Drag of ballistic electrons by an ion beam

Abstract

Drag of electrons of 1D ballistic nanowire by a nearby 1D beam of ions is considered. We assume that the ion beam is represented by an ensemble of heavy ions of the same velocity $\bf V$. The ratio of the drag current to primary current carried by the ion beam is calculated. The drag current appears to be a nonmonotonic function of velocity $V$, it has maxima for $V$ near $v_{nF}/2$ where $n$ is the number of electron miniband (channel) and $v_{nF}$ is the corresponding Fermi velocity. This means that the ion beam drag can be applied for ballistic nanostructure spectroscopy.