Experimental Test of the Dynamical Coulomb Blockade Theory for Short Coherent Conductors

C. Altimiras, U. Gennser, A. Cavanna, D. Mailly, F. Pierre

Published 2007-11-09Version 1

We observed the recently predicted quantum suppression of dynamical Coulomb blockade on short coherent conductors by measuring the conductance of a quantum point contact embedded in a tunable on-chip circuit. Taking advantage of the circuit modularity we measured most parameters used by the theory. This allowed us to perform a reliable and quantitative experimental test of the theory. Dynamical Coulomb blockade corrections, probed up to the second conductance plateau of the quantum point contact, are found to be accurately normalized by the same Fano factor as quantum shot noise, in excellent agreement with the theoretical predictions.