Abstract

Due to advances in nanostructure fabrication techniques, many devices have been fabricated that exhibit ballistic electron transport and quantum interference effects [1]. In addition, recent experiments have demonstrated the “optical like” characteristics of these ballistic electrons through refraction and diffraction experiments [2-3]. Based on these results, a class of ballistic electron grating diffraction devices was recently proposed [4]. Using the methods developed in Ref. [4], a ballistic electron diffractive switch and multiplexer are designed and analyzed in this paper. The present work contains the first systematic design and analysis of grating diffraction devices in which it is shown that over 90% of the ballistic input current can be diffracted into one or multiple outputs.

© 1992 Optical Society of America