Impurity induced coherent current oscillations in one-dimensional conductors

摘要

We study theoretically the electronic transport through a single impurity ina repulsive Luttinger liquid (LL), and find that above a threshold voltagerelated to a strength of the impurity potential the DC current $\bar I$ isaccompanied by coherent oscillations with frequency $f = \bar I/e$. There is ananalogy with Josephson junctions: the well-known regime of power-law I-V curvesin the LL corresponds to damping of the Josephson current below the criticalone, while the oscillatory regime in the LL can be compared with the Josephsonoscillations above the critical current.