Observation of scaling behavior in a Coulomb blockade system

Abstract

We describe two experiments to study the influence of fluctuations in the electron charge on the transport properties of a quantum dot. First, we scan a device from single- to double quantum-dot behavior by varying the conductance of a connecting point contact. Second, we measure the dependence of the charging energy on the conductance of the barriers. The experiments are compared with traces obtained from a theory based on a Luttinger liquid type description. This theory predicts a scaling behaviour of the charging energy, in good agreement with our experiments.