Cyclostationary shot noise in mesoscopic measurements

We discuss theoretically a setup where a time-dependent current consisting of a dc bias and two sinusoidal harmonics is driven through a sample. If the sample exhibits current-dependent shot noise, the down-converted noise power spectrum varies depending on the local-oscillator phase of the mixer. The theory of this phase-dependent noise is applied to discuss the measurement of the radio-frequency single-electron transistor. We also show that this effect can be used to measure the shot noise accurately even in nonlinear high-impedance samples. © 2004 American Institute of Physics.