Scanning Gate Microscopy of a Nanostructure where Electrons Interact

Axel Freyn, Ioannis Kleftogiannis, Jean-Louis Pichard

Published 2008-01-25, updated 2008-10-07Version 2

We show that scanning gate microscopy can be used for probing electron-electron interactions inside a nanostructure. We assume a simple model made of two non-interacting strips attached to an interacting nanosystem. In one of the strips, the electrostatic potential can be locally varied by a charged tip. This change induces corrections upon the nanosystem Hartree-Fock self-energies which enhance the fringes spaced by half the Fermi wavelength in the images giving the quantum conductance as a function of the tip position.