Photon-assisted dynamical Coulomb blockade in a tunnel junction

Abstract

We report measurements of photon-assisted transport and noise in a tunnel junction in the regime of dynamical Coulomb blockade. We have measured both dc non-linear transport and low frequency noise in the presence of an ac excitation at frequencies up to 33 GHz. In both experiments, at very low temperatures, we observe replicas at finite voltage of the zero bias features, a phenomenon characteristic of photon emission/absorption. However, the ac voltage necessary to explain our data is notably different for transport and noise, indicating that usual theory of photon-assisted phenomena fails to account for our observations.

Driven strongly correlated quantum circuits and Hall edge states: Unified photoassisted noise and revisited minimal excitations

“…Time-dependent (TD) transport presents a powerful probe of quantum phenomena by introducing multiple parameters or functions under control: frequencies for emitted noise generated by constant forces, or TD forces generating current or noise at low or finite frequencies [1][2][3][4][5][6]. It has been analyzed in a mesoscopic context through seminal theoretical approaches, such as the Tien-Gordon theory [7][8][9][10] or the Landauer-Büttiker scattering approach, associated with the Floquet theory [11][12][13][14][15][16][17].…”

“…Thus, assuming furthermore that |p(t )| = 1 485 so that only functional dependence with respect to ϕ(t ) enters, 486 the excess PASN defined through Eq. ( 11) can be expanded 487 through the main quadratic correction due a small ac phase: 4 ). (20) This universal relation is coherent with the fact that only 489 one or zero photon exchange processes enter at a low ac 490 modulation.…”