Semiconductor billiards

    This work describes a ground breaking experiment, involving high sample quality and tunable geometry and very low temperatures where quantum effects are important. Electrons are confined to a two dimensional semiconductor interface and further restricted using electric fields. An integrable square cavity is modified by a tunable circular obstacle at the centre, leading to a chaotic Sinai billiard geometry. The system is open as there are two leads for measuring the conductance (inverse resistance) as a function of applied magnetic field. Fractal conductance fluctuations are selfsimilar structures in the conductance plotted as a function of field, and were only observed in the chaotic geometry. Experimentally relevant work on photon rather than electron billiards is that of Microresonators.

  1. Self-similar magnetoresistance of a semiconductor Sinai billiard, R. P. Taylor, R. Newbury, A. S. Sachrajda, Y. Feng, P. T. Coleridge, C. P. Dettmann, N. Zhu, H. Guo, A. Delage, P. J. Kelly and Z. Wasilewski, Phys. Rev. Lett., 78, 1952-1955 (1997) pdf ps[Physical experiment demonstrating tunable chaos and self-similar magnetoresistance fluctuations]
  2. Fractal behavior in the magnetoresistance of chaotic billiards, R. Newbury, R. P. Taylor, A. S. Sachrajda, Y. Feng, P. T. Coleridge, C. P. Dettmann and T. M. Fromhold, Jpn. J. Appl. Phys. 36,3991-3995 (1997)
  3. Fractal transistors, R. P. Taylor, A. P. Micolich, R. Newbury, C. P. Dettmann and T. M. Fromhold, Semicond. Sci. Tech. 12,1459-1464 (1997)
  4. Geometry-induced fractal behavior in a semiconductor billiard, A. P. Micolich, R. P. Taylor, R. Newbury, J. P. Bird, R. Wirtz, C. P. Dettmann, Y. Aoyagi and T. Sugano, J. Phys.: Cond. Mat. 10,1339-1347 (1998)
  5. Experimental and theoretical investigations of clusters in the magneto-fingerprints of Sinai billiards, R. P. Taylor, A. P. Micolich, R. Newbury, T. M. Fromhold, C. P. Dettmann and C. R. Tench, Mat. Sci. Eng. B 51, 212-215 (1998)
  6. Experimental and theoretical investigations of electron dynamics in a semiconductor Sinai billiard, A. P. Micolich, R. P. Taylor, R. Newbury, C. P. Dettmann and T. M. Fromhold, Aust. J. Phys. 51, 547-555 (1998)
  7. Transmission and reflection in the stadium billiard: Time-dependent asymmetric transport, C. P. Dettmann and O. Georgiou, Phys. Rev. E 83 036212 (2011). [Selected to appear in the PRE "Kaleidoscope"] pdf arxiv poster
  8. Quantifying intermittency in the open drivebelt billiard, C. P. Dettmann and O. Georgiou, Chaos 22 026113 (2012). pdf arxiv

These publications are copyright. For allowed usage, please check the publisher's website by clicking on the journal name.

Return to Publications page; Home page.