Reviewers' comments on your work have now been received. You will see that they are advising against publication of your work. Therefore I must reject it.
For your guidance, I append the reviewers' comments below.
Thank you for giving us the opportunity to consider your work.
Yours sincerely,
×××(编辑名)
Editor
Physics Letters A
Reviewers' comments:
The authors present results of the 3D electron potential of
a gated quantum point contact in a AlGaAs/GaAs heterostructure.
In contrast to earlier studies, it is now possible to derive the
potential landshape without any adjustable parameter. The results
still agree with earlier investigations using simpler phenomenological
models. Since the used nextnano3 program is available since a
couple of years, I wonder why this has not been done earlier.
The authors emphasize an application of their results. Having
the complete potential landshape might help, in the future,
to better understand the quantized acoustoelectric current in
SETSAW devices and to improve their performance.
However, the authors do not show or even discuss how this can
be achieved. Therefore I believe that in the present form the paper
is not suitable for publication.
The authors should consider the following suggestions, questions,
and remarks.
1) Page 1, first paragraph
'... due to the negatively applied gate voltage ...'. It is the SAW
that drives the electrons through the contact, not the gate voltage.
Maybe replace this sentence by '..., depending on the applied gate
voltage'.
2) Page 3, paragraph starting with 'Generally, the quantized ...'
'... with fixed x = 1050 nm and ...'. Skip the '.0'. One could add
that this is exactly at the center of the device.
3) At the end of the same paragraph is '... once the bias is below ...'
Should this not be the gate instead of the bias voltage?
4) Page 4, paragraph starting with 'As we know, in the ...'
'... To be different from previous calculations ...' replace by
'... In contrast to previous calculations ...'.
5) The strongly different behaviour above and below the pinch-off
voltage is not obvious for the non-experts. All curves look more
or less the same. One could, for example, add another figure, or
insert, to show the potential height versus gate voltage.
6) How do these theoretical results of potential height versus gate
voltage compare with experiments? There exists at least one
report to determine the potential height of quantum-point contacts
below pinch-off as function of gate voltage (Gloos et al., Phys.
Rev. B 73, 125326 (2006)). Possibly, one could also compare the
present data with 3D simulations of quantum dots (Vasileska et al.,
Semicond. Sci. Technol. 13, A37 (1998)).
7) Figure 1,It would be better to mark the distance between the two metal gates
as the relevant parameter, and not the size of one gate.
8) Figure 3
The numbering of the two density axes looks rather odd. Could it not
be done with integers, like 3 instead of 3.2 or 3.0?
9) Figure 5 (b)
Should there not be an anomaly or kink in the potential near the Fermi
The subject of the paper is an interesting one, although the focus of
the community has shifted away from it in the meantime. Nevertheless
the paper would be worth publishing if it gave better evidence in the
interesting electron transport mechanism prevailing in this effect.
Specifically the authors present numerical results for the potential
in a SAW driven split-gate induced small channel. They claim
in the abstract that "the potential barrier heights calculated
in the closed-channel-regime agree well with the experiment we
performed." To my understanding they (implicitly) claim that their
numerical method provides better understanding of the SETSAW effect
and that it should allow for a better design of such devices.
However, they do not give any experimental result to support their
claim. The quantitative results of the numerical calculations
could prove their superiority by comparison with experimental
result obtained from correspondingly tailored devices, but the
authors only repeat general statements like "...agrees very well
with experiment.", without presenting experiments. Without specific
comparisons the reader (if he knows the literature well) just learns
that there is a kind of qualitative agreement. But such qualitative,
and even semi-quantitative, agreement has been obtained before with
simpler phenomenological 'ansatz' like potential distributions. The
present paper reaches similar conclusions as previous work but never
demonstrates where the numerical calculations are more precise or
provide better understanding of the physics.
The style of the paper is not appropriate and should be revised by
a native English speaker. I recommend to reject the paper.
不过沮丧归沮丧,生活还得继续,继续改投吧,好在第一个审稿人给我指明了一条生路,那就是改投Journal of Applied Physics,于是,本人按照审稿人的意见又改了一些。由于一月份父亲的身体出了点问题,提前回老家了,家离四川有点远,所以修改又拖了一段时间,最终 三月份投到了Journal of Applied Physics。这次运气还真不错,编辑部处理稿件的速度还真快,审稿也快,呵呵!心里暗暗有点高兴!下面是文章的处理过程:
Revision Received2009-05-07 09:53:41
Waiting for Revision2009-04-08 13:45:38
Decision Sent2009-04-08 13:45:38
Decision Letter Being Prepared2009-03-30 16:29:58
Editorial Evaluation - Editor2009-03-30 11:04:55
Under Review2009-03-16 12:31:33
Securing Reviewer(s)2009-03-12 15:43:32
Under Consideration - Editorial Office2009-03-12 11:35:24
I recommend major revision, because there are a few things which need to be improved:
-the theoretical part describes in very detail an improved description of the split-gate induced potential. The authors claim that these calculations are more precise than earlier calculations. To justify this claim they compare their data with experimental values, see Fig. 5 b). But the experimental values used are very limited and only for large pinched off channels. This claim is not justified by using only these data!
- The quantized current is calculated for a split-gate device. Then at the very end, experimental data of an etched device is presented: this does not fit together. The potential landscape in an etched device is different from a split gate device. Why do the authors not calculate such a device? Then, experimental and theoretical data would fit together.
- So either the claim that their method of calculation is better needs to be more solid, or the experimental and theoretical data needs to fit together.
- finally, the language needs some improvement (a lot of prepositions are missing)
Awaiting Author Adjustment/Approval of Converted Files2009-05-07 09:57:41
Manuscript Files Uploaded2009-05-07 09:53:40
Preliminary Manuscript Data Posted2009-05-07 09:29:22
从投出去到审稿结束仅仅一天!五月十二号收到编辑的信
Dear ×××:
I am pleased to inform you that your manuscript, referenced below, has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Applied Physics. Materials are being prepared for AIP Production Services.
×××××××××××××××××××××××××××××××
Reviewer Comments:
Reviewer #1 Evaluations:
RECOMMENDATION: Publish as is
Sufficient New Physics in an Applied Area: Yes
Appropriate Length: Yes
Well Organized and Clearly Written: Yes
Good Title: Yes
Good Abstract: Yes
Clear Figures: Yes
Adequate References: Yes
TECHNICAL QUALITY RATING: Good
PRESENTATION RATING: Good
Reviewer #1 (Comments to the Author):
The authors have significantly improved the manuscript and therefore a submission is now justified.