shot noise in mesoscopic conductors - Low Temperature Laboratory

4 Ya.M. Blanter, M. Bu( ttiker / Physics Reports 336 (2000) 1}166
1. Introduction
1.1. Purpose of this Review
During the past two decades mesoscopic physics has developed into a fascinating sub"eld of
condensed matter physics. In this article, we review a special topic of this "eld: We are concerned
with the dynamical noise properties of mesoscopic conductors. After a modest start, a little more
than a decade ago, both theories and experiments have matured. There is now already a substantial
theoretical literature and there are a number of interesting experiments with which theoretical
predictions can be compared. Some experiments ask for additional theoretical work. The "eld has
thus reached a stage in which a review might be useful as a "rst orientation for researchers who
wish to enter the "eld. Also researchers which are already active in the "eld might appreciate
a review to help them keep an overview over the rapid development which has occurred. Any
review, of course, re#ects the authors' preferences and prejudices and in any case cannot replace the
study of the original literature.
Presently, there are no reviews covering the actual state of development of the "eld. The only
article which provides a considerable list of references, and gives a description of many essential
features of shot noise in mesoscopic systems, has been written in 1996 by de Jong and Beenakker
[1]. It is useful as a "rst introduction to the subject, but since then the "eld has developed
considerably, and a broader review is clearly desirable. An additional brief review has been written
by Martin [2]. The subject has been touched in books with broader scopes by Kogan [3] (Chapter
5) and Imry [4] (Chapter 8). These reviews, and in particular, the work of de Jong and Beenakker
[1], provided a considerable help in starting this project.
1.2. Scope of the Review
Our intention is to present a review on shot noise in mesoscopic conductors. Ane!ort is made to
collect a complete list of references, and if not comprehensively re-derive, then at least to mention
results relevant to the "eld. We do not cite conference proceedings and brief commentaries, unless
we feel that they contain new results or bring some understanding which cannot be found
elsewhere. Certainly, it is very possible that some papers, for various reasons, have not come to our
attention. We apologize to the authors whose papers we might have overlooked.
Trying to classify the already large literature, we chose to divide the Review into sections
according to the methods by which the results are derived and not according to the systems we
describe. Many results can be obtained in the framework of the scattering approach and/or by
classical methods. We deliberately avoid an explanation of the Green's function method, the
master equation approach, and the bosonization technique. An attempt to explain how any
one of these approaches work would probably double the size of this Review, which is already
long enough. Consequently, we make an e!ort to re-derive the results existing in the literature
by either the scattering or one of the classical (but not the master equation) approaches,
and to present a unifying description. Certainly, for some systems these simple methods just
do not work. In particular, this concerns Section 7, which describes shot noise in strongly
correlated systems. Results obtained with more sophisticated methods are discussed only brie#y
and without an attempt to re-derive them. We incorporate a number of original results in the