Quantum ratchet control - Harvesting on Landau-Zener transitions

Abstract

We control the current of a single-particle quantum ratchet by designing ramping schemes for experimentally accessible control parameters. We harvest on Landau-Zener transitions between Floquet states. Adiabatic and diabatic ramping allow to control the resulting directed transport. We find strong changes of the current in the adiabatic regime. Simple loops in control parameter space with alternating adiabatic and diabatic ramping are proposed. We obtain also current reversal. Full desymmetrization of the quantum ratchet increases the critical ramping speed which separates the adiabatic from the diabatic regime. © 2008 Europhysics Letters Association.