arXiv subjects

Andreas Thurn

Publications and source records attributed to Andreas Thurn.

14 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2024

Atomically Flat Dielectric Patterns for Band Gap Engineering and Lateral Junction Formation in MoSe$_2$ Monolayers

Combining a precise sputter etching method with subsequent AlO$_x$ growth within an atomic layer deposition chamber enables fabrication of atomically flat lateral patterns of SiO$_2$ and AlO$_x$. The transfer of MoSe$_2$ monolayers onto these dielectrically modulated substrates results in formation of lateral heterojunctions, with the flat substrate topography leading to minimal strain across the junction. Kelvin probe force microscopy (KPFM) measurements show significant variations in the contact potential difference (CPD) across the interface, with AlO$_x$ regions inducing a 230~mV increase in CPD. Spatially resolved photoluminescence spectroscopy reveals shifts in spectral weight of neutral and charged exciton species across the different dielectric regions. On the AlO$_x$ side, the Fermi energy moves closer to the conduction band, leading to a higher trion-to-exciton ratio, indicating a bandgap shift consistent with CPD changes. In addition, transient reflection spectroscopy highlights the influence of the dielectric environment on carrier dynamics, with the SiO$_2$ side exhibiting rapid carrier decay typical of neutral exciton recombination. In contrast, the AlO$_x$ side shows slower, mixed decay behavior consistent with conversion of trions back into excitons. These results demonstrate how dielectric substrate engineering can tune the electronic and optical characteristics of proximal two-dimensional materials, allowing scalable fabrication of advanced junctions for novel (opto)electronics applications.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2024

Laser Activation of Single Group-IV Colour Centres in Diamond

Spin-photon interfaces based on group-IV colour centres in diamond offer a promising platform for quantum networks. A key challenge in the field is realizing precise single-defect positioning and activation, which is crucial for scalable device fabrication. Here we address this problem by demonstrating a two-step fabrication method for tin vacancy (SnV-) centres that uses site-controlled ion implantation followed by local femtosecond laser annealing with in-situ spectral monitoring. The ion implantation is performed with sub-50 nm resolution and a dosage that is controlled from hundreds of ions down to single ions per site, limited by Poissonian statistics. Using this approach, we successfully demonstrate site-selective creation and modification of single SnV- centres. The technique opens a window onto materials tuning at the single defect level, and provides new insight into defect structures and dynamics during the annealing process. While demonstrated for SnV- centres, this versatile approach can be readily generalised to other implanted colour centres in diamond and wide-bandgap materials.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2023

Self-induced ultrafast electron-hole plasma temperature oscillations in nanowire lasers

Nanowire lasers can be monolithically and site-selectively integrated onto silicon photonic circuits. To assess their full potential for ultrafast opto-electronic devices, a detailed understanding of their lasing dynamics is crucial. However, the roles played by their resonator geometry and the microscopic processes that mediate energy exchange between the photonic, electronic, and phononic subsystems are largely unexplored. Here, we study the dynamics of GaAs-AlGaAs core-shell nanowire lasers at cryogenic temperatures using a combined experimental and theoretical approach. Our results indicate that these NW lasers exhibit sustained intensity oscillations with frequencies ranging from 160 GHz to 260 GHz. As the underlying physical mechanism, we identified self-induced electron-hole plasma temperature oscillations resulting from a dynamic competition between photoinduced carrier heating and cooling via phonon scattering. These dynamics are intimately linked to the strong interaction between the lasing mode and the gain material, which arises from the wavelength-scale dimensions of these lasers. We anticipate that our results could lead to new approaches for ultrafast intensity and phase modulation of chip-integrated nanoscale semiconductor lasers.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2014

New Variables for Classical and Quantum Gravity in all Dimensions V. Isolated Horizon Boundary Degrees of Freedom

In this paper, we generalise the treatment of isolated horizons in loop quantum gravity, resulting in a Chern-Simons theory on the boundary in the four-dimensional case, to non-distorted isolated horizons in 2(n+1)-dimensional spacetimes. The key idea is to generalise the four-dimensional isolated horizon boundary condition by using the Euler topological density of a spatial slice of the black hole horizon as a measure of distortion. The resulting symplectic structure on the horizon coincides with the one of higher-dimensional SO(2(n+1))-Chern-Simons theory in terms of a Peldan-type hybrid connection and resembles closely the usual treatment in 3+1 dimensions. We comment briefly on a possible quantisation of the horizon theory. Here, some subtleties arise since higher-dimensional non-Abelian Chern-Simons theory has local degrees of freedom. However, when replacing the natural generalisation to higher dimensions of the usual boundary condition by an equally natural stronger one, it is conceivable that the problems originating from the local degrees of freedom are avoided, thus possibly resulting in a finite entropy.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2013

Loop quantum gravity without the Hamiltonian constraint

We show that under certain technical assumptions, including the existence of a constant mean curvature (CMC) slice and strict positivity of the scalar field, general relativity conformally coupled to a scalar field can be quantised on a partially reduced phase space, meaning reduced only with respect to the Hamiltonian constraint and a proper gauge fixing. More precisely, we introduce, in close analogy to shape dynamics, the generator of a local conformal transformation acting on both, the metric and the scalar field, which coincides with the CMC gauge condition. A new metric, which is invariant under this transformation, is constructed and used to define connection variables which can be quantised by standard loop quantum gravity methods. While it is hard to address dynamical problems in this framework (due to the complicated 'time' function), it seems, due to good accessibility properties of the CMC gauge, to be well suited for problems such as the computation of black hole entropy, where actual physical states can be counted and the dynamics is only of indirect importance. The corresponding calculation yields the surprising result that the usual prescription of fixing the Barbero-Immirzi parameter beta to a constant value in order to obtain the well-known formula S = a(Phi) A/(4G) does not work for the black holes under consideration, while a recently proposed prescription involving an analytic continuation of beta to the case of a self-dual space-time connection yields the correct result. Also, the interpretation of the geometric operators gets an interesting twist, which exemplifies the deep relationship between observables and the choice of a time function and has consequences for loop quantum cosmology.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2013

New Variables for Classical and Quantum Gravity in all Dimensions I. Hamiltonian Analysis

Loop Quantum Gravity heavily relies on a connection formulation of General Relativity such that 1. the connection Poisson commutes with itself and 2. the corresponding gauge group is compact. This can be achieved starting from the Palatini or Holst action when imposing the time gauge. Unfortunately, this method is restricted to D+1 = 4 spacetime dimensions. However, interesting String theories and Supergravity theories require higher dimensions and it would therefore be desirable to have higher dimensional Supergravity loop quantisations at one's disposal in order to compare these approaches. In this series of papers, we take first steps towards this goal. The present first paper develops a classical canonical platform for a higher dimensional connection formulation of the purely gravitational sector. The new ingredient is a different extension of the ADM phase space than the one used in LQG, which does not require the time gauge and which generalises to any dimension D > 1. The result is a Yang-Mills theory phase space subject to Gauss, spatial diffeomorphism and Hamiltonian constraint as well as one additional constraint, called the simplicity constraint. The structure group can be chosen to be SO(1,D) or SO(D+1) and the latter choice is preferred for purposes of quantisation.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2013

New Variables for Classical and Quantum Gravity in all Dimensions II. Lagrangian Analysis

We rederive the results of our companion paper, for matching spacetime and internal signature, by applying in detail the Dirac algorithm to the Palatini action. While the constraint set of the Palatini action contains second class constraints, by an appeal to the method of gauge unfixing, we map the second class system to an equivalent first class system which turns out to be identical to the first class constraint system obtained via the extension of the ADM phase space performed in our companion paper. Central to our analysis is again the appropriate treatment of the simplicity constraint. Remarkably, the simplicity constraint invariant extension of the Hamiltonian constraint, that is a necessary step in the gauge unfixing procedure, involves a correction term which is precisely the one found in the companion paper and which makes sure that the Hamiltonian constraint derived from the Palatini Lagrangian coincides with the ADM Hamiltonian constraint when Gauss and simplicity constraints are satisfied. We therefore have rederived our new connection formulation of General Relativity from an independent starting point, thus confirming the consistency of this framework.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2013

New Variables for Classical and Quantum Gravity in all Dimensions III. Quantum Theory

We quantise the new connection formulation of D+1 dimensional General Relativity developed in our companion papers by Loop Quantum Gravity (LQG) methods. It turns out that all the tools prepared for LQG straightforwardly generalise to the new connection formulation in higher dimensions. The only new challenge is the simplicity constraint. While its "diagonal" components acting at edges of spin network functions are easily solved, its "off-diagonal" components acting at vertices are non trivial and require a more elaborate treatment.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2013

New Variables for Classical and Quantum Gravity in all Dimensions IV. Matter Coupling

We employ the techniques introduced in the companion papers to derive a connection formulation of Lorentzian General Relativity coupled to Dirac fermions in dimensions D+1 > 2 with compact gauge group. The technique that accomplishes that is similar to the one that has been introduced in 3+1 dimensions already: First one performs a canonical analysis of Lorentzian General Relativity using the time gauge and then introduces an extension of the phase space analogous to the one employed in the first paper of this series to obtain a connection theory with SO(D+1) as the internal gauge group subject to additional constraints. The success of this method rests heavily on the strong similarity of the Lorentzian and Euclidean Clifford algebras. A quantisation of the Hamiltonian constraint is provided.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2013

On the Implementation of the Canonical Quantum Simplicity Constraint

In this paper, we are going to discuss several approaches to solve the quadratic and linear simplicity constraints in the context of the canonical formulations of higher dimensional General Relativity and Supergravity developed in our companion papers. Since the canonical quadratic simplicity constraint operators have been shown to be anomalous in any dimension D>2, non-standard methods have to be employed to avoid inconsistencies in the quantum theory. We show that one can choose a subset of quadratic simplicity constraint operators which are non-anomalous among themselves and allow for a natural unitary map of the spin networks in the kernel of these simplicity constraint operators to the SU(2)-based Ashtekar-Lewandowski Hilbert space in D=3. The linear constraint operators on the other hand are non-anomalous by themselves, however their solution space will be shown to differ in D=3 from the expected Ashtekar-Lewandowski Hilbert space. We comment on possible strategies to make a connection to the quadratic theory. Also, we comment on the relation of our proposals to existing work in the spin foam literature and how these works could be used in the canonical theory. We emphasise that many ideas developed in this paper are certainly incomplete and should be considered as suggestions for possible starting points for more satisfactory treatments in the future.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2013

Towards Loop Quantum Supergravity (LQSG) I. Rarita-Schwinger Sector

In our companion papers, we managed to derive a connection formulation of Lorentzian General Relativity in D+1 dimensions with compact gauge group SO(D+1) such that the connection is Poisson commuting, which implies that Loop Quantum Gravity quantisation methods apply. We also provided the coupling to standard matter. In this paper, we extend our methods to derive a connection formulation of a large class of Lorentzian signature Supergravity theories, in particular 11d SUGRA and 4d, N = 8 SUGRA, which was in fact the motivation to consider higher dimensions. Starting from a Hamiltonian formulation in the time gauge which yields a Spin(D) theory, a major challenge is to extend the internal gauge group to Spin(D+1) in presence of the Rarita-Schwinger field. This is non trivial because SUSY typically requires the Rarita-Schwinger field to be a Majorana fermion for the Lorentzian Clifford algebra and Majorana representations of the Clifford algebra are not available in the same spacetime dimension for both Lorentzian and Euclidean signature. We resolve the arising tension and provide a background independent representation of the non trivial Dirac antibracket *-algebra for the Majorana field which significantly differs from the analogous construction for Dirac fields already available in the literature.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2013

Towards Loop Quantum Supergravity (LQSG) II. p-Form Sector

In our companion paper, we focussed on the quantisation of the Rarita-Schwinger sector of Supergravity theories in various dimensions by using an extension of Loop Quantum Gravity to all spacetime dimensions. In this paper, we extend this analysis by considering the quantisation of additional bosonic fields necessary to obtain a complete SUSY multiplet next to graviton and gravitino in various dimensions. As a generic example, we study concretely the quantisation of the 3-index photon of 11d SUGRA, but our methods easily extend to more general p-form fields. Due to the presence of a Chern-Simons term for the 3-index photon, which is due to local SUSY, the theory is self-interacting and its quantisation far from straightforward. Nevertheless, we show that a reduced phase space quantisation with respect to the 3-index photon Gauss constraint is possible. Specifically, the Weyl algebra of observables, which deviates from the usual CCR Weyl algebras by an interesting twist contribution proportional to the level of the Chern-Simons theory, admits a background independent state of the Narnhofer-Thirring type.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2013

On a partially reduced phase space quantisation of general relativity conformally coupled to a scalar field

The purpose of this paper is twofold: On the one hand, after a thorough review of the matter free case, we supplement the derivations in our companion paper on 'loop quantum gravity without the Hamiltonian constraint' with calculational details and extend the results to standard model matter, a cosmological constant, and non-compact spatial slices. On the other hand, we provide a discussion on the role of observables, focussed on the situation of a symmetry exchange, which is key to our derivation. Furthermore, we comment on the relation of our model to reduced phase space quantisations based on deparametrisation.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2012

Towards Loop Quantum Supergravity (LQSG)

Should nature be supersymmetric, then it will be described by Quantum Supergravity at least in some energy regimes. The currently most advanced description of Quantum Supergravity and beyond is Superstring Theory/M-Theory in 10/11 dimensions. String Theory is a top-to-bottom approach to Quantum Supergravity in that it postulates a new object, the string, from which classical Supergravity emerges as a low energy limit. On the other hand, one may try more traditional bottom-to-top routes and apply the techniques of Quantum Field Theory. Loop Quantum Gravity (LQG) is a manifestly background independent and non-perturbative approach to the quantisation of classical General Relativity, however, so far mostly without supersymmetry. The main obstacle to the extension of the techniques of LQG to the quantisation of higher dimensional Supergravity is that LQG rests on a specific connection formulation of General Relativity which exists only in D+1 = 4 dimensions. In this Letter we introduce a new connection formulation of General Relativity which exists in all space-time dimensions. We show that all LQG techniques developed in D+1 = 4 can be transferred to the new variables in all dimensions and describe how they can be generalised to the new types of fields that appear in Supergravity theories as compared to standard matter, specifically Rarita-Schwinger and p-form gauge fields.

gr-qc↗