![\"Sensing](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/sensing-single-ballist.jpg\" "\\"Time-resolved")
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Time-resolved sensing of ballistic single electrons. The transmission of a ‘sensing’ electron (blue arrows) through a barrier (green) in the lower channel is perturbed by Coulomb interaction with a ‘detected’ electron in the upper channel (red arrow). Credit: Physical Review Letters (2025). DOI: 10.1103\/f1gd-3p5m<\/p>\n
Researchers at NPL have reported a novel high-speed charge sensing method for ballistic electrons, a potentially useful technique in the fields of electron quantum optics, quantum electrical metrology, flying qubit technology, and signal sensing.<\/p>\n
The study, published<\/a> in Physical Review Letters, reveals that the presence of a single ballistic electron can be revealed by tracking the path of another fast-moving “sensing” electron. By steering the paths of these electrons close to each other, the tiny repulsion between them can redirect the sensing electron, like a train switching tracks or cars diverting off a freeway.<\/p>\n When charge sensors are used in quantum devices, they are measured continuously, with each sample long enough to resolve a signal from the noise. The NPL sensing system leverages synchronization between the detector and sensing electrons to achieve extreme time selectivity, only sampling within a minuscule time window and detecting interactions that occur in just 1\u20132 picoseconds.<\/p>\n To put this in some context, there are various quantum technology platforms in various stages of development, competing to determine which is the most practical for applications. NPL’s work highlights a key feature of the platform based on ballistic electrons in semiconductors.<\/p>\n These systems, which somewhat mimic quantum optical systems<\/a>, have intrinsically fast time scales of operation. Sensing schemes are one ingredient to build complex single-electron circuits and unlock new quantum technologies.<\/p>\n Jonathan Fletcher, Senior Scientist, said, “All conductors feature ballistic single electron physics at the atomic scale on very short time scales, but it’s unusual to be able to detect this at the single electron level, let alone have direct control<\/a>. This control and detection is exactly what our system gives you.<\/p>\n “It’s exciting for me because control of electricity at nanometer and picosecond scales is a fundamental tool for metrology and also a pathway to other quantum-enabled capabilities.”<\/p>\n More information: \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tProvided by \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCitation: \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJ. D. Fletcher et al, Coulomb Sensing of Single Ballistic Electrons, Physical Review Letters (2025). DOI: 10.1103\/f1gd-3p5m<\/a>. On arXiv: DOI: 10.48550\/arxiv.2412.15789<\/a><\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tNational Physical Laboratory<\/a>
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSensing single ballistic electrons: High-speed method tracks fleeting quantum events (2025, August 18)
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tretrieved 19 August 2025
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tfrom https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2025-08-ballistic-electrons-high-method-tracks.html\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Time-resolved sensing of ballistic single electrons. The transmission of a ‘sensing’ electron (blue arrows) through a barrier (green)…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":80557,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[49,48,999,1000,314,996,66,997,61,998],"class_list":{"0":"post-80556","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-physics","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-materials","11":"tag-nanotech","12":"tag-physics","13":"tag-physics-news","14":"tag-science","15":"tag-science-news","16":"tag-technology","17":"tag-technology-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80556"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80556\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}