Spectroscopy of Equilibrium and Non-Equilibrium Charge Transfer in Semiconductor Quantum Structures

Abstract: We investigate equilibrium and non-equilibrium charge-transfer processes by performing high-resolution transport spectroscopy. Using electrostatically defined quantum dots for energy-selective emission and detection, we achieved unprecedented spectral resolution and a high degree of tunability of relevant experimental parameters. Most importantly, we observe that the spectral width of elastically transferred electrons can be substantially smaller than the linewidth of a thermally broadened Coulomb peak. This finding indicates that the charge-transfer process is fast compared to the electron--phonon interaction time. By drawing an analogy to double quantum dots, we argue that the spectral width of the elastic resonance is determined by the lifetime broadening $h\it{\Gamma}$ of the emitter and detector states. Good agreement with the model is found also in an experiment in which the charge transfer is in the regime $h\it{\Gamma}\gg k_{\rm{B}}T$. By performing spectroscopy below the Fermi energy, we furthermore observe elastic and inelastic transfer of holes.