title: Mesoscopic rectifiers based on ballistic transport.
abstract: Recent experiments on symmetry-broken mesoscopic semiconductor structures have exhibited an amazing rectifying effect in the transverse current-voltage characteristics with promising prospects for future applications. We present a simple microscopic model, which takes into account the energy dependence of current-carrying modes and explains the rectifying effect by an interplay of fully quantized and quasiclassical transport channels in the system. It also suggests the design of a ballistic rectifier with an optimized rectifying signal and predicts voltage oscillations which may provide an experimental test for the mechanism considered here.
authors.affiliation: Max-Planck-Institut für Strömungsforschung und Fakultät Physik der Universität Göttingen, Bunsenstrasse 10, D-37073 Göttingen, Germany. ragnar@chaos.gwdg.de
authors.forename: Ragnar
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Fleischmann
authors.forename: Theo
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Geisel