arXiv subjects

Amit Agarwal

Publications and source records attributed to Amit Agarwal.

At least 181 records · Page 10Linked to original sources

arXiv2018

Broadband excitation spectrum of bulk crystals and thin layers of PtTe$_2$

We explore the broadband excitation spectrum of bulk PtTe$_2$ using electron energy loss spectroscopy and density functional theory. In addition to infrared modes related to intraband 3D Dirac plasmon and interband transitions between the 3D Dirac bands, we observe modes at 3.9, 7.5 and 19.0 eV in the ultraviolet region. The comparison of the excitation spectrum with the calculated orbital-resolved density of states allows us to ascribe spectral features to transitions between specific electronic states. Additionally, we study the thickness dependence of the high-energy plasmon in the PtTe2 thin films. We show that, unlike graphene, the high-energy plasmon in PtTe2 thin film gets red-shifted by 2.5 eV with increasing thickness.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2018

Starfruit-like nodal semimetal to Dirac and Weyl semimetal state in CaAuAs

Band-crossings occurring on a mirror plane are compelled to form a nodal loop in the momentum space without spin-orbit coupling (SOC). In the presence of other equivalent mirror planes, multiple such nodal loops can combine to form interesting nodal-link structures. Here, based on first-principles calculations and an effective $\mathbf{k.p}$ model analysis, we show that CaAuAs hosts a unique starfruit-like nodal-link structure in the bulk electronic dispersion in the absence of SOC. This nodal-link is comprised of three nodal loops, which cross each other at the time-reversal-invariant momentum point $A$. When the SOC is turned on, the nodal loops are gapped out, resulting in a stable Dirac semimetal state with a pair of Dirac points along the $\mathrm{Γ-A}$ direction in the Brillouin zone. The Dirac points are protected by the combination of time reversal, inversion, and $C_3$ rotation symmetries. We show how a systematic elimination of the symmetry constraints yields a Weyl semimetal and eventually a topological insulator state.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2018

Strain-tunable charge carrier mobility of atomically thin phosphorus allotropes

We explore the impact of strain on charge carrier mobility of monolayer $α$, $β$, $γ$ and $δ$-P, the four well known atomically thin allotropes of phosphorus, using density functional theory. Owing to the highly anisotropic band dispersion, the charge carrier mobility of the pristine allotropes is significantly higher (more than 5 times in some cases) in one of the principal directions (zigzag or armchair) as compared to the other. Uniaxial strain (upto 6% compressive/tensile) leads to bandgap alteration in each of the allotropes, especially a direct to indirect bandgap semiconductor transition in $γ$-P and a complete closure of the bandgap in $γ$ and $δ$-P. We find that the charge carrier mobility is enhanced typically by a factor of $\approx 5-10$ in all the allotropes due to uniaxial strain; notably among them a $\approx 250$ (30) times increase of the hole (electron) mobility along the armchair (zigzag) direction is observed in $β$-P ($γ$-P) under a compressive strain, acting in the armchair direction. Interestingly, the preferred electronic conduction direction can also be changed in case of $α$ and $γ$-P, by applying strain.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2018

Negative longitudinal magnetoresistance in the density wave phase of Y$_2$Ir$_2$O$_7$

The ground state of nanowires of single crystalline Pyrochlore Y$_2$Ir$_2$O$_7$ is a density wave. Application of a {\it transverse} magnetic field increases the threshold electric field for the collective de-pinning of the density wave state at low temperature, leading to colossal magnetoresistance for voltages around the de-pinning threshold. This is in striking contrast to the case where even a vanishingly small {\it longitudinal} magnetic field sharply reduces the de-pinning threshold voltage resulting in {\it negative} magnetoresistance. Ruling out several other possibilities we argue that this phenomenon is likely to be a consequence of the chiral anomaly in the gapped out Weyl semimetal phase in Y$_2$Ir$_2$O$_7$.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2018

Nonlinear and anisotropic polarization rotation in two dimensional Dirac materials

We predict nonlinear optical polarization rotation in two dimensional massless Dirac systems including graphene and 8-$Pmmn$ borophene. When illuminated, a continuous wave optical field leads to a nonlinear steady state of photo-excited carriers in the medium. The photo-excited population inversion and the inter-band coherence gives rise to a finite transverse optical conductivity, $σ_{xy} (ω)$. This in turn leads to definitive signatures in associated Kerr and Faraday polarization rotation, which are measurable in a realistic experimental scenario.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2018

Dynamics of edge current in a linearly quenched Haldane model

In a finite time quantum quench of the Haldane model, the Chern number determining the topology of the bulk remains invariant, as long as the dynamics is unitary. Nonetheless, the corresponding boundary attribute, the edge current, displays interesting dynamics. For the case of sudden and adiabatic quenches the post quench edge current is solely determined by the initial and the final Hamiltonians, respectively. However for a finite time ($τ$) linear quench in a Haldane nano ribbon, we show that the evolution of the edge current from the sudden to the adiabatic limit is not monotonic in $τ$, and has a turning point at a characteristic time scale $τ=τ_c$. For small $τ$, the excited states lead to a huge unidirectional surge in the edge current of both the edges. On the other hand, in the limit of large $τ$, the edge current saturates to its expected equilibrium ground state value. This competition between the two limits lead to the observed non-monotonic behavior. Interestingly, $τ_c$ seems to depend only on the Semenoff mass and the Haldane flux. A similar dynamics for the edge current is also expected in other systems with topological phases.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2017

Dynamic current-current susceptibility in 3D Dirac and Weyl semimetals

We study the linear response of doped three dimensional Dirac and Weyl semimetals to vector potentials, by calculating the wave-vector and frequency dependent current-current response function analytically. The longitudinal part of the dynamic current-current response function is then used to study the plasmon dispersion, and the optical conductivity. The transverse response in the static limit yields the orbital magnetic susceptibility. In a Weyl semimetal, along with the current-current response function, all these quantities are significantly impacted by the presence of parallel electric and magnetic fields (a finite ${\bf E}\cdot{\bf B}$ term), and can be used to experimentally explore the chiral anomaly.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2017

Nonlinear, anisotropic and giant photoconductivity in intrinsic and doped graphene

We present a framework to calculate the anisotropic and non-linear photoconductivity for two band systems with application to graphene. In contrast to the usual perturbative (second order in the optical field strength) techniques, we calculate photoconductivity to all orders in the optical field strength. In particular, for graphene, we find the photoresponse to be giant (at large optical field strengths) and anisotropic. The anisotropic photoresponse in graphene is correlated with polarization of the incident field, with the response being similar to that of a half-wave plate. We predict that the anisotropy in the simultaneous measurement of longitudinal ($σ_{xx}$) and transverse $(σ_{yx})$ photoconductivity, with four probes, offers a unique experimental signature of the photo-voltaic response, distinguishing it from the thermal-Seebeck and bolometric effects in photoresponse.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2017

Anisotropic plasmons, Friedel oscillations and dynamical screening in $8-Pmmn$ borophene

$8-Pmmn$ borophene is a polymorph of borophene which hosts an anisotropic tilted Dirac cone. Using a low energy effective Hamiltonian for borophene, we analytically calculate the density-density response function of borophene and study its anisotropic plasmon dispersion and screening properties. We find that the anisotropic plasmon mode in $8-Pmmn$ borophene, remains undamped for higher energies along the mirror symmetry direction. The friedel oscillation in borophene is found to decay as $r^{-3}$ in the large $r$ limit, with both the amplitude as well as the periodicity of the Friedel oscillations being anisotropic.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2017

Anisotropic plasmons, excitons and electron energy loss spectroscopy of phosphorene

In this article, we explore the anisotropic electron energy loss spectrum (EELS) in monolayer phosphorene based on ab-initio time dependent density functional theory calculations. Similar to black phosphorous, the EELS of undoped monolayer phosphorene is characterized by anisotropic excitonic peaks for energies in vicinity of the bandgap, and by interband plasmon peaks for higher energies. On doping, an additional intraband plasmon peak also appears for energies within the bandgap. Similar to other two dimensional systems, the intraband plasmon peak disperses as $ω_{\rm pl} \propto \sqrt{q}$ in both the zigzag and armchair directions in the long wavelength limit, and deviates for larger wavevectors. The anisotropy of the long wavelength plasmon intraband dispersion is found to be inversely proportional to the square root of the ratio of the effective masses: $ω_{\rm pl}(q \hat{y})/ω_{\rm pl}(q \hat{x}) = \sqrt{m_x/m_y}$.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2017

Evidence of density waves in single crystalline nanowires of Pyrochlore Iridates

We present experimental evidence of emergent density wave instability in single crystalline low dimensional wires of Yittrium based Pyrochlore Iridates. We demonstrate electric field induced nonlinear hysteretic switching of the density wave at low temperature, followed by smooth nonlinear conduction at higher temperature (T > 40 K) in $Y_{2-x}Bi_{x}Ir_{2}O_{7}$ with x = 0 and 0.3. AC transport measurements reveal the presence of four different collective relaxation processes which dominate at different temperature scales. There is a strong coupling of the normal charge carriers with the density wave condensate, which is reflected in the linear scaling of the dc conductivity with the collective relaxation rate across a wide range of frequency and temperature regime. The evidence of density wave in low dimensional single crystals of Pyrochlore Iridate could be a precursor to the possible experimental confirmation of the Weyl semimetallic ground state with broken chiral symmetry.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2017

Dynamical polarizability, screening, and plasmons in one, two, and three dimensional massive Dirac systems

We study the density-density response function of a collection of charged massive Dirac particles and present analytical expressions for the dynamical polarization function in one, two and three dimensions. The polarization function is then used to find the dispersion of the plasmon modes, and electrostatic screening of Coulomb interactions within the random phase approximation. We find that for massive Dirac systems, the oscillating screened potential decays as $r^{-1}$, $r^{-2}$ and $r^{-3}$ in one, two, and three dimensions respectively. However for massless Dirac systems there is no electrostatic screening or Friedel oscillation in one dimension, and the oscillating screened potential decays as $r^{-3}$ and $r^{-4}$, in two and three dimensions respectively. Our analytical results for the polarization function will be useful for exploring the physics of massive and massless Dirac materials in different experimental systems with varying dimensionality.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2017

Achievable Rate Region of the Zero-Forcing Precoder in a 2 X 2 MU-MISO Broadcast VLC Channel with Per-LED Peak Power Constraint and Dimming Control

In this paper, we consider the 2 X 2 multi-user multiple-input-single-output (MU-MISO) broadcast visible light communication (VLC) channel with two light emitting diodes (LEDs) at the transmitter and a single photo diode (PD) at each of the two users. We propose an achievable rate region of the Zero-Forcing (ZF) precoder in this 2 X 2 MU-MISO VLC channel under a per-LED peak and average power constraint, where the average optical power emitted from each LED is fixed for constant lighting, but is controllable (referred to as dimming control in IEEE 802.15.7 standard on VLC). We analytically characterize the proposed rate region boundary and show that it is Pareto-optimal. Further analysis reveals that the largest rate region is achieved when the fixed per-LED average optical power is half of the allowed per-LED peak optical power. We also propose a novel transceiver architecture where the channel encoder and dimming control are separated which greatly simplifies the complexity of the transceiver. A case study of an indoor VLC channel with the proposed transceiver reveals that the achievable information rates are sensitive to the placement of the LEDs and the PDs. An interesting observation is that for a given placement of LEDs in a 5 m X 5 m X 3 m room, even with a substantial displacement of the users from their optimum placement, reduction in the achievable rates is not significant. This observation could therefore be used to define "coverage zones" within a room where the reduction in the information rates to the two users is within an acceptable tolerance limit.

cs.IT↗

arXiv2016

Electric-field tunable Dirac semimetal state in phosphorene thin films

We study the electric-field tunable electronic properties of phosphorene thin films, using the framework of density functional theory. We show that phosphorene thin films offer a versatile material platform to study two dimensional Dirac fermions on application of a transverse electric field. Increasing the strength of the transverse electric field beyond a certain critical value in phosphorene leads to the formation of two symmetry protected gapless Dirac fermions states with anisotropic energy dispersion. The spin-orbit coupling splits each of these Dirac state into two spin- polarized Dirac cones which are also protected by non-symmorphic crystal symmetries. Our study shows that the position as well as the carrier velocity of the spin polarized Dirac cone states can be controlled by the strength of the external electric field.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2016

Anisotropic transport of normal metal-barrier-normal metal junctions in monolayer phosphorene

We study transport properties of a phosphorene monolayer in the presence of single and multiple potential barriers of height $U_0$ and width $d$, using both continuum and microscopic lattice models, and show that the nature of electron transport along its armchair edge ($x$ direction) is qualitatively different from its counterpart in both conventional two-dimensional electron gas with Schrödinger-like quasiparticles and graphene or surfaces of topological insulators hosting massless Dirac quasiparticles. We show that the transport, mediated by massive Dirac electrons, allows one to achieve collimated quasiparticle motion along $x$ and thus makes monolayer phosphorene an ideal experimental platform for studying Klein paradox. We study the dependence of the tunneling conductance $G \equiv G_{xx}$ as a function of $d$ and $U_0$, and demonstrate that for a given applied voltage $V$ its behavior changes from oscillatory to decaying function of $d$ for a range of $U_0$ with finite non-zero upper and lower bounds, and provide analytical expression for these bounds within which $G$ decays with $d$. We contrast such behavior of $G$ with that of massless Dirac electrons in graphene and also with that along the zigzag edge ($y$ direction) in phosphorene where the quasiparticles obey an effective Schrödinger equation at low energy. We also study transport through multiple barriers along $x$ and demonstrate that these properties hold for transport through multiple barrier as well. Finally, we suggest concrete experiments which may verify our theoretical predictions.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2016

Four allotropes of semiconducting layered Arsenic which switch into a topological insulator via an electric field: A computational study

We propose four different thermodynamically stable structural phases of arsenic monolayers based on ab-initio density functional theory calculations all of which undergo a topological phase transition on application of a perpendicular electric field. All the four arsenic monolayer allotropes have a wide band gap, varying from 1.21 eV to 3.0 eV (based on GW calculations), and in general they undergo a metal-insulator quantum phase transition on application of uniaxial in-layer strain. Additionally an increasing transverse electric field induces band-inversion at the Γ point in all four monolayer allotropes, leading to a nontrivial topological phase (insulating for three and metallic for one allotrope), characterized by the switching of the Z2 index, from 0 (before band inversion) to 1 (after band inversion). The topological phase tuned by the transverse electric field, should support spin-separated gapless edge states which should manifest in quantum spin Hall effect.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2016

Nonlinear optical conductivity of a generic two band systems, with application to doped and gapped graphene

We present a general formulation to calculate the dynamic optical conductivity, beyond the linear response regime, of any electronic system whose quasiparticle dispersion is described by a two band model. Our phenomenological model is based on the optical Bloch equations. In the steady state regime it yields an analytic solution for the population inversion and the interband coherence, which are nonlinear in the optical field intensity, including finite doping and temperature effects. We explicitly show that the optical nonlinearities are controlled by a single dimensionless parameter which is directly proportional to the incident field strength and inversely proportional to the optical frequency. This identification leads to a unified way to study the dynamical conductivity and the differential transmission spectrum across a wide range of optical frequencies, and optical field strength. We use our formalism to analytically calculate the nonlinear optical conductivity of doped and gapped graphene, deriving the well known universal ac conductivity of $σ_0={e^2}/4\hbar$ in the linear response regime of low optical intensities (or equivalently high frequencies) and non-linear deviations from it which appear at high laser intensities (or low frequencies) including the impact of finite doping and band-gap opening.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2016

Impact of Underlaid Multi-antenna D2D on Cellular Downlink in Massive MIMO Systems

In this paper, we consider a massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) downlink system underlaid with a network of multi-antenna D2D user equipments (UEs). Each D2D transmitter (Tx) uses all its antennas to beamform information towards its desired D2D receiver, which uses only a single antenna for reception. While beamforming at the D2D Tx reduces D2D interference to the neighbouring cellular UEs (CUEs), the cellular-to-D2D interference is also negligible due to highly directional beamforming at the massive MIMO base station. For the above proposed system, we analyze the average per-user spectral efficiency (SE) of CUEs ($R^{c,d}$) as a function of the D2D area spectral efficiency (ASE). Our analysis reveals that for a fixed D2D ASE ($R_0^{(d)}$) and fixed number of D2D antennas ($N$), with increasing density of D2D Txs ($λ$), $R^{c,d}$ increases (for sufficiently large $λ$) and approaches a fundamental limit $R_{\infty}^{c,d}$ as $λ\to \infty$. Also, $R_{\infty}^{c,d}$ depends on $R_{0}^{(d)}$ and $N$, only through the ratio $\frac{R_{0}^{(d)}}{N-1}$, i.e, for a given fundamental limit $R_{\infty}^{c,d}$, the D2D ASE can be approximately doubled with every doubling in $N$.

cs.IT↗