Condensed Matter Physics Seminar

Thursday, February 3, 2000, 2 p.m.
Plant Sciences Building, Room 1130

Quantum Mirages

Hari Manoharan

(IBM Almaden Research Center)

Abstract:  While the correlated electron physics underlying the diverse manifestations of magnetism and spin have long been studied via macroscopic behavior, only recently have novel local probes opened the door to a new class of studies on the nanometer length scale.  On top of these technological advances, the advent of controlled atomic and molecular manipulation provides a unique opportunity not only to detect spin phenomena at atomic length scales, but to manipulate spins as well.  This talk will detail new results that exploit these techniques using low-temperature scanning tunneling microscopy.  We have directly imaged the electronic perturbation arising from the spin-compensation cloud formed around isolated magnetic moments on a metal surface.  Utilizing the detection of this many-body state--known as the Kondo resonance--in a type of teleportation experiment, we demonstrate that the spectroscopic signature of an atom may be sampled and projected to a remote location by means of a surrounding two-dimensional electron gas confined in an engineered nanostructure.  The "quantum mirage" thus cast by a single magnetic atom can be coherently refocused at a distinct point where it is detected as a phantom atom around which the electronic structure mimics that at the real atom.  Once materialized, this phantom can interact with real matter in intriguing ways.

Host: Ellen Williams

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