Testing quantum transport without decoherence

Abstract

The coherent electronic transport phenomena through quantum devices is difficult to observe due to thermal smearing and dephasing, the latter induced by inelastic scattering by phonons or impurities. In other wave systems, the temperature and dephasing may not destroy the coherence and can then be used to observe the underlying wave behaviour of the coherent quantum phenomena. Here, we observe coherent transmission of mechanical waves through a two-dimensional elastic Sinai billiard with two waveguides. The flexural-wave transmission performed by non-contact means, shows the transmission quantization when a new mode becomes open. In contrast with the quantum counterpart, these measurements agree with the theoretical predictions of the simplest model at zero temperature highlighting the universal character of the transmission fluctuations.