Semiconductor Analog of the Large Persistent Currents Observed in Small Gold Rings

The remarkably large persistent currents that are observed in disordered micron-scale gold rings at low temperatures have recently been explained in a theory of non-interacting electrons scattered by crystal grain boundaries. The present article examines the possibility that the basic physics underlying this explanation may also have observable consequences in a different system, a ballistic two-dimensional semiconductor ring with a potential barrier. It is predicted, using computer simulations, that such semiconductor rings can exhibit large persistent currents ~ evF/L (L is the ring circumference), despite the electron transmission probability through the barrier being small, in the regime of quantum-mechanical tunneling of electrons through the barrier. This, like the phenomenon observed in gold rings, is a manifestation of the fundamental dissimilarity of non-equilibrium transport phenomena and equilibrium persistent currents.

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