Peter Samuelsson

Self‐assessment practices in large organisations

The performance of self‐assessment and the various tools for conducting self‐assessment have been frequently debated in the literature. This paper discusses the complete process of self‐assessment and how organisations use the EFQM excellence model in real‐life situations. The research, reflected in this paper, comprises experiences from nine large organisations. There is no universal method for self‐assessment. On the contrary, findings indicate that several approaches to self‐assessment are successful as long as they fit the organisation, are used continuously, and foster participation. Organisations sometimes overlook the need to establish structured ways of prioritising actions for improvement, creating possibilities for sharing experiences, collecting feedback, and developing work procedures. It is also crucial to understand that self‐assessment has no end in itself as a separate activity. We claim that self‐assessment must be considered from a holistic perspective in order to realise its full potential.

Two-particle Aharonov-Bohm effect and entanglement in the electronic Hanbury Brown-Twiss setup

We analyze a Hanbury Brown-Twiss geometry in which particles are injected from two independent sources into a mesoscopic conductor in the quantum Hall regime. All partial waves end in different reservoirs without generating any single-particle interference; in particular, there is no single-particle Aharonov-Bohm effect. However, exchange effects lead to two-particle Aharonov-Bohm oscillations in the zero-frequency current cross correlations. We demonstrate that this is related to two-particle orbital entanglement, detected via violation of a Bell inequality. The transport is along edge states and only adiabatic quantum point contacts and normal reservoirs are employed.

Orbital entanglement and violation of Bell inequalities in mesoscopic conductors

We propose a spin-independent scheme to generate and detect two-particle entanglement in a mesoscopic normal-superconductor system. A superconductor, weakly coupled to the normal conductor, generates an orbitally entangled state by injecting pairs of electrons into different leads of the normal conductor. The entanglement is detected via violation of a Bell inequality, formulated in terms of zero-frequency current cross correlators. It is shown that the Bell inequality can be violated for arbitrary strong dephasing in the normal conductor.

Counting statistics and decoherence in coupled quantum dots

We theoretically consider charge transport through two quantum dots coupled in series. The corresponding full counting statistics for noninteracting electrons is investigated in the limits of sequential and coherent tunneling by means of a master equation approach and a density matrix formalism, respectively. We clearly demonstrate the effect of quantum coherence on the zero-frequency cumulants of the transport process, focusing on noise and skewness. Moreover, we establish the continuous transition from the coherent to the incoherent tunneling limit in all cumulants of the transport process and compare this with decoherence described by a dephasing voltage probe model.

Quantized dynamics of a coherent capacitor.

A quantum coherent capacitor subject to large amplitude pulse cycles can be made to emit or reabsorb an electron in each half cycle. Quantized currents with pulse cycles in the GHz range have been demonstrated experimentally. We develop a nonlinear dynamical scattering theory for arbitrary pulses to describe the properties of this very fast single electron source. Using our theory we analyze the accuracy of the current quantization and investigate the noise of such a source. Our results are important for future scientific and possible metrological applications of this source.

Chaotic dot-superconductor analog of the Hanbury Brown Twiss effect

As an electrical analog of the optical Hanbury Brown-Twiss effect, we study current cross correlations in a chaotic quantum dot-superconductor junction. One superconducting and two normal reservoirs are connected via point contacts to a chaotic quantum dot. For a wide range of contact widths and transparencies, we find large positive current correlations. The positive correlations are generally enhanced by normal backscattering in the contacts. Moreover, for normal backscattering in the contacts, the positive correlations survive when suppressing the proximity effect in the dot with a weak magnetic field.

Supercurrent and multiple Andreev reflections in an InSb nanowire Josephson junction

Epitaxially grown, high quality semiconductor InSb nanowires are emerging material systems for the development of high performance nanoelectronics and quantum information processing and communication devices and for the studies of new physical phenomena in solid state systems. Here, we report on measurements of a superconductor-normal conductor-superconductor junction device fabricated from an InSb nanowire with aluminum-based superconducting contacts. The measurements show a proximity-induced supercurrent flowing through the InSb nanowire segment with a critical current tunable by a gate in the current bias configuration and multiple Andreev reflection characteristics in the voltage bias configuration. The temperature dependence and the magnetic field dependence of the critical current and the multiple Andreev reflection characteristics of the junction are also studied. Furthermore, we extract the excess current from the measurements and study its temperature and magnetic field dependences. The successful observation of the superconductivity in the InSb nanowire-based Josephson junction device indicates that InSb nanowires provide an excellent material system for creating and observing novel physical phenomena such as Majorana fermions in solid-state systems.

Quantum state tomography with quantum shot noise

We propose a scheme for a complete reconstruction of one- and two-particle orbital quantum states in mesoscopic conductors. The conductor in the transport state continuously emits orbital quantum states. The orbital states are manipulated by electronic beam splitters and detected by measurements of average currents and zero frequency current shot-noise correlators. We show how, by a suitable complete set of measurements, the elements of the density matrices of the one- and two-particle states can be directly expressed in terms of the currents and current correlators.

Shot noise of photon-excited electron-hole pairs in open quantum dots

We investigate shot noise of photon-excited electron-hole pairs in open multiterminal, multichannel chaotic dots. Coulomb interactions in the dot are treated self-consistently giving a gauge-invariant expression for the finite frequency correlations. The Coulomb interactions decrease the noise; the strong interaction limit coincides with the noninteracting adiabatic limit. Inelastic scattering and dephasing in the dot are described by voltage and dephasing probe models, respectively. We find that dephasing leaves the noise invariant, but inelastic scattering decreases correlations eventually down to zero.

Hybrid microwave-cavity heat engine.

We propose and analyze the use of hybrid microwave cavities as quantum heat engines. A possible realization consists of two macroscopically separated quantum-dot conductors coupled capacitively to the fundamental mode of a microwave cavity. We demonstrate that an electrical current can be induced in one conductor through cavity-mediated processes by heating up the other conductor. The heat engine can reach Carnot efficiency with optimal conversion of heat to work. When the system delivers the maximum power, the efficiency can be a large fraction of the Carnot efficiency. The heat engine functions even with moderate electronic relaxation and dephasing in the quantum dots. We provide detailed estimates for the electrical current and output power using realistic parameters.