Quantum Mirage

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Quantum Mirage ABSTRACT Since it first appeared on the cover of Nature in February 2000, the quantum mirage has featured on posters, calendars, websites and the covers of various books and magazines. The image which was obtained using a scanning tunnelling microscope shows the electronic wavefunctions inside an elliptical quantum corral made of cobalt atoms on a copper surface. It was created by Hari Manoharan, Christopher Lutz and Don Eigler of the IBM Almaden Research Center in California. In 1990, working with Erhard Schweizer, Eiger spelt out the letters IBM using 35 xenon atoms. And three years later, working with Lutz and Michael Crommie, he released the first images of the quantum corral, which have also been reproduced in numerous places. . The quantum mirage uses the wave nature of electrons to move the information, instead of a wire, so it has the potential to enable data transfer within future nano-scale electronic circuits so small that conventional wires do not work. It will be years before this technology becomes practical, but it could eventually yield computers that are many orders of magnitude smaller, faster, and less power-hungry than anything we can conceive today.
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1. Introduction The term quantum mirage refers to a phenomenon that may make it possible to transfer data without conventional electrical wiring. Instead of forcing charge carriers through solid conductors, a process impractical on a microscopic scale, electron wave phenomena are made to produce effective currents. All moving particles have a wavelike nature. This is rarely significant on an everyday scale. But in atomic dimensions, where distances are measured in nanometers, moving particles behave like waves. This phenomenon is what makes the electron microscope workable. It is of interest to researchers in nanotechnology, who are looking for ways to deliver electric currents through circuits too small for conventional wiring. A quantum mirage is a spot where electron waves are focused so they reinforce each other. The result is an energy hot zone, similar to the acoustical hot zones observed in concrete enclosures, or the electromagnetic wave focus of a dish antenna. In the case of electron waves, the enclosure is called a quantum corral. An elliptical corral produces mirages at the foci of the ellipse. A typical quantum corral measures approximately 20 nm long by 10 nm wide. By comparison, the range of visible wavelengths is approximately 390 nm (violet light) to 750 nm (red light). One nanometer is 10-9 meter, or a millionth of a millimeter. One of the biggest obstacles to the continued shrinkage of electronic elements within integrated circuits is the connection between them. As the size of these elements decreases, so must the size of the wires that carry electrons from one to another. But beyond a certain point, a wire's ability to conduct electrons is significantly hampered, preventing the message from
getting through. Therefore, if nanotechnology and atomic-scale computers are to become a reality, an alternative means of sending information between circuit elements must be developed. As computer circuit features shrink toward atomic dimensions -- which they have for decades in accordance with Moore's Law -- the behavior of electrons changes from being like particles described by classical physics to being like waves described by quantum mechanics. On such small scales, for example, tiny wires don't conduct electrons as well as classical theory predicts. So quantum analogs for many traditional functions must be available if nanocircuits are to achieve the desired performance advantages of their small size. One exciting possibility was recently announced by IBM. Led by Donald Eigler, a team of scientists at the company's Almaden Research Center in San Jose, California, demonstrated a remarkable phenomenon called a quantum mirage: a clearly defined "reflection" of an atom located at a different point in space. This phenomenon might enable data transfer in atom-scale integrated circuits without the use of conventional interconnects, suggested IBM. This is a fundamentally new way of guiding information through a solid. We call it a 'mirage' because we project information about one atom to another spot where there is no atom. IBM scientists created the quantum mirage technique using a low-temperature scanning tunneling microscope (STM). The operation of quantum mirage was described as being similar to light waves focused on a single spot by optical lenses and mirrors. To create the quantum mirage, the scientists first moved several dozen cobalt atoms on a copper surface into an ellipse-shaped ring. As Michael Crommie, Lutz and Eigler had shown in 1993, the ring atoms acted as a "quantum corral" -- reflecting the copper's surface electrons within the ring
into a wave pattern predicted by quantum mechanics. When a single cobalt atom (purple peak) is placed at one of the two focus points of the elliptical ring, some of its properties suddenly appear at the other focus (the purple spot in the lower left), where no atom exists. The size and shape of the ellipse determines where information moves within the ring. The IBM scientists said they have built and tested elliptical corrals up to 20 nanometers long with the width as little as half that. The electron density and intensity of the mirage depends on the quantum state, not the distance between the foci. The researchers reported the discovery of quantum mirage in the February 3, 2000 issue of Nature, an international scientific journal published in London. 2. Quantum mirage As solid-state devices shrink toward atomic dimensions, the behavior of electrons will change from being like particles to being like waves, IBM researchers said. The quantum mechanics of electrons at this scale will make it difficult to use tiny wiring as chip interconnects. IBM's new quantum mirage technique may prove to be just such a substitute for the wires connecting nanocircuit components. The quantum mirage was discovered by three physicists at IBM's Almaden Research Center: Hari C. Manoharan, Christopher P. Lutz and Eigler. The term quantum mirage refers to a phenomenon that may make it possible to transfer data without conventional electrical wiring. Instead of forcing charge carriers through solid conductors, a process impractical on a microscopic scale,
electron wave phenomena are made to produce effective currents. All moving particles have a wavelike nature. This is rarely significant on an everyday scale. But in atomic dimensions, where distances are measured in nanometers (nm), moving particles behave like waves. This phenomenon is what makes the electron microscope workable. It is of interest to researchers in nanotechnology, who are looking for ways to deliver electric currents through circuits too small for conventional wiring. A quantum mirage is a spot where electron waves are focused so they reinforce each other. The result is an energy hot zone, similar to the acoustical hot zones observed in concrete enclosures, or the electromagnetic wave focus of a dish antenna. In the case of electron waves, the enclosure is called a quantum corral. An elliptical corral produces mirages at the foci of the ellipse. A typical quantum corral measures approximately 20 nm long by 10 nm wide.  Eigler's team used a scanning tunneling microscope to assemble 36 cobalt atoms into an ellipse measuring a few nanometers (billionths of a meter) across. They constructed the ellipse on the surface of a single copper crystal that was cooled to 4 degrees Kelvin (that is, 4 degrees above absolute zero) within an ultrahigh vacuum. This elliptical structure, called a quantum corral, confines a portion of the two-dimensional "sea" of electrons that exists on the crystal's surface. The size and shape of the elliptical corral determine its "quantum states" -the energy and spatial distribution of the confined electrons. The IBM
scientists used a quantum state that concentrated large electron densities at each focus point of the elliptical corral. When the scientists placed an atom of magnetic cobalt at one focus, a mirage appeared at the other focus: the same electronic states in the surface electrons surrounding the cobalt atom were detected even though no magnetic atom was actually there. The intensity of the mirage is about one-third of the intensity around the cobalt atom. The operation of the quantum mirage is similar to how light or sound waves is focused to a single spot by optical lenses, mirrors, parabolic reflectors or "whisper spots" in buildings. For example, faint sounds generated at either of the two "whisper spots" in the Old House of Representatives Chamber (now called Statuary Hall) in the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, D.C., can be heard clearly far across the chamber at the other whisper spot. 3. The Kondo Effect Cobalt atoms exhibit a property called a magnetic moment. When a cobalt atom is deposited on a metallic, nonmagnetic surface (such as copper), the electron sea produces what is called the Kondo effect, after Japanese physicist Jun Kondo, who explained the phenomenon in 1964. Basically, the electrons near the atom align themselves to offset its magnetic moment, effectively canceling it out. The Kondo effect is highly localized and easily detected using spectroscopic techniques.
When the IBM scientists placed a single cobalt atom within the quantum corral, they saw the Kondo effect at the atom's location, as expected. But when they moved this atom to one of the ellipse's foci, something amazing happened: the Kondo effect also appeared at the other focus, even though no atom was there. The "phantom" atom is called a quantum mirage; information about the real atom is transmitted to the other focus of the ellipse via the wavelike medium of the electron sea without using any wires. Due to the wave nature of electrons, the physics of the quantum corral is analogous to the vibration of a guitar string or a drum head. Hari Manoharan, who is now at Stanford University, chose the colours for the image, which is actually constructed from two data sets. The first set contains topographic data and the second the magnetic information. Both data sets share the same xy co-ordinates, he says, so the challenge was to illustrate a 4D data set in a 3D surface. Manoharan represented the topographic data as height and the magnetic information (i.e. the Kondo effect) as colour, so the peaks in the image show where the atoms are
located, while the colours represent the magnetic data, with purple corresponding to the strongest Kondo effect and green to the weakest.
4. Theory 4.1. Quantum Corrals Quantum corrals are the beautiful result of a marriage between technology and basic science. They are two dimensional structures built atom by atom (using approximately 30-80 atoms) on atomically smooth metallic surfaces using a scanning tunneling microscope (STM). Once the corrals are built, the STM can be used to study these nanometer scale structures with atomic resolution in space and better than meV (micro electron Volt) resolution in energy. The data of the STM can be rendered in false color to produce breathtaking images that reveal standing wave patterns of coherent electrons inside the corrals. The history of quantum corrals begins with the pioneering work of Eigler and Schweizer (1990) who were the first to demonstrate that the STM could be used to controllably move atoms from place to place on the surface of a substrate. Not long afterwards, Crommie (1993) built the first quantum corrals from iron atoms on the Cu surface and imaged standing wave patterns inside them. In the early experiments it was thought that stadium shaped corrals could be used as a laboratory to study quantum chaos but the walls proved too leaky (and the states of the corrals too low in energy) for the electrons to bounce around the (unstable) periodic orbits long enough
to detect any scarring effects. A very intriguing recent STM corral experiment was done by Manoharan who combined the physics of quantum corrals with the Kondo effect to achieve a beautiful mirage inside the corral of the spatially localized spectroscopic response of a Kondo impurity where there was in fact no Kondo impurity. The mirage experiment achieves this by taking advantage of both the locally modified electron density in the corral and the scattering properties of a Kondo impurity. 4.2. The Importance of Surface States The beautiful standing wave patterns observed in STM corral experiments result from the presence of Shockley surface states on the metallic substrate. Surface states are the result of a particular crystallographic cut of the material, usually a noble metal, which places the Fermi energy in a band gap for electrons propagating normal to the surface. The surface states of Cu, Au and Ag are commonly used in STM experiments. Although the quantum corrals are two dimensional systems in many respects, there are some important ways in which the underlying bulk material makes its presence felt. This is especially true with the quantum mirage experiments where the bulk electrons play an important role in the formation of the Kondo resonance.
4.3. STM Theory: Topographic Images and Spectroscopic Measurement
The basic tunneling geometry and energy diagram is shown in Fig. 3. The STM tip usually sits a few A above the surface. The STM data can be taken in two ways: (i) A feedback loop can be used to control the height of the tip above the surface so that the total tunneling current is kept constant as the tip is scanned over the surface. This is called a topographic image and, at each point it is a measure of the energyintegrated local density of surface states. (ii) In the second type of measurement the feedback loop is opened so that the tip height is kept roughly constant with respect to the surface and the voltage is swept to measure the local spectroscopy at the tip position. Tunneling measurements of quantum corrals are typically done at small voltage biases, V < 0.3 Volts, and low temperatures, T < 70 K. 4.4. Scattering Theory For Surface State Electron Density A circularly symmetric electron amplitude emanating from the STM tip into the surface states of the substrate. This amplitude spreads radially outward from the tip until it encounters a defect (such as an impurity) on the surface or a step edge, at which time it scatters. Part of this amplitude is reflected back to the STM tip (possibly scattering several more times along the way from different impurities) and interferes with the outgoing amplitude leading to fluctuations in the LDOS (local density of states), and hence the tunneling current, as a function of position. Note that the fluctuations are a result of the coherent part of the back-scattered amplitude. There will be particles which (i) does not scatter at all from the potential, (ii) scatters once and leaves, (iii) scatters once, propagates, scatters again and then
leaves, (iv...) and so on to infinite order.
FIG. 3. Geometry of the scanning tunneling microscope measurement and energy diagram.
4.5.The Mirage Experiment A recent and interesting variation of the original quantum corral experiments were the quantum mirage experiments of Manoharan. The quantum mirage experiments make use of the low temperature physics associated with a magnetic ion (e.g., Fe, Co, Mn) in electrical contact with a bulk metal (e.g., Cu, Au, Ag): the so called Kondo Effect. In the quantum mirage experiments, Manoharan built an elliptical corral with magnetic atoms (Co) which
exhibit a Kondo effect at 4 K on Cu. The results of a detailed analysis relevant to the quantum mirage can be stated quite simply: (i) The spin of the conduction electrons tend to become anti-correlated (oppositely aligned) with the spin of the magnetic impurity so that at low temperatures (when the Kondo effect is present) the local spin of the magnetic ion is fully or at least partially screened. An important special case is when the spin of the ion is 1/2. Then, the Kondo effect completely screens it at sufficiently large distances. (ii) The impurity density of states (the density of states of the atomic d- or f-levels that give rise to the magnetic moment) develops a narrow resonance near the Fermi energy that is often termed the Kondo Resonance. This resonance is picked up in the STM measurement and is the main spectroscopic signature of Kondo atoms. The narrow Kondo resonance (whose width is related to the Kondo energy scale appears near a Kondo atom. It had been observed near (within 10 A) isolated atoms earlier, but Manoharan used the modification of the surface state electron density in an elliptical quantum corrals to produce a spectroscopic mirage inside the corral of a Kondo atom where there was in fact no Kondo atom (the source of the mirage was a Co atom inside the corral more than 70 A away). While there are now several theories addressing the physics of the mirage, the least addressed question is that of the relative role of surface and bulk states in the formation of the Kondo effect at a single impurity. Many theories tend to neglect the bulk states and treat the quantum corral as a confined 2-d system. It is believed that theory should now move beyond this and include the role of both surface states and bulk states in Kondo resonance.
5. Many-body theory In recent scanning tunneling microscopy experiments, confinement in an elliptical corral has been used to project the Kondo effect from one focus to the other one. The first theories proposed to explain the experiment either neglect the many-body effects or introduce the Kondo resonance in a phenomenological way. Ordinary Lanczos Diagonalisations are unable to explain the observed line shape. We solve the Anderson model either by perturbation theory, or using Lanczos with an embedding method, for an impurity hybridized with eigenstates of an elliptical corral, each of which has a resonant level width . This width is crucial. If < 20 meV, the Kondo peak disappears, while if > 80 meV, the mirage disappears. For particular conditions, a stronger mirage with the impurity out of the foci is predicted. We also discuss what happens if two impurities are included in the corral. The dependence of on energyis studied using a simple model for a circular corral. 6. Applications The potential applications of this phenomenon are many and varied; for example, the presence or absence of a quantum mirage might be used to represent one bit of data in a region far smaller than any current electronic device can manage. It will be years before this technology becomes practical, but it could eventually yield computers (and the musical tools they provide) that are many orders of magnitude smaller, faster, and less powerhungry than anything we can conceive today. The quantum mirage uses the wave nature of electrons to move the information, instead of a wire, hence it has the potential to enable data transfer within future nano-scale electronic circuits so small that
conventional wires do not work. Many barriers must be overcome to make this scientific discovery useful in this way. But if it can be developed, the quantum mirage could enable the miniaturization of electronic circuits far beyond that envisioned today. The quantum mirage technique permits us to do some very interesting scientific experiments such as remotely probing atoms and molecules, studying the origins of magnetism at the atomic level and ultimately manipulating individual electron or nuclear spins. The presence or absence of a quantum mirage might be used to represent one bit of data in a region far smaller than any current electronic device can manage. It will be years before this technology becomes practical, but it could eventually yield computers (and the musical tools they provide) that are many orders of magnitude smaller, faster, and less powerhungry than anything we can conceive today. 7. Related Works and Developments Recently there have been several important developments in the study of quantum corrals, especially related to the mirage experiments and studies of the lifetimes of quasi-particles in the surface states. While the scattering theory explains nearly all of the observed features of quantum corrals, including the mirage experiments, it is phenomenological and based on a singleparticle model. A full understanding of the surface state response to magnetic impurities requires more detailed studies: Experimentally with spin resolved STM and theoretically with first principle and many-body calculations. It is necessary to go beyond the single-particle theory, for
example, to accurately calculate quantities such as spin-spin correlation functions of impurities in quantum corrals, details of the Kondo effect itself or how surface state lifetimes can be modified by quantum corrals. Some of these studies have already been undertaken and we briefly describe them below. 7.1. Experimental Since the mirage experiments, there have been few experimental studies specific to corrals reported; however, Kliewer have studied the effect of the modification of surface state electron density by corrals and Braun and Rieder (2002) have used quantum corrals and related structures to obtain information about the many-body lifetime effects in the surface states. Most STM studies have focused on the Kondo effect from the impurities themselves 7.2. Theoretical On the theoretical side, much more work has focused on the quantum mirage in corrals rather than on the single impurities. Agam and Schiller (2001); (2001) and Weissmann and Bonadeo (2001) have also developed theories for the quantum mirage based on a single-particle picture. More recently and Aligia (2001) has developed a many-body theory of the quantum mirage. Chiappe and Aligia (2002)have undertaken studies of the interaction between two magnetic impurities in a quantum corral. A model of interactions between two impurities in states confined to the surface of a sphere was studied by Hallberg (2002). A recent renormalization group study carried out by Cornaglia and Balseiro (2002) for Kondo impurities in nanoscale systems also makes contact with the mirage experiments. A recent
work by Morr and Stavropoulos (2003) looks at the quantum mirage from non-Kondo impurities in a quantum corral built on a superconductor. While there are now several theories addressing the physics of the mirage, we feel the least addressed question is that of the relative role of surface and bulk states in the formation of the Kondo effect at a single impurity. Many theories tend to neglect the bulk states and treat the quantum corral as a confined 2-d system. We believe theory should now move beyond this and include the role of both surface states and bulk states in Kondo resonance. It remains clear, however, that the mirage effect is dominated by a Kondo effect that involves the surface state electrons because the phase shift demands it. 8. Conclusion Significant improvements in quantum mirage are still needed before this method becomes useful in actual circuits. Making each ellipse with the STM is currently impractically slow. They would have to be easily and rapidly produced, connections to other components would also have to be devised and a rapid and power-efficient way to modulate the available quantum states would need to be developed. Many barriers must be overcome to make this scientific discovery useful in the above mentioned ways. But if it can be developed, the quantum mirage could enable the miniaturization of electronic circuits and could eventually yield computers that are many orders of magnitude smaller, faster, and less power-hungry than anything we can conceive today. References:
[1]. IBM reports quantum mirage effect in atom-scale ICs Semiconductor Business News http://www.eetimesnetwork.com {3} www.edufive.com/seminartopics.html [2]. Quantum 'mirage' may really boost nanocircuits IBM Research Almaden News [3]. IBM Scientists Discover Nanotech Communication Method http://www.ibm.com/ [4]. Physics News 471, February 17, 2000 http://newton.ex.ac.uk/aip/February.2000.html [5]. Theory of Quantum Corrals and Quantum Mirages Gregory A. Fiete, Department of Physics, Harvard University, Cambridge. Eric J. Heller Department of Physics and Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge.

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4.3. STM Theory: Topographic Images and Spectroscopic Measurement

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leaves, (iv...) and so on to infinite order.

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