arXiv subjects

Clément Collignon

Publications and source records attributed to Clément Collignon.

8 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2024

Band structure engineering using a moiré polar substrate

Applying long wavelength periodic potentials on quantum materials has recently been demonstrated to be a promising pathway for engineering novel quantum phases of matter. Here, we utilize twisted bilayer boron nitride (BN) as a moiré substrate for band structure engineering. Small-angle-twisted bilayer BN is endowed with periodically arranged up and down polar domains, which imprints a periodic electrostatic potential on a target two-dimensional (2D) material placed on top. As a proof of concept, we use Bernal bilayer graphene as the target material. The resulting modulation of the band structure appears as superlattice resistance peaks, tunable by varying the twist angle, and Hofstadter butterfly physics under a magnetic field. Additionally, we demonstrate the tunability of the moiré potential by altering the dielectric thickness underneath the twisted BN. Finally, we find that near-60°-twisted bilayer BN provides a unique platform for studying the moiré structural effect without the contribution from electrostatic moiré potentials. Tunable moiré polar substrates may serve as versatile platforms to engineer the electronic, optical, and mechanical properties of 2D materials and van der Waals heterostructures.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2023

An electronic band sculpted by oxygen vacancies and indispensable for dilute superconductivity

Dilute superconductivity survives in bulk strontium titanate when the Fermi temperature falls well below the Debye temperature. Here, we show that the onset of the superconducting dome is dopant-dependent. When mobile electrons are introduced by removing oxygen atoms, the superconducting transition survives down to $2 \times 10^{17}$ cm$^{-3}$, but when they are brought by substituting Nb with Ti, the threshold density for superconductivity is an order of magnitude higher. Our study of quantum oscillations reveals a significant difference in the band dispersion between the dilute metals made by these doping routes and our band calculations demonstrate that the rigid band approximation does not hold when mobile electrons are introduced by oxygen vacancies. We identify the band sculpted by theses vacancies as the exclusive locus of superconducting instability in the ultra-dilute limit.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2021

Quasi-isotropic orbital magnetoresistance in lightly doped SrTiO$_{3}$

A magnetic field parallel to an electrical current does not produce a Lorentz force on the charge carriers. Therefore, orbital longitudinal magnetoresistance is unexpected. Here we report on the observation of a large and non saturating magnetoresistance in lightly doped SrTiO$_{3-x}$ independent of the relative orientation of current and magnetic field. We show that this quasi-isotropic magnetoresistance can be explained if the carrier mobility along all orientations smoothly decreases with magnetic field. This anomalous regime is restricted to low concentrations when the dipolar correlation length is longer than the distance between carriers. We identify cyclotron motion of electrons in a potential landscape tailored by polar domains as the cradle of quasi-isotropic orbital magnetoresistance. The result emerges as a challenge to theory and may be a generic feature of lightly-doped quantum paralectric materials.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2020

Heavy non-degenerate electrons in doped strontium titanate

Room-temperature metallicity of lightly doped SrTiO$_3$ is puzzling, because the combination of mobility and the effective mass would imply a mean-free-path (mfp) below the Mott Ioffe Regel (MIR) limit and a scattering time shorter than the Planckian time ($τ_P=\hbar/k_BT$). We present a study of electric resistivity, Seebeck coefficient and inelastic neutron scattering extended to very high temperatures, which deepens the puzzle. Metallic resistivity persists up to 900 K and is accompanied by a large Seebeck coefficient whose magnitude (as well as its temperature and doping dependence) indicates that carriers are becoming heavier with rising temperature. Combining this with neutron scattering data, we find that between 500 K and 900 K, the Bohr radius and the electron wave-length become comparable to each other and twice the lattice parameter. According to our results, between 100 K and 500 K, metallicity is partially driven by temperature-induced amplification of the carrier mass. We contrast this mass amplification of non-degenerate electrons with the better-known case of heavy degenerate electrons. Above 500 K, the mean-free-path continues to shrink with warming in spite of becoming shorter than both the interatomic distance and the thermal wavelength of the electrons. The latter saturates to twice the lattice parameter. Available theories of polaronic quasi-particles do not provide satisfactory explanation for our observations.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2019

Finite-temperature violation of the anomalous transverse Wiedemann-Franz law

The Wiedemann-Franz (WF) law links the ratio of electronic charge and heat conductivity to fundamental constants. It has been tested in numerous solids, but the extent of its relevance to the anomalous transverse transport, which represents the topological nature of the wave function, remains an open question. Here we present a study of anomalous transverse response in the noncollinear antiferromagnet Mn$_{3}$Ge extended from room temperature down to sub-Kelvin temperature and find that the anomalous Lorenz ratio remains close to the Sommerfeld value up to 100 K, but not above. The finite-temperature violation of the WF correlation is caused by a mismatch between the thermal and electrical summations of the Berry curvature, rather than the inelastic scattering as observed in ordinary metals. This interpretation is backed by our theoretical calculations, which reveals a competition between the temperature and the Berry curvature distribution. The accuracy of the experiment is supported by the verification of the Bridgman relation between the anomalous Ettingshausen and Nernst effects. Our results identify the anomalous Lorenz ratio as an extremely sensitive probe of Berry spectrum near the chemical potential.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2019

Chiral domain walls of Mn$_3$Sn and their memory

Magnetic domain walls are topological solitons whose internal structure is set by competing energies which sculpt them. In common ferromagnets, domain walls are known to be of either Bloch or Néel types. Little is established in the case of Mn$_3$Sn, a triangular antiferromagnet with a large room-temperature anomalous Hall effect, where domain nucleation is triggered by a well-defined threshold magnetic field. Here, we show that the domain walls of this system generate an additional contribution to the Hall conductivity tensor and a transverse magnetization. The former is an electric field lying in the same plane with the magnetic field and electric current and therefore a planar Hall effect. We demonstrate that in-plane rotation of spins inside the domain wall would explain both observations and the clockwise or anticlockwise chirality of the walls depends on the history of the field orientation and can be controlled.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2018

Metallicity and superconductivity in doped strontium titanate

Strontium titanate is a wide-gap semiconductor avoiding a ferroelectric instability thanks to quantum fluctuations. This proximity leads to strong screening of static Coulomb interaction and paves the way for the emergence of a very dilute metal with extremely mobile carriers at liquid-helium temperature. Upon warming, mobility decreases by several orders of magnitude. Yet, metallicity persists above room temperature even when the apparent mean-free-path falls below the electron wavelength. The superconducting instability survives at exceptionally low concentrations and beyond the boundaries of Migdal-Eliashberg approximation. An intimate connection between dilute superconductivity and aborted ferroelectricity is widely suspected. In this review, we will give a brief account of ongoing research on bulk strontium titanate as an insulator, a metal and a superconductor.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2017

Superfluid density and carrier concentration across a superconducting dome: the case of SrTi$_{1-x}$Nb$_{x}$O$_{3}$

We present a study of the lower critical field, \hc1, of \STO as a function of carrier concentration with the aim of quantifying the superfluid density. At low carrier concentration (i.e. the underdoped side), superfluid density and the carrier concentration in the normal state are equal within experimental margin. A significant deviation between the two numbers starts at optimal doping and gradually increases with doping. The inverse of the penetration depth and the critical temperature follow parallel evolutions as in the case of cuprate superconductors. In the overdoped regime, the zero-temperature superfluid density becomes much lower than the normal-state carrier density before vanishing all together. We show that the density mismatch and the clean-to-dirty crossover are concomitant. Our results imply that the discrepancy between normal and superconducting densities is expected whenever the superconducting gap becomes small enough to put the system in the dirty limit. A quantitative test of the dirty BCS theory is not straightforward, due to he multiplicity of the bands in superconducting strontium titanate.

cond-mat.supr-con↗