Coulomb oscillations of the conductance in a laterally confined heterostructure

The authors predict a new type of conductance oscillations in a GaAs heterostructure with a proposed strip-like gate with a hole. Such a gate defines a conducting dot (under the hole) in an otherwise depleted region of a two-dimensional electron gas. The oscillations are caused by discrete changes of the charge of the dot as the gate voltage is varied. They show that for low temperatures, T<or=e 2 /2C, the conductance as a function of gate voltage consists of a series of peaks with a period Delta V G approximately e/C (here C is the capacitance of a dot). A distinct feature of the predicted oscillations (in comparison with the quantum ballistic interference phenomena) is the weak dependence on magnetic field and carrier scattering.