Quantum wires in one dimension: disorder, electronic transport and dissipation

Abstract

[EN]The dreamt idea of being able to make and control systems at the atomic scale has fascinated scientists since the middle of the past century. Nowadays, the wish of being able to create a miniaturization of electronic devices composed of novel techniques, to alter the microscopic nature of matter, has made possible the manufacture of semiconductor devices, to get to choose what the properties of it are. This technology is now a part of our Everyday Life, appearing in different systems ranging from semiconductor lasers to memory chips and microprocessors of computers, cellular phones and other digital appliances. Semiconductor heterostructures can be designed to change the dimensionality of the confinement of the carriers [95] (two-dimensional electron gas, quantum wires (1-D), quantum dots (0-D)) and this quality has been used to observe different phys- ical phenomena such as the Quantum Hall Effect or the electronic localization in disordered potentials.