Effect of scattering on zero-bias anomaly and conductance reduction in quasi-one-dimensional quantum wires

Abstract

We present a systematic study on the zero-bias conductance peak and its dependences on the carrier density and structural geometry in quasi-one-dimensional quantum wires (QWs). This zero-bias anomaly (ZBA) is suppressed by either decreasing the carrier density or increasing the QW length. The differential conductance at zero bias decreases with increasing temperature in accordance with a thermal-activation model up to a well-defined cut-off temperature. We demonstrate that the activation energy, cut-off temperature, and width of the ZBA are correlated, and suggest that these features are controlled by electron scattering in QWs.