arXiv subjects

C. J. Lambert

Publications and source records attributed to C. J. Lambert.

At least 73 records · Page 4Linked to original sources

arXiv1999

Fractional quantum conductance in carbon nanotubes

Using a scattering technique based on a parametrized linear combination of atomic orbitals Hamiltonian, we calculate the ballistic quantum conductance of multi-wall carbon nanotubes. We find that inter-wall interactions not only block some of the quantum conductance channels, but also redistribute the current non-uniformly over the individual tubes across the structure. Our results provide a natural explanation for the unexpected integer and non-integer conductance values reported for multi-wall nanotubes in Ref.[S. Frank, P. Poncharal, Z.L. Wang, and W. A. de Heer, Science 280, 1744 (1998)]

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv1999

Superconducting Proximity Effect and Universal Conductance Fluctuations

We examine universal conductance fluctuations (UCFs) in mesoscopic normal-superconducting-normal (N-S-N) structures using a numerical solution of the Bogoliubov - de Gennes equation. We discuss two cases depending on the presence (``open'' structure) or absence (``closed'' structure) of quasiparticle transmission. In contrast to N-S structures, where the onset of superconductivity increases fluctuations, we find that UCFs are suppressed by superconductivity for N-S-N structures. We demonstrate that the fluctuations in ``open'' and ``closed'' structures exhibit distinct responses to an applied magnetic field and to an imposed phase variation of the superconducting order parameter.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv1999

Phase-coherent tunneling through mesoscopic superconductor coupled with superconducting and normal metal electrodes

Phase-coherent diffusive transport through mesoscopic hybrid superconductor/normal metal tunneling structures is investigated. For a N-s-S two-barrier tunneling system with bulk S and N electrodes coupled by a mesoscopic superconducting constriction s, zero-bias conductance and non-linear I-V curves are calculated under the assumption that the dwell times of quasiparticles in the s region is shorter than inelastic relaxation time. It is shown that the low voltage conductance of this system determined by the Andreev reflection processes may exceed the conductance in the normal state and its value is very sensitive to the weak pairing interaction of electrons in the s region. We show that even weak pairing electron interaction may result in the significant qualitative and quantitative change of the conductance temperature dependence with respect to the case of structures with the normal mesoscopic region. We calculate the I-V curves and show that they depend on the applied voltage in a non-monotonic way, therefore differential conductance becomes negative with increasing voltage. Such behavior is due to the voltage dependence of the order parameter in the constriction and the phase difference, phi, between the S and s superconductors. It is shown that if the tunneling processes determine the form of the quasiparticle distribution function in the s superconductor, the phase, phi, is stationary at arbitrary voltages. For quasiparticle tunneling interferometers in which the mesoscopic superconductor,s, couples the superconductor,S, and the normal metal,N, the zero bias conductance, as a function of the phase difference between the S electrodes is investigated. It is shown that the amplitude of the conductance oscillations may exceed the conductance of this structure in the normal state.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv1999

Lattice-dynamics of a Disordered solid-solid Interface

Generic properties of elastic phonon transport at a disordered interface are studied. The results show that phonon transmittance is a strong function of frequency and the disorder correlation length. At frequencies lower than the van Hove singularity the transmittance at a given frequency increases as the correlation length decreases. At low frequencies, this is reflected by different power-laws for phonon conductance across correlated and uncorrelated disordered interfaces which are in approximate agreement with perturbation theory of an elastic continuum. These results can be understood in terms of simple mosaic and two-colour models of the interface.

cond-mat↗

arXiv1999

Crossover between ballistic and diffusive regime of the spin-conductance and CPP-GMR in magnetic multilayered nanostructures

We analyze the interplay between disorder and band structure in current perpendicular to the planes (CPP) giant magnetoresistance (GMR). We consider finite magnetic multilayers attached to pure crystalline leads, described by a tight-binding simple cubic two-band model (s-d). Several models of disorder are considered, including random on-site potentials, lattice distortions, impurities, vacancies, and cross-section fluctuations. Magneto-transport properties are calculated in the zero-temperature zero-bias limit, within the Landauer-Buttiker formalism. Using a very efficient numerical scattering technique, we are able to perform simulations, over large length scales, and to investigate spin-transport in the ballistic, diffusive and localized regimes, as well as the crossover between them. The competition between disorder-induced mean free path reduction and disorder-induced spin asymmetry enhancement of the conductance highlights several different regimes of GMR.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv1999

Breakdown of the resistor model of CPP-GMR in magnetic multilayered nanostructures

We study the effect on CPP GMR of changing the order of the layers in a multilayer. Using a tight-binding simple cubic two band model (s-d), magneto-transport properties are calculated in the zero-temperature, zero-bias limit, within the Landauer-Buttiker formalism. We demonstrate that for layers of different thicknesses formed from a single magnetic metal and multilayers formed from two magnetic metals, the GMR ratio and its dependence on disorder is sensitive to the order of the layers. This effect disappears in the limit of large disorder, where the results of the widely-used Boltzmann approach to transport are restored.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv1999

Distribution of time-constants for tunneling through a 1D Disordered Chain

The dynamics of electronic tunneling through a disordered 1D chain of finite length is considered. We calculate distributions of the transmission coefficient T, Wigner delay time and, $τ_ϕ$ and the transport time, $τ_t=Tτ_ϕ$. The central bodies of these distributions have a power-law form, what can be understood in terms of the resonant tunneling through localised states.

cond-mat.dis-nn↗

arXiv1999

Lévy flights in quantum transport in quasi-ballistic wires

Conductance fluctuations, localization and statistics of Lyapunov exponents are studied numerically in pure metallic wires with rough boundaries (quasi-ballistic wires). We find that the correlation energy of conductance fluctuations scales anomalously with the sample dimensions, indicating the role of Lévy flights. Application of a magnetic field deflects the Lévy flights which reduces the localization length. This deflection also breaks the geometrical flux cancellation and restores the usual Aharonov-Bohm type magneto-conductance fluctuations.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv1999

A Hartree-Fock Study of Persistent Currents in Disordered Rings

For a system of spinless fermions in a disordered mesoscopic ring, interactions can give rise to an enhancement of the persistent current by orders of magnitude. The increase in the current is associated with a charge reorganization of the ground state. The interaction strength for which this reorganization takes place is sample-dependent and the log-averages over the ensemble are not representative. In this paper we demonstrate that the Hartree-Fock method closely reproduces results obtained by exact diagonalization. For spinless fermions subject to a short-range Coulomb repulsion U we show that due to charge reorganization the derivative of the persistent current is a discontinuous function of U. Having established that the Hartree-Fock method works well in one dimension, we present corresponding results for persistent currents in two coupled chains.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv1999

Suppression of Giant Magnetoresistance by a superconducting contact

We predict that current perpendicular to the plane (CPP) giant magnetoresistance (GMR) in a phase-coherent magnetic multilayer is suppressed when one of the contacts is superconducting. This is a consequence of a superconductivity-induced magneto-resistive (SMR) effect, whereby the conductance of the ferromagnetically aligned state is drastically reduced by superconductivity. To demonstrate this effect, we compute the GMR ratio of clean (Cu/Co)_nCu and (Cu/Co)_nPb multilayers, described by an ab-initio spd tight binding Hamiltonian. By analyzing a simpler model with two orbitals per site, we also show that the suppression survives in the presence of elastic scattering by impurities.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv1999

Infinite magnetoresistance of magnetic multilayers

We examine transport properties of a magnetic superlattice with current perpendicular to the planes. In the limit that the phase-breaking and spin flip scattering lengths are greater than the system size, a multiple-scattering approach is used to calculate the 4-probe conductance. We show that by tuning the strength of tunnel barriers placed between the current and voltage probes giant magnetoresistance ratios of arbitrary strength and size are achievable.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv1998

Anomalous transport in normal-superconducting and ferromagnetic-superconducting nanostructures

We have calculated the temperature dependence of the conductance variation ($δS(T)$) of mesoscopic superconductor normal metal(S/N) structures, in the diffusive regime, analysing both weak and strong proximity effects. We show that in the case of a weak proximity effect there are two peaks in the dependence of $δS(T)$ on temperature. One of them (known from previous studies) corresponds to a temperature $T_1$ of order of the Thouless energy ($ε_{Th}$), and another, newly predicted maximum, occurs at a temperature $T_2$ where the energy gap in the superconductor $Δ(T_2)$ is of order $ε_{Th}$. In the limit $L_ϕ<L$ the temperature $T_1$ is determined by $D \hbar /L^2_ϕ$ ($L_ϕ$ is the phase breaking length), and not $ε_{Th}$. We have also calculated the voltage dependence $ δS(V)$ for a S/F structure (F is a ferromagnet) and predict non-monotonic behaviour at voltages of order the Zeeman splitting.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv1998

Sub-gap conductance in ferromagnetic-superconducting mesoscopic structures

We study the sub-gap conductance of a ferromagnetic mesoscopic region attached to a ferromagnetic and a superconducting electrode by means of tunnel junctions. In the absence of the exchange field, the ratio $r= γ/ ε_T$ of the two tunnel junction resistances determines the behaviour of the sub-gap conductance which possesses a zero-bias peak for $r\gg 1$ and for $r\ll 1$ a peak at finite voltage. We show that the inclusion of the exchange field leads to a peak splitting for $r\ll 1$, while it shifts the zero-bias anomaly to finite voltages for $r\gg 1$.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv1998

General Green's function formalism for transport calculations with spd-Hamiltonians and giant magnetoresistance in Co and Ni based magnetic multilayers

A novel, general Green's function technique for elastic spin-dependent transport calculations is presented, which (i) scales linearly with system size and (ii) allows straightforward application to general tight-binding Hamiltonians (spd in the present work). The method is applied to studies of conductance and giant magnetoresistance (GMR) of magnetic multilayers in CPP (current perpendicular to planes) geometry in the limit of large coherence length. The magnetic materials considered are Co and Ni, with various non-magnetic materials from the 3d, 4d, and 5d transition metal series. Realistic tight-binding models for them have been constructed with the use of density functional calculations. We have identified three qualitatively different cases which depend on whether or not the bands (densities of states) of a non-magnetic metal (i) form an almost perfect match with one of spin sub-bands of the magnetic metal (as in Cu/Co spin valves); (ii) have almost pure sp character at the Fermi level (e.g. Ag); (iii) have almost pure d character at the Fermi energy (e.g. Pd, Pt). The key parameters which give rise to a large GMR ratio turn out to be (i) a strong spin polarization of the magnetic metal, (ii) a large energy offset between the conduction band of the non-magnetic metal and one of spin sub-bands of the magnetic metal, and (iii) strong interband scattering in one of spin sub-bands of a magnetic metal. The present results show that GMR oscillates with variation of the thickness of either non-magnetic or magnetic layers, as observed experimentally.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv1998

Universal correlations in vibrational spectra of complex crystals

We study spectral statistics of lattice modes in a disordered crystal and in a crystal with a complex unit cell. The correlations of the eigenmode frequencies of a block of a disordered solid is found to obey the GOE Wigner-Dyson statistics. In contrast, the set of eigenfrequencies of a crystal with a complex unit cell taken at the same point ${\bf Q}\not=0$ in the Brillouin zone exhibit correlations specific to the GUE universality class.

cond-mat↗

arXiv1998

Lattice-dynamical calculation of phonon scattering at a disordered interface

For an fcc crystal with central force interactions and separately for a scalar model on a square lattice, we compute exactly the phonon transmission coefficient $T(ω)$ through a disordered planar interface between two identical semi - infinite leads. At high frequencies $T(ω)$ exhibits a strong frequency dependence which is determined by the correlation length of the disorder.

cond-mat↗

arXiv1998

Conductance Oscillations in Transition Metal Superlattices

We present a numerical study of conductance oscillations of transition metal multilayers as a function of layer thickness. Using a material-specific tight-binding model, we show that for disorder-free layers with random thicknesses but clean interfaces, long-period oscillations in the conductance can occur, which are reminiscent of those found in structures exhibiting GMR. Using a heuristic effective mass model, we argue that these oscillations arise from beating between the Fermi wavevector and a class of wavevectors characteristic of the superlattice structure.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv1998

Conductance suppression in normal metal-superconductor mesoscopic strucutres

Using a scattering matrix approach and quasiclassical Green's function technique, we calculate the conductance of the S/N system (see Fig.1). We establish that the difference between the superconducting and normal state conductance $(δG = G_s - G_n)$ is negative for large S/N interface resistances $(R_{S/N})$ and changes sign with decreasing $R_{S/N}$. The comparision of the result obtained with experimental data is carried out.

cond-mat.supr-con↗