it does not require the same fixed-contact four-terminal resistance to be even in .
Figure 1.
Original transmission-matrix bookkeeping for the three ideal field limits; rows collect modes injected by columns
. Details.
Comparison with the measured trace. The PDF shows a negative region around zero field, approximately zero signal at sufficiently negative field, and a positive rising resistance near and above. These signs match the three routing limits. Near zero field the depth is roughly a few tenths of a kilohm; the graph does not supply , so there is no justified exact amplitude fit. Rounded corners, collimation and finite cyclotron radius continuously change which outgoing lead is reached between the ideal limits. Skipping trajectories and geometrical focusing can produce shoulders or resonances. At larger positive fields magnetic depopulation and spin resolution can change the mode counts, increasing the positive resistance or producing structure; disorder, incomplete equilibration and finite temperature round ideal features. These are candidate mechanisms, not uniquely established assignments of every small feature from one trace.
Integer Hall transport and filling. A clean two-dimensional electron gas at low temperature in a strong perpendicular magnetic field forms Landau levels with orbital spacing , where . Examples include semiconductor heterojunctions and inversion layers. On integer plateaus,
with integer plateau index . The density of states in one resolved Landau branch is per unit area, so the actual filling factor is
It varies continuously with density and field. Within a disorder-broadened plateau, localized states can change occupation without changing the integer number of transporting edge branches; the filling need not equal the plateau integer at every point in that interval.
At a boundary, the confining potential bends the Landau energies through the Fermi energy, giving chiral edge states, interpreted semiclassically as skipping orbits. Opposite edges carry opposite propagation directions. An ideal spin-resolved transmitted edge channel contributes ; such channels give . Chirality and suppressed backscattering between well-separated edges explain vanishing longitudinal voltage. Ideal reservoirs and appropriate probe equilibration are part of this edge-state transport model.
A gated antidot. A local repulsive gate potential depletes an island inside the Hall bar. Edge states circulate around its boundary as closed antidot orbits. When a localized orbit is weakly coupled to extended channels on opposite sides, resonance at the reservoir electrochemical potential permits backscattering and produces conductance dips on an otherwise quantized transmitting plateau. If the path instead adds a transmission route between otherwise disconnected channels, resonant peaks can occur: the sign depends on the device's tunnel connectivity and what conductance is measured. An isolated antidot too far from every conducting edge has negligible transport signature.
For the simplest opposite-edge backscattering picture with one active branch,
where branches would otherwise transmit. A gate moves the resonance through the Fermi energy by changing both confinement and orbit area. Stronger depletion of the constrictions also changes , producing broad conductance plateaus or pinch-off, with narrow resonances superposed where coupling is finite. Low temperature resolves individual resonances; thermal and tunnel broadening can merge them.
For a fixed-area single-electron orbit, a phase change of corresponds to
Sweeping gate voltage at fixed field shifts enclosed area and level energy, giving oscillatory resonance tracks. This period is not automatically set by the lithographic gate area. Charging energy, self-consistent screening and spin branches modify spacings; in particular coupled spin branches in a charging model can generate two resonances per cycle without changing the electron flux quantum.[ref]
Figure 1.
Original schematic antidot resonances on transmitting plateaus: varied coupling and gate-controlled channel opening; illustrative coordinates rather than experimental data
. Details.
No antidot dimensions, capacitances, lever arms or measured spectrum are supplied, so absolute periods and resonance voltages cannot be extracted. The sketch illustrates the mechanisms and regimes requested, rather than inventing a numerical device data set.
Improving the bare edge potential. A picture of noninteracting Landau levels simply intersecting a prescribed smooth confinement ignores the redistribution and screening of electron charge. A self-consistent electrostatic calculation combines gate and donor potentials, electron density and Coulomb interactions. Where a partially occupied Landau level has a large density response, electrons screen strongly and create a compressible strip with nearly pinned level energy. Regions with the chemical potential in a gap are incompressible and support much of the potential change. Consequently the screened edge alternates between compressible and incompressible strips, rather than preserving an arbitrary externally drawn slope. Finite temperature, disorder, exchange and edge reconstruction can require refinements beyond the simplest electrostatic model.[ref]
Fractional states and composite fermions. Very clean two-dimensional systems show plateaus at selected fractional fillings, with small longitudinal resistance and a many-electron excitation gap. Electron-electron correlations are essential; partial filling of a noninteracting Landau level is not enough. The simplest composite fermion binds two statistical flux quanta to each electron. This is a representation of correlated electron motion, not a physical solenoid attached to a particle. With , , and density , the mean effective field is
Define a signed effective filling . Then
For , filled composite-fermion levels produce . For reversed effective field write , giving ; the nontrivial fractional upper sequence starts with . If effective filling is defined as nonnegative using , retain these as separate field-direction branches instead of using the signed expression blindly. At the mean vanishes and the effective filling diverges, so it is not an integer composite-fermion Hall plateau in this simplest construction. Attaching two flux quanta preserves fermionic statistics; the emergent integer-like gaps organize a prominent sequence of fractional electronic states.[ref]
Transverse confinement in a short clean channel gives subband dispersions
A gate varies the subband thresholds and channel width. If elastic backscattering is negligible and spin is degenerate, the two-terminal linear conductance is
A fully open subband has , producing conductance steps in units . Magnetic spin splitting can resolve steps. A finite two-terminal resistance remains in a perfect ballistic channel because reservoirs supply and absorb a finite number of transport modes; it does not prove momentum-randomizing scattering inside the constriction.
At finite source-drain bias the two reservoir distributions differ over an energy window rather than at one Fermi energy. Choose and take positive current from source to drain. For spin-degenerate channels,
At zero temperature with a rigid transmission spectrum, . For symmetric bias and neglecting an explicit bias response of ,
If the two window edges lie above different numbers of subbands, the differential conductance can lie at half-integer values in units . For example, two open subbands at one edge and one at the other give . This is a bias-window effect, not fractional charge or a fractional Hall state.
Figure 1.
Original ideal one-dimensional subbands sampled by a symmetric bias window, with integer and half-integer differential-conductance plateaus
. Details.
Mapping transconductance versus gate voltage and source-drain bias reveals boundaries where a reservoir chemical potential crosses a subband bottom, enabling energy-spacing spectroscopy under a specified lever arm and bias division. Finite temperature rounds thresholds over ; reflection, disorder, series resistance and a saddle-shaped barrier reduce or smooth plateaus. Large bias can alter the electrostatic potential, heat carriers or produce inelastic scattering, so the rigid-transmission differential formula is not generally valid without its assumptions. One-dimensional interaction effects can add anomalies beyond this independent-channel model.
A heated cathode emits electrons into low-pressure atomic vapor, and a variable accelerating voltage gives them kinetic energy. A grid and small retarding region precede the collecting anode. Below the first excitation threshold most collisions are elastic; above it, electrons can transfer a definite excitation energy to atoms and may then fail to overcome the collector's retarding field. Collector current develops repeated minima as accelerating voltage increases, separated by roughly the same excitation voltage, approximately 4.9 V for mercury. Contact potentials and energy spreads shift or smear the minima without removing their characteristic spacing. A smooth loss mechanism would not produce these repeated fixed-energy thresholds.[ref]
Cells store usable free energy in chemical disequilibria: reduced carbon compounds, redox carriers such as NADH, ATP relative to ADP and inorganic phosphate, ion concentration gradients and membrane voltage. These reservoirs are maintained away from equilibrium; the useful quantity is the chemical or electrochemical potential difference, not simply a bond's isolated energy. Some ATP-consuming reactions can be driven because a coupled overall reaction decreases Gibbs free energy, even when the uncoupled synthesis would not.
Oxidation of nutrients transfers reducing equivalents to electron carriers and then to an electron-transport chain. Coupled proton pumping converts part of the redox free-energy drop into a protonmotive force. ATP synthase can convert that force into ATP chemical potential, and ATP hydrolysis drives biosynthesis, transport and mechanical motion. Substrate-level phosphorylation is another ATP source; photosynthetic cells can initially supply the disequilibrium with absorbed light. These are flows with unavoidable dissipation and heat release, not independent energy-creation processes. A reservoir is depleted unless metabolism replenishes it.
An electron-transport chain couples favorable redox transfers to pumping protons outward, producing the voltage and concentration terms of the protonmotive force. The membrane's low proton permeability prevents immediate equilibration. The membrane-embedded part of ATP synthase provides a controlled return pathway: protonation and deprotonation of rotor sites couple proton flow to rotation of the c-ring and central shaft. The soluble catalytic head has sites that change affinity and conformation as this shaft turns. ADP and phosphate bind, ATP forms, and the conformational cycle permits ATP release; the mechanical coupling is essential because ATP synthesis is thermodynamically uphill under cellular concentrations.
If protons traverse the machine per ATP, reversibly available work requires , with extra dissipation and transport costs in a real cell. Ring stoichiometry makes organism dependent, rather than a universal integer inferred from the membrane voltage alone. ATP synthase is reversible: sufficient ATP chemical potential can drive reverse rotation and proton pumping. Uncoupling agents dissipate the gradient without corresponding ATP production, illustrating that respiration alone does not guarantee phosphorylation.[ref]