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Experimental Determination of the Statistics of Photons Emitted by a Tunnel Junction

Eva Zakka-Bajjani, J. Dufouleur, N. Coulombel, P. Roche, D. C. Glattli, and F. Portier
Phys. Rev. Lett. 104, 206802 – Published 18 May 2010
Physics logo See Synopsis: Noisy conductors shed light

Abstract

We report on an Hanbury Brown–Twiss experiment probing the statistics of microwave photons emitted by a tunnel junction in the shot-noise regime at low temperature. By measuring the cross correlation of the fluctuations of the occupation numbers of the photon modes of both detection branches, we show that while the statistics of electrons is Poissonian, the photons obey chaotic statistics. This is observed even for low photon occupation number when the voltage across the junction is close to hν/e.

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  • Received 22 December 2009

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.104.206802

©2010 American Physical Society

Synopsis

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Noisy conductors shed light

Published 24 May 2010

A time-tested photon interferometry technique is used to study the statistics of photons emitted by current fluctuations in a quantum conductor.

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Authors & Affiliations

Eva Zakka-Bajjani, J. Dufouleur*, N. Coulombel, P. Roche, D. C. Glattli, and F. Portier

  • Service de Physique de l’Etat Condensé/IRAMIS/DSM (CNRS URA 2464), CEA Saclay, F-91191 Gif-sur-Yvette, France

  • *Present address: WSI TUMünchen Am Coulombwall 3, 85748 Garching, Germany.
  • Also at LPA ENS, 24 rue Lhommond 75005, Paris, France.
  • fabien.portier@cea.fr

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Issue

Vol. 104, Iss. 20 — 21 May 2010

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