We report on the observation of the giant photoconductance of a quantum point contact (QPC) in tunneling regime excited by terahertz radiation. Studied QPCs are formed in a GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructure with a high-electron-mobility two-dimensional electron gas. We demonstrate that irradiation of strongly negatively biased QPCs by laser radiation with frequency f = 0.69 THz and intensity 50 mW/cm 2 results in two orders of magnitude enhancement of the QPC conductance. The effect has a superlinear intensity dependence and increases with the dark conductivity decrease. It is also characterized by strong polarization and frequency dependencies. We demonstrate that all experimental findings can be well explained by the photon-mediated tunneling through the QPC. Corresponding calculations are in a good agreement with the experiment.

We discuss quantization of the conductance in short, ultraclean one-dimensional quantum wires of a design where an electron gas is induced electrostatically. Two-level sets of gates allow independent control of electron density in the constriction and in the reservoirs, thus varying the conductance G as a function of the bias on the gates G(Vtg,Vsg). Up to 12 clean well-resolved conductance G(Vsg) plateaus confirm the high quality of the constriction. The experimental curves are modeled using three-dimensional self-consistent calculations in the Thomas–Fermi approximation of the electrostatic potential of the constriction and solution of the two-dimensional problem of electron transport in the calculated potential. Our calculations are in qualitative agreement with the experiment.

Quantum corrections to the conductivity and Hall coefficient of a 2D electron gas in a dirty AlGaAs/GaAs/AlGaAs quantum well: transition from diffusive to ballistic regime. We report an experimental study of the quantum corrections to the longitudinal conductivity and the Hall coefficient of a low mobility, high density two-dimensional two-dimensional electron gas in a AlGaAs/GaAs/AlGaAs quantum well in a wide temperature range (1.5 K -110 K). This temperature range covers both the diffusive and the ballistic interaction regimes for our samples. It was therefore possible to study the crossover region for the longitudinal conductivity and the Hall effect.