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A. H. MacDonald

Publications and source records attributed to A. H. MacDonald.

At least 127 records · Page 7Linked to original sources
arXiv2009

Anomalous Hall effect

We present a review of experimental and theoretical studies of the anomalous Hall effect (AHE), focusing on recent developments that have provided a more complete framework for understanding this subtle phenomenon and have, in many instances, replaced controversy by clarity. Synergy between experimental and theoretical work, both playing a crucial role, has been at the heart of these advances. On the theoretical front, the adoption of Berry-phase concepts has established a link between the AHE and the topological nature of the Hall currents which originate from spin-orbit coupling. On the experimental front, new experimental studies of the AHE in transition metals, transition-metal oxides, spinels, pyrochlores, and metallic dilute magnetic semiconductors, have more clearly established systematic trends. These two developments in concert with first-principles electronic structure calculations, strongly favor the dominance of an intrinsic Berry-phase-related AHE mechanism in metallic ferromagnets with moderate conductivity. The intrinsic AHE can be expressed in terms of Berry-phase curvatures and it is therefore an intrinsic quantum mechanical property of a perfect cyrstal. An extrinsic mechanism, skew scattering from disorder, tends to dominate the AHE in highly conductive ferromagnets. We review the full modern semiclassical treatment of the AHE together with the more rigorous quantum-mechanical treatments based on the Kubo and Keldysh formalisms, taking into account multiband effects, and demonstrate the equivalence of all three linear response theories in the metallic regime. Finally we discuss outstanding issues and avenues for future investigation.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗
arXiv2009

Electronic Cooling in Graphene

Energy transfer to acoustic phonons is the dominant low-temperature cooling channel of electrons in a crystal.For cold neutral graphene we find that the weak cooling power of its acoustical modes relative to the heat capacity of the system leads to a power law decay of the electronic temperature when far from equilibrium. For heavily doped graphene a high electronic temperature is shown to initially decrease linearly with time at a rate proportional to n^(3/2) with n being the electronic density. We discuss the relative importance of optical and acoustic phonons to cooling.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗
arXiv2009

Fermi Velocity Enhancement in Monolayer and Bilayer Graphene

In single-layer graphene sheets non-local interband exchange leads to a renormalized Fermi-surface effective mass which vanishes in the low carrier-density limit. We report on a comparative study of Fermi surface effective mass renormalization in single-layer and AB-stacked bilayer graphene. We explain why the mass does not approach zero in the bilayer case, although its value is still strongly suppressed.

cond-mat.str-el↗
arXiv2009

Drude weight, plasmon dispersion, and pseudospin response in doped graphene sheets

Plasmons in ordinary electron liquids are collective excitations whose long-wavelength limit is rigid center-of-mass motion with a dispersion relation that is, as a consequence of Galileian invariance, unrenormalized by many-body effects. The long-wavelength plasmon frequency is related by the f-sum rule to the integral of the conductivity over the electron-liquid's Drude peak, implying that transport properties also tend not to have important electron-electron interaction renormalizations. In this article we demonstrate that the plasmon frequency and Drude weight of the electron liquid in a doped graphene sheet, which is described by a massless Dirac Hamiltonian and not invariant under ordinary Galileian boosts, are strongly renormalized even in the long-wavelength limit. This effect is not captured by the Random Phase Approximation (RPA), commonly used to describe electron fluids. It is due primarily to non-local inter-band exchange interactions, which, as we show, reduce both the plasmon frequency and the Drude weight relative to the RPA value. Our predictions can be checked using inelastic light scattering or infrared spectroscopy.

cond-mat.str-el↗
arXiv2008

Non-Adiabatic Spin Transfer Torque in Real Materials

The motion of simple domain walls and of more complex magnetic textures in the presence of a transport current is described by the Landau-Lifshitz-Slonczewski (LLS) equations. Predictions of the LLS equations depend sensitively on the ratio between the dimensionless material parameter $β$ which characterizes non-adiabatic spin-transfer torques and the Gilbert damping parameter $α$. This ratio has been variously estimated to be close to 0, close to 1, and large compared to 1. By identifying $β$ as the influence of a transport current on $α$, we derive a concise, explicit and relatively simple expression which relates $β$ to the band structure and Bloch state lifetimes of a magnetic metal. Using this expression we demonstrate that intrinsic spin-orbit interactions lead to intra-band contributions to $β$ which are often dominant and can be (i) estimated with some confidence and (ii) interpreted using the "breathing Fermi surface" model.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗
arXiv2008

Theory of inter-edge superexchange in zigzag edge magnetism

A graphene nanoribbon with zigzag edges has a gapped magnetic ground state with an antiferromagnetic inter-edge superexchange interaction. We present a theory based on asymptotic properties of the Dirac-model ribbon wavefunction which predicts $W^{-2}$ and $W^{-1}$ ribbon-width dependencies for the superexchange interaction strength and the charge gap respectively. We find that, unlike the case of conventional atomic scale superexchange, opposite spin-orientations on opposite edges of the ribbon are favored by both kinetic and interaction energies.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗
arXiv2008

Theory of Weak Localization in Ferromagnetic (Ga,Mn)As

We study quantum interference corrections to the conductivity in (Ga,Mn)As ferromagnetic semiconductors using a model with disordered valence band holes coupled to localized Mn moments through a p-d kinetic-exchange interaction. We find that at Mn concentrations above 1% quantum interference corrections lead to negative magnetoresistance, i.e. to weak localization (WL) rather than weak antilocalization (WAL). Our work highlights key qualitative differences between (Ga,Mn)As and previously studied toy model systems, and pinpoints the mechanism by which exchange splitting in the ferromagnetic state converts valence band WAL into WL. We comment on recent experimental studies and theoretical analyses of low-temperature magnetoresistance in (Ga,Mn)As which have been variously interpreted as implying both WL and WAL and as requiring an impurity-band interpretation of transport in metallic (Ga,Mn)As.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗
arXiv2008

Finite-temperature Screening and the Specific Heat of Doped Graphene Sheets

At low energies, electrons in doped graphene sheets are described by a massless Dirac fermion Hamiltonian. In this work we present a semi-analytical expression for the dynamical density-density linear-response function of noninteracting massless Dirac fermions (the so-called "Lindhard" function) at finite temperature. This result is crucial to describe finite-temperature screening of interacting massless Dirac fermions within the Random Phase Approximation. In particular, we use it to make quantitative predictions for the specific heat and the compressibility of doped graphene sheets. We find that, at low temperatures, the specific heat has the usual normal-Fermi-liquid linear-in-temperature behavior, with a slope that is solely controlled by the renormalized quasiparticle velocity.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗
arXiv2008

Room-Temperature Superfluidity in Graphene Bilayers

Because graphene is an atomically two-dimensional gapless semiconductor with nearly identical conduction and valence bands, graphene-based bilayers are attractive candidates for high-temperature electron-hole pair condensation. We present estimates which suggest that the Kosterlitz-Thouless temperatures of these two-dimensional counterflow superfluids can approach room temperature.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗
arXiv2008

Influence of Disorder on Electron-Hole Pair Condensation in Graphene Bilayers

Graphene bilayers can condense into a state with spontaneous interlayer phase coherence that supports dissipationless counterflow supercurrents. Here we address the influence of disorder on the graphene bilayer mean-field and Kosterlitz-Thouless critical temperatures and report on a simple criteria for the survival of pair condensation.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗
arXiv2008

ARPES, Neutrons, and the High-$T_c$ Mechanism

Extensive ARPES and low-energy inelastic neutron scattering studies of cuprate superconductors can be successfully described using a weak-coupling theory in which quasiparticles on a square lattice interact via scalar and spin-dependent effective interactions. In this article we point out that in Bi$_2$Sr$_2$Ca$_{1-x}$Y$_x$Cu$_2$O$_8$ (Bi2212) both probes are consistent with dominant near-neighbour Heisenberg interactions. We discuss the implications of this finding for the mechanism of high-$T_c$ superconductivity.

cond-mat.str-el↗
arXiv2008

Theory of Graphene Chiral Quasiparticle LDOS maps

We present a theory of momentum space local density-of-states (LDOS) maps N(q,omega) in graphene. The LDOS map has both intravalley contributions centered near zero momentum and reciprocal lattice vectors and intervalley contributions displaced by the wavevector K'-K which connects graphene's two distinct Dirac points. Using graphene's Dirac equation chiral quasiparticle continuum model, we obtain analytic results which explain the qualitative differences between these two LDOS map features. We comment on the sensitivity of both N(q,omega) features to the mix of atomic length scale and smooth disorder sources present in a particular graphene sample.

cond-mat.other↗
arXiv2008

Intra-Landau level Cyclotron Resonance in Bilayer Graphene

Interaction driven integer quantum Hall effects are anticipated in graphene bilayers because of the near-degeneracy of the eight Landau levels which appear near the neutral system Fermi level. We predict that an intra-Landau-level cyclotron resonance signal will appear at some odd-integer filling factors, accompanied by collective modes which are nearly gapless and have approximate $k^{3/2}$ dispersion. We speculate on the possibility of unususal localization physics associated with these modes.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗
arXiv2008

Superfluid Density in High-$T_c$ Superconductors: Enabled by Holes or Suppressed by Electrons?

The critical temperature of an underdoped cuprate superconductor is limited by its phase stiffness $ρ$. In this Letter we argue that the dependence of $ρ$ on doping $x$ should be understood as a consequence of deleterious competition with antiferromagnetism at large electron densities, rather than as evidence for pairing of holes in the $x =0$ Mott insulator state. Our proposal is based on the observation that the correlation energy of a d-wave superconductor increases in magnitude at finite pairing wavevector when antiferromagnetic fluctuations are strong.

cond-mat.str-el↗
arXiv2008

Quantum Hall Ferromagnetism in Graphene

Graphene is a two-dimensional carbon material with a honeycomb lattice and Dirac-like low-energy excitations. When Zeeman and spin-orbit interactions are neglected its Landau levels are four-fold degenerate, explaining the $4 e^2/h$ separation between quantized Hall conductivity values seen in recent experiments. In this paper we derive a criterion for the occurrence of interaction-driven quantum Hall effects near intermediate integer values of $e^2/h$ due to charge gaps in broken symmetry states.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗
arXiv2008

Chiral Decomposition in the Electronic Structure of Graphene Multilayers

We show that the low-energy electronic structure of arbitrarily stacked graphene multilayers with nearest-neighbor interlayer tunneling consists of chiral pseudospin doublets. Although the number of doublets in an $N$-layer system depends on the stacking sequence, the pseudospin chirality sum is always $N$. $N$-layer stacks have $N$ distinct Landau levels at E=0 for each spin and valley, and quantized Hall conductivity $σ_{xy} = \pm(4 e^2/h)(N/2+n)$ where $n$ is a non-negative integer.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗
arXiv2008

Chern-number spin Hamiltonians for magnetic nano-clusters by DFT methods

Combining field-theoretical methods and ab-initio calculations, we construct an effective Hamiltonian with a single giant-spin degree of freedom, capable of the describing the low-energy spin dynamics of ferromagnetic metal nanoclusters consisting of up to a few tens of atoms. In our procedure, the magnetic moment direction of the Kohn-Sham SDFT wave-function is constrained by means of a penalty functional, allowing us to explore the entire parameter space of directions, and to extract the magnetic anisotropy energy and Berry curvature functionals. The average of the Berry curvature over all magnetization directions is a Chern number - a topological invariant that can only take on values equal to multiples of one half, representing the dimension of the Hilbert space of the effective spin system. The spin Hamiltonian is obtained by quantizing the classical anisotropy energy functional, after performing a change of variables to a constant Berry curvature space. The purpose of this article is to examine the impact of the topological effect from the Berry curvature on the low-energy total-spin-system dynamics. To this end, we study small transition metal clusters: Co$_{n}$ ($n=2,...,5$), Rh$_{2}$, Ni$_{2}$, Pd$_{2}$, Mn$_{x}$N$_{y}$, Co$_{3}$Fe$_{2}$.

cond-mat.other↗