title: Experimental tunneling ratchets
abstract: Adiabatically rocked electron ratchets, defined by quantum confinement in semiconductor heterostructures, were experimentally studied in a regime where tunneling contributed to the particle flow. The rocking-induced electron flow reverses direction as a function of temperature. This result confirms a recent prediction of fundamentally different behavior of classical versus quantum ratchets. A wave-mechanical model reproduced the temperature-induced current reversal and provides an intuitive explanation.
authors.affiliation: School of Physics, University of New South Wales, Sydney 2052, Australia. Division of Solid State Physics, Lund University, Box 118, 221 00 Lund, Sweden.
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Linke
authors.initials: TE
authors.lastname: Humphrey
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Lofgren
authors.initials: AO
authors.lastname: Sushkov
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Newbury
authors.initials: RP
authors.lastname: Taylor
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Omling