arXiv subjects

Ai-Min Guo

Publications and source records attributed to Ai-Min Guo.

36 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2020

Ferromagnetic induced Kondo effect in graphene with a magnetic impurity

We investigate the many-body effects of a magnetic adatom in ferromagnetic graphene by using the numerical renormalization group method. The nontrivial band dispersion of ferromagnetic graphene gives rise to interesting Kondo physics different from that in conventional ferromagnetic materials. For a half-filled impurity in undoped graphene, the presence of ferromagnetism can bring forth Kondo correlations, yielding two kink structures in the local spectral function near the Fermi energy. When the spin splitting of local occupations is compensated by an external magnetic field, the two Kondo kinks merge into a full Kondo resonance characterizing the fully screened ground state. Strikingly, we find the resulting Kondo temperature monotonically increases with the spin polarization of Dirac electrons, which violates the common sense that ferromagnetic bands are usually detrimental to Kondo correlations. Doped ferromagnetic graphene can behave as half metals, where its density of states at the Fermi energy linearly vanishes for one spin direction but keeps finite for the opposite direction. In this regime, we demonstrate an abnormal Kondo resonance that occurs in the first spin direction, while completely absent in the other one.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2020

Topological phase transitions of Thouless charge pumping realized in helical organic molecules with long-range hoppings

Recent studies indicated that helical organic molecules, such as DNA and $α$-helical protein, can behave as Thouless quantum pumps when a rotating electric field is applied perpendicularly to their helical axes. Here we investigate the influence of long-range hoppings on this topological pumping of electrons in single-helical organic molecules. Under variation of the long-range hoppings governed by a decay exponent $μ$, we find an energy gap in the molecular band structure closes at a critical value $μ_c$ of the decay exponent and reopens for $μ$ deviating from $μ_c$. The relevant bulk bands in a pumping cycle acquire different Chern numbers in the strong ($μ<μ_c$) and weak ($μ>μ_c$) long-range hopping regimes, with a sudden jump at criticality. This topological phase transition is also shown to separate two distinct behaviors of the midgap end states in the pumping process. The end states carry quantized current pumped by the rotating electric field and the current forms a plateau by sweeping the Fermi energy over the gap. In the strong hopping phase, the quantized current plateau is positive, which is reversed to a negative one with smaller amplitude in the weak hopping phase. However, the reversal is a smooth crossover, not a sharp transition, due to the finite sizes of the molecules. We show that these transport characteristics of the topological phase transition could also be observed at finite temperatures.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2020

Enhancement of electron transport and bandgap opening in graphene induced by adsorbates

Impurities are unavoidable during the preparation of graphene samples and play an important role in graphene's electronic properties when they are adsorbed on graphene surface. In this work, we study the electronic structures and transport properties of a two-terminal zigzag graphene nanoribbon (ZGNR) device whose scattering region is covered by various adsorbates within the framework of the tight-binding approximation, by taking into account the coupling strength $γ$ between adsorbates and carbon atoms, the adsorbate concentration $n_i$, and the on-site energy disorder of adsorbates. Our results indicate that when the scattering region is fully covered by homogeneous adsorbates, i.e., $n_i=1$, a transmission gap opens around the Dirac point and its width is almost proportional to $γ^2$. In particular, two conductance plateaus of $G=2e^2/h$ appear in the vicinity of the electron energy $E=\pm γ$. When the scattering region is partially covered by homogeneous adsorbates ($0<n_i<1$), the transmission gap still survives around the Dirac point even at low $n_i$, and its width is firstly increased by $n_i$ and then declined by further increasing $n_i$; whereas the conductance decreases with $n_i$ in the regime of low $n_i$ and increases with $n_i$ in the regime of high $n_i$. While in the presence of disordered adsorbates whose on-site energies are random variables characterized by the disorder degree, the transmission gap disappears at low $n_i$ and reappears at relatively high $n_i$. Furthermore, the transmission ability of the ZGNR device can be enhanced by the adsorbate disorder when the disorder degree surpasses a critical value, contrary to the localization picture that the conduction of a nanowire becomes poorer with increasing the disorder degree. The physics underlying these transport characteristics is discussed. Our results are in good agreement with experiments.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2020

Isotropic All-electric Spin analyzer based on a quantum ring with spin-orbit coupling

Here we propose an isotropic all electrical spin analyzer in a quantum ring with spin-orbit coupling by analytically and numerically modeling how the charge transmission rates depend on the polarization of the incident spin. The formalism of spin transmission and polarization rates in an arbitrary direction is also developed by analyzing the Aharonov-Bohm and the Aharonov-Casher effects. The topological spin texture induced by the spin-orbit couplings essentially contributes to the dynamic phase and plays an important role in spin transport. The spin transport features derived analytically has been confirmed numerically. This interesting two-dimensional electron system can be designed as a spin filter, spin polarizer and general analyzer by simply tuning the spin-orbit couplings, which paves the way for realizing the tunable and integrable spintronics device.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2018

Nonequilibrium Kondo effect by equilibrium numerical renormalization group method: The hybrid Anderson model subject to a finite spin bias

We investigate Kondo correlations in a quantum dot with normal and superconducting electrodes, where a spin bias voltage is applied across the device and the local interaction $U$ is either attractive or repulsive. When the spin current is blockaded in the large-gap regime, this nonequilibrium strongly-correlated problem maps into an equilibrium model solvable by the numerical renormalization group method. The Kondo spectra with characteristic splitting due to the nonequilibrium spin accumulation are thus obtained at high precision. It is shown that while the bias-induced decoherence of the spin Kondo effect is partially compensated by the superconductivity, the charge Kondo effect is enhanced out of equilibrium and undergoes an additional splitting by the superconducting proximity effect, yielding four Kondo peaks in the local spectral density. In the charge Kondo regime, we find a universal scaling of charge conductance in this hybrid device under different spin biases. The universal conductance as a function of the coupling to the superconducting lead is peaked at and hence directly measures the Kondo temperature. Our results are of direct relevance to recent experiments realizing negative-$U$ charge Kondo effect in hybrid oxide quantum dots [Nat. Commun. \textbf{8}, 395 (2017)].

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2018

Surface Step Defect in 3D Topological Insulators: Electric Manipulation of Spin and Quantum Spin Hall Effect

We study the influence of step defect on surface states in three-dimensional topological insulators subject to a perpendicular magnetic field. By calculating the energy spectrum of the surface states, we find that Landau levels (LLs) can form on flat regions of the surface and are distant from the step defect, and several subbands emerge at side surface of the step defect. The subband which connects to the two zeroth LLs is spin-polarized and chiral. In particular, when the electron transports along the side surface, the electron spin direction can be manipulated arbitrarily by gate voltage. And no reflection occurs even if the electron spin direction is changed. This provides a fascinating avenue to control the electron spin easily and coherently. In addition, regarding the subbands with high LL index, there exist spin-momentum locking helical states and the quantum spin Hall effect can appear.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2017

Ginzburg-Landau-type theory of non-polarized spin superconductivity

Since the concept of spin superconductor was proposed, all the related studies concentrate on spin-polarized case. Here, we generalize the study to spin-non-polarized case. The free energy of non-polarized spin superconductor is obtained, and the Ginzburg-Landau-type equations are derived by using the variational method. These Ginzburg-Landau-type equations can be reduced to the spin-polarized case when the spin direction is fixed. Moreover, the expressions of super linear and angular spin currents inside the superconductor are derived. We demonstrate that the electric field induced by super spin current is equal to the one induced by equivalent charge obtained from the second Ginzburg-Landau-type equation, which shows self-consistency of our theory. By applying these Ginzburg-Landau-type equations, the effect of electric field on the superconductor is also studied. These results will help us get a better understanding of the spin superconductor and the related topics such as Bose-Einstein condensate of magnons and spin superfluidity.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2017

Spin-flip reflection at the normal metal-spin superconductor interface

We study spin transport through a normal metal-spin superconductor junction. A spin-flip reflection is demonstrated at the interface, where a spin-up electron incident from the normal metal can be reflected as a spin-down electron and the spin $2\times \hbar/2$ will be injected into the spin superconductor. When the (spin) voltage is smaller than the gap of the spin superconductor, the spin-flip reflection determines the transport properties of the junction. We consider both graphene-based (linear-dispersion-relation) and quadratic-dispersion-relation normal metal-spin superconductor junctions in detail. For the two-dimensional graphene-based junction, the spin-flip reflected electron can be along the specular direction (retro-direction) when the incident and reflected electron locates in the same band (different bands). A perfect spin-flip reflection can occur when the incident electron is normal to the interface, and the reflection coefficient is slightly suppressed for the oblique incident case. As a comparison, for the one-dimensional quadratic-dispersion-relation junction, the spin-flip reflection coefficient can reach 1 at certain incident energies. In addition, both the charge current and the spin current under a charge (spin) voltage are studied. The spin conductance is proportional to the spin-flip reflection coefficient when the spin voltage is less than the gap of the spin superconductor. These results will help us get a better understanding of spin transport through the normal metal-spin superconductor junction.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2017

Crossed Andreev effects in two-dimensional quantum Hall systems

We study the crossed Andreev effects in two-dimensional conductor/superconductor hybrid systems under a perpendicular magnetic field. Both a graphene/superconductor hybrid system and an electron gas/superconductor one are considered. It is shown that an exclusive crossed Andreev reflection, with other Andreev reflections being completely suppressed, is obtained in a high magnetic field because of the chiral edge states in the quantum Hall regime. Importantly, the exclusive crossed Andreev reflection not only holds for a wide range of system parameters, e.g., the size of system, the width of central superconductor, and the quality of coupling between the graphene and the superconductor, but also is very robust against disorder. When the applied bias is within the superconductor gap, a robust Cooper-pair splitting process with high-efficiency can be realized in this system.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2016

Topological states and quantized current in helical molecules

We report a theoretical study of electron transport along helical molecules under an external electric field, which is perpendicular to the helix axis of the molecule. Our results reveal that the topological states could appear in single-helical molecule and double-stranded DNA in the presence of the perpendicular electric field. And these topological states guarantee adiabatic charge pumping across the helical molecules by rotating the electric field in the transverse plane and the pumped current at zero bias voltage is quantized. In addition, the quantized current constitutes multiple plateaus by scanning the Fermi energy as well as the bias voltage, and hold for various model parameters, since they are topologically protected against perturbations. These results could motivate further experimental and theoretical studies in the electron transport through helical molecules, and pave the way to detect topological states and quantized current in the biological systems.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2015

Effect of gate voltage on spin transport along $α$-helical protein

Recently, the chiral-induced spin selectivity in molecular systems has attracted extensive interest among the scientific communities. Here, we investigate the effect of the gate voltage on spin-selective electron transport through the $α$-helical peptide/protein molecule contacted by two nonmagnetic electrodes. Based on an effective model Hamiltonian and the Landauer-Büttiker formula, we calculate the conductance and the spin polarization under an external electric field which is perpendicular to the helix axis of the $α$-helical peptide/protein molecule. Our results indicate that both the magnitude and the direction of the gate field have a significant effect on the conductance and the spin polarization. The spin filtration efficiency can be improved by properly tuning the gate voltage, especially in the case of strong dephasing regime. And the spin polarization increases monotonically with the molecular length without the gate voltage, which is consistent with the recent experiment, and presents oscillating behavior in the presence of the gate voltage. In addition, the spin selectivity is robust against the dephasing, the on-site energy disorder, and the space angle disorder under the gate voltage. Our results could motivate further experimental and theoretical works on the chiral-based spin selectivity in molecular systems.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2014

Orbital Kondo effect in a parallel double quantum dot

We construct a theoretical model to study the orbital Kondo effect in a parallel double quantum dot (DQD). Recently, pseudospin-resolved transport spectroscopy of the orbital Kondo effect in a DQD has been experimentally reported. The experiment revealed that when interdot tunneling is ignored, there exist two and one Kondo peaks in the conductance-bias curve for the pseudospin-non-resolved and pseudospin-resolved cases, respectively. Our theoretical studies reproduce this experimental result. We also investigate the situation of all lead voltages being non-equal (the complete pseudospin-resolved case), and find that there are four Kondo peaks at most in the curve of the conductance versus the pseudospin splitting energy. When the interdot tunneling is introduced, some new Kondo peaks and dips can emerge. Besides, the pseudospin transport and the pseudospin flipping current are also studied in the DQD system. Since the pseudospin transport is much easier to be controlled and measured than the real spin transport, it can be used to study the physical phenomenon related to the spin transport.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2014

Delocalization and scaling properties of low-dimensional quasiperiodic systems

In this paper, we explore the localization transition and the scaling properties of both quasi-one-dimensional and two-dimensional quasiperiodic systems, which are constituted from coupling several Aubry-André (AA) chains along the transverse direction, in the presence of next-nearest-neighbor (NNN) hopping. The localization length, two-terminal conductance, and participation ratio are calculated within the tight-binding Hamiltonian. Our results reveal that a metal-insulator transition could be driven in these systems not only by changing the NNN hopping integral but also by the dimensionality effects. These results are general and hold by coupling distinct AA chains with various model parameters. Furthermore, we show from finite-size scaling that the transport properties of the two-dimensional quasiperiodic system can be described by a single parameter and the scaling function can reach the value 1, contrary to the scaling theory of localization of disordered systems. The underlying physical mechanism is discussed.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2014

Enhanced spin-polarized transport through DNA double helix by gate voltage

We report on a way to manipulate the spin transport through double-stranded DNA contacted by normal-metal electrodes. On the basis of an effective model Hamiltonian, the conductance and the spin polarization are calculated in the presence of a gate voltage by using the Landauer-Büttiker formula. Our results indicate that the spin polarization presents strong dependence on the magnitude as well as the direction of the gate voltage. The spin polarization can be significantly enhanced by tuning the gate voltage and shows oscillating behavior with increasing the DNA length.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2014

Contact effects in spin transport along double-helical molecules

We report on spin transport along double-helical molecular systems by considering various contact configurations and asymmetries between the two helical strands in the regime of completely coherent charge transport. Our results reveal that no spin polarization appears in two-terminal molecular devices when coupled to one-dimensional electrodes. The same holds in the case of finite-width electrodes if there is a \emph{bottleneck} of one single site in the system electrode--molecule--electrode. Then, additional dephasing is necessary to induce spin-filtering effects. In contrast, nonzero spin polarization is found in molecular devices with multiple terminals or with two finite-width electrodes, each of them connected to more than one site of the molecule. Then, the magnitude of spin polarization can be enhanced by increasing the asymmetry between the two strands. We point out that the spin-filtering effects could emerge in double-helical molecular devices at low temperature without dephasing by a proper choice of the electrode number and the connection between the molecule and the electrodes.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2012

Universal scheme to generate metal-insulator transition in disordered systems

We propose a scheme to generate metal-insulator transition in random binary layer (RBL) model, which is constructed by randomly assigning two types of layers. Based on a tight-binding Hamiltonian, the localization length is calculated for a variety of RBLs with different cross section geometries by using the transfer-matrix method. Both analytical and numerical results show that a band of extended states could appear in the RBLs and the systems behave as metals by properly tuning the model parameters, due to the existence of a completely ordered subband, leading to a metal-insulator transition in parameter space. Furthermore, the extended states are irrespective of the diagonal and off-diagonal disorder strengths. Our results can be generalized to two- and three-dimensional disordered systems with arbitrary layer structures, and may be realized in Bose-Einstein condensates.

cond-mat.dis-nn↗

arXiv2012

Sequence-dependent spin-selective tunneling along double-stranded DNA

We report spin-selective tunneling of electrons along natural and artificial double-stranded DNA (dsDNA) sandwiched by nonmagnetic leads. The results reveal that the spin polarization strongly depends on the dsDNA sequence and is dominated by its end segment. Both genomic and artificial dsDNA could be efficient spin filters. The spin-filtering effects are sensitive to point mutation which occurs in the end segment. These results are in good agreement with recent experiments and are robust against various types of disorder, and could help for designing DNA-based spintronic devices.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv2012

Spin-Selective Transport of Electron in DNA Double Helix

The experiment that the high spin selectivity and the length-dependent spin polarization are observed in double-stranded DNA [Science ${\bf 331}$, 894 (2011)], is elucidated by considering the combination of the spin-orbit coupling, the environment-induced dephasing, and the helical symmetry. We show that the spin polarization in double-stranded DNA is significant even in the case of weak spin-orbit coupling, while no spin polarization appears in single-stranded DNA. Furthermore, the underlying physical mechanism and the parameters-dependence of the spin polarization are studied.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗