Fabry Perot phenomena in nanowire cavities*

A solid-state geometry analogous to an optical Fabry-Perot cavity gives evidence for coherent transport on the order of microns through nanowires at the LaAlO$_3$/SrTiO$_3$ (LAO/STO) interface. Conductive AFM lithography is used to create both the nanowires and the two confining barriers which define the cavity. These two barriers act as the primary scattering centers so that as the chemical potential is tuned through the conducting state of the device, partial reflections from the barriers interfere in the cavity, resulting in quasi-periodic oscillations of the conductance at low temperatures. Full and extended single-mode periodicity is not observed in all devices; however, the conductance oscillations are only observed in cavity structures, suggesting that the effects of the two manufactured barriers dominate over any random scattering sites from disorder. The conductance oscillations from interference of coherently scattered electrons give evidence for ballistic transport on much longer length scales than implied by mobility measurements in two-dimensional LAO/STO.