Gigahertz Quantized Charge Pumping in Bottom-Gate-Defined In As Nanowire Quantum Dots

Semiconducting nanowires (NWs) are a versatile, highly tunable material platform at the heart of many new developments in nanoscale and quantum physics. Here, we demonstrate charge pumping, that is, the controlled transport of individual electrons through an In As NW quantum dot (QD) device at frequencies up to 1.3 GHz. The QD is induced electrostatically in the NW by a series of local bottom gates in a state of the art device geometry. A periodic modulation of a single gate is enough to obtain a dc current proportional to the frequency of the modulation. The dc bias, the modulation amplitude and the gate voltages on the local gates can be used to control the number of charges conveyed per cycle. Charge pumping in In As NWs is relevant not only in metrology as a current standard, but also opens up the opportunity to investigate a variety of exotic states of matter, for example, Majorana modes, by single electron spectroscopy and correlation experiments.