Detecting the Kondo screening cloud around a quantum dot.

A fundamental prediction of scaling theories of the Kondo effect is the screening of an impurity spin by a cloud of electrons spread out over a mesoscopic distance. This cloud has never been observed experimentally. Recently, aspects of the Kondo effect have been observed in experiments on quantum dots embedded in quantum wires. Since the length of the wire may be of order the size of the screening cloud, such systems provide an ideal opportunity to observe it. We point out that persistent current measurements in a closed ring provide a conceptually simple way of detecting this fundamental length scale.