Dynamics of a single-atom electron pump

Abstract

Single-electron pumps based on isolated impurity atoms have recently been experimentally demonstrated. In these devices the Coulomb potential of an atom creates a localised electron state with a large charging energy and considerable orbital level spacings, enabling robust charge capturing processes. In contrast to the frequently used gate-defined quantum dot pumps, which experience a strongly time-dependent potential, the confinement potential in these single-atom pumps is hardly affected by the periodic driving of the system. Here we describe the behaviour and performance of an atomic, single parameter, electron pump. This is done by considering the loading, isolating and unloading of one electron at the time, on a phosphorous atom embedded in a silicon double gate transistor. The most important feature of the atom pump is its very isolated ground state, which is populated through the fast loading of much higher lying excited states and a subsequent fast relaxation process. This leads to a substantial increase in pumping accuracy, and is opposed to the adverse role of excited states observed for quantum dot pumps due to non-adiabatic excitations. The pumping performance is investigated as a function of dopant position, revealing a pumping behaviour robust against the expected variability in atomic position.