Quantum ballistic transport in strained epitaxial germanium.

Large scale fabrication using Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor compatible technology of semiconductor nanostructures that operate on the principles of quantum transport is an exciting possibility now due to the recent development of ultra-high mobility hole gases in epitaxial germanium grown on standard silicon substrates. We present here a ballistic transport study of patterned surface gates on strained Ge quantum wells with SiGe barriers, which confirms the quantum characteristics of the Ge heavy hole valence band structure in 1-dimension. Quantised conductance at multiples of 2e²/h is a universal feature of hole transport in Ge up to 10 × (2e²/h). The behaviour of ballistic plateaus with finite source-drain bias and applied magnetic field is elucidated. In addition, a reordering of the ground state is observed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]