Spatial and energy resolution of electronic states by shot noise

Shot-noise measurements are widely used for the characterization of nonequilibrium configurations in electronic conductors. The recently introduced quantum tomography approach was implemented for the studies of electronic wave functions of few-electron excitations created by periodic voltage pulses in phase-coherent ballistic conductors based on the high-quality GaAs two-dimensional electron gas. Still relying on the manifestation of Fermi correlations in noise, we focus on the simpler and more general approach beneficial for local measurements of energy distribution (ED) in electronic systems with arbitrary excitations with well-defined energies and random phases. Using biased diffusive metallic wire as a test bed, we demonstrate the power of this approach and extract the well-known double-step ED from the shot noise of a weakly coupled tunnel junction. Our experiment paves the way for local measurements of generic nonequilibrium configurations applicable to virtually any conductor.