We report measurements consistent with the valley Kondo effect in Si/SiGe quantum dots, evidenced by peaks in the conductance versus source-drain voltage that show strong temperature dependence. The Kondo peaks show unusual behavior in a magnetic field that we interpret as arising from the valley degree of freedom. The interplay of valley and Zeeman splittings is suggested by the presence of side peaks, revealing a zero-field valley splitting between 0.28 to 0.34 meV. A zero-bias conductance peak for non-zero magnetic field, a phenomenon consistent with valley nonconservation in tunneling, is observed in two samples.
1The valley degree of freedom of conduction band electrons is one of several intriguing properties distinguishing silicon from III-V materials. The six-fold valley degeneracy in bulk Si is reduced to two-fold in Si/SiGe heterostructures due to the confinement of electrons in a two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG). The resulting valley splitting ∆ in strained Si quantum dots (QD) and quantum point contacts is typically of order 0.2 meV. 1,2 A particularly interesting manifestation of valley physics would be the valley Kondo effect. The spin 1/2 Kondo effect comprehensively studied in GaAs quantum dots 3-9 is usually observed when there is an odd number of electrons in the QD, in which the spin of an unpaired electron is screened by spins in the leads to form a singlet, resulting in a conductance resonance at zero dc bias. When a magnetic field B is applied, the QD spin states are split by the Zeeman energy E z = gµ B B, g being the Landé factor and µ B the Bohr magneton. The spin-Kondo resonance then splits into two peaks at eV SD = ±E z , where V SD is the applied source-drain voltage. 3,10 On the other hand, Kondo effects in Si/SiGe QDs have only rarely been reported, 11 and there have been recent studies of dopants in a Si fin-type field effect transistor. 12 This is perhaps not surprising, since for the valley Kondo effect to occur, the energy associated with the Kondo temperature T K must be larger than the valley splitting ∆, i.e. k B T K > ∆ where k B is the Boltzmann constant, a rather stringent condition. Nonetheless, how the valley degeneracy in Si affects the Kondo effect in Si/SiGe QDs has been investigated theoretically 13,14 and found to share some resemblance with carbon nanotubes. 15 The addition of the valley degree of freedom allows for a new set of phenomena to emerge, since both spin and valley indices can be screened. Measurement of the valley Kondo effect could therefore help probe the nature of valley physics in Si/SiGe QDs, a topic of great importance considering their potential application in quantum computation. 16 In particular, the question of how the valley index of an electron changes 17 as it tunnels on and off a QD can be illuminated.Here we report measurement of unconventional Kondo effects in two different Si/SiGe QD samples, one in perpendicular magnetic field B ⊥ and both in in-plane magnetic field B . In both samples we observe conductance enhancement in tw...