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This book treats three topics of electronic quantum transport in mesoscopic semiconductor structures: the conductance in strongly interacting and disordered two-dimensional systems and the metal insulator transition, electron transport through quantum dots and quantum rings in the Coulomb-blockade regime, and scanning probe experiments on semiconductor nanostructures at cryogenic temperatures. In addition it gives a brief historical account of electron transport from Ohm´s law through transport in semiconductor nanostructures, and a review of cryogenic scanning probe techniques applied to semiconductor nanostructures. Both graduate students and researchers in the field of mesoscopic semiconductors or in semiconductor nanostructures will find this book useful.

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Contents
Part I Introduction to Electron Transport
1 Electrical conductance: Historical account from Ohm to the semiclassical Drude-Boltzmann theory 2 Toward the microscopic understanding of conductance on a quantum mechanical basis
2.1 Quantum transport in metals
2.2 Transistors and two-dimensional electron gases in semiconductors
2.2.1 Two-dimensional electron gases in field-effect transistors
2.2.2 Resonant tunneling in semiconductors
2.2.3 Integer and fractional quantum Hall effect
2.2.4 Weak localization
2.3 Basic phenomena in semiconductor structures of reduced size and dimensionality
2.3.1 The Aharonov-Bohm effect and conductance fluctuations
2.3.2 Conductance quantization in semiconductor quantum point contacts
2.3.3 Semiconductor quantum dots and artificial atoms Part II Conductance in Strongly Interacting and Disordered Two-Dimensional Systems
3 The concept of metals and insulators 4 Scaling theory of localization 5 Electron-electron interactions within the Fermi-liquid concept
5.1 Dephasing in diffusive two-dimensional systems
5.2 Interaction corrections to the conductivity
5.2.1 Temperature-dependent screening
5.2.2 Interaction corrections due to interference of multiply scattered paths
5.2.3 A comprehensive theory of interaction corrections based on the Fermi liquid concept 6 Beyond Fermi-liquid theory 7 Summary of disorder and interaction effects 8 Experiments on strongly interacting two-dimensional systems and the metal-insulator transition 9 Theoretical work related to the metal-insulator transition 10 Metallic behavior in p-SiGe quantum wells
10.1 Samples and structures
10.2 Scaling analysis, quantum phase transition, and heating effects
10.3 Magnetoresistance measurements
10.4 Weak-localization correction
10.5 Interaction corrections to the conductivity: multipleimpurity scattering
10.6 Interaction corrections of the Drude conductivity due to T-dependent screening
10.7 Reentrant insulating behavior
10.8 Parallel magnetic field
10.9 Discussion of the results and conclusions Part III Electron Transport through Quantum Dots and Quantum Rings
11 Introduction to electron transport through quantum dots
11.1 Resonant tunneling and the quantization of the particle number on weakly coupled islands
11.2 Quantum dot states: from a general hamiltonian to the constant-interaction model
11.3 Transport through quantum dots
11.3.1 Coulomb-blockade oscillations
11.3.2 Coulomb-blockade diamonds
11.3.3 Conductance peak line shape at finite temperatures
11.4 Beyond the constant-interaction model 12 Energy spectra of quantum rings
12.1 Introduction to quantum rings
12.2 Samples and structures
12.3 Magnetotransport measurements on a quantum ring
12.4 Interpretation within the constant-interaction model
12.5 One-dimensional ring model
12.6 Ring with finite width
12.7 Experimental single-particle level spectrum
12.8 Effects of broken symmetry
12.9 Interaction effects and spin-pairing
12.10Coulomb-blockade in a Sinai billiard
12.11Relation of the ring spectra to persistent currents
12.12Summary 13 Spin filling in quantum dots
13.1 Introduction to spins in quantum dots
13.2 Samples and structures
13.3 Experiments
13.4 Weak-coupling regime
13.5 Intermediate-coupling regime
13.6 Strong coupling
13.7 Diamagnetic shift
13.8 Discussion of the results
13.9 Conclusions Part IV Local Spectroscopy of Semiconductor Nanostructures
14 Instrumentation: Scanning force microscopes for cryogenic temperatures and magnetic fields
14.1 Introduction: low-temperature scanning force microscopes
14.2 Design criteria for a low-temperature scanning force microscope for the investigation of semicond

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