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E. G. Mishchenko

Publications and source records attributed to E. G. Mishchenko.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

Spin and Charge Structure of the Surface States in Topological Insulators

We investigate the spin and charge densities of surface states of the three-dimensional topological insulator $Bi_2Se_3$, starting from the continuum description of the material [Zhang {\em et al.}, Nat. Phys. 5, 438 (2009)]. The spin structure on surfaces other than the 111 surface has additional complexity because of a misalignment of the contributions coming from the two sublattices of the crystal. For these surfaces we expect new features to be seen in the spin-resolved ARPES experiments, caused by a non-helical spin-polarization of electrons at the individual sublattices as well as by the interference of the electron waves emitted coherently from two sublattices. We also show that the position of the Dirac crossing in spectrum of surface states depends on the orientation of the interface. This leads to contact potentials and surface charge redistribution at edges between different facets of the crystal.

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Localized states due to expulsion of resonant impurity levels from the continuum in bilayer graphene

Anderson impurity problem is considered for a graphene bilayer subject to a gap-opening bias. In-gap localized states are produced even when the impurity level overlaps with the continuum of band electrons. The effect depends strongly on the polarity of the applied bias as long as hybridization with the impurity occurs within a single layer. For an impurity level inside the conduction band a positive bias creates the new localized in-gap state. A negative bias does not produce the same result and leads to a simple broadening of the impurity level. The implications for transport are discussed including a possibility of gate-controlled Kondo effect.

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One-dimensional plasmons confined in bilayer graphene p-n junctions

Gapless spectrum of graphene allows easy spatial separation of electrons and holes with an external in-plane electric field. Guided collective plasmon modes can propagate along the separation line, whose amplitude decays with the distance to it. Their spectrum and direction of propagation can be controlled with the strength and direction of in-plane electric field. In case of a bilayer graphene additional control is possible by the perpendicular electric field that opens a gap in the band spectrum of electrons. We investigate guided plasmon spectra in bilayer p-n junctions using hydrodynamics of charged electron liquid.

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Intersubband Edge Singularity in Metallic Nanotubes

Tunneling density of states of both the massless and massive (gapped) particles in metallic carbon nanotubes is known to have anomalous energy dependence. This is the result of coupling to multiple low-energy bosonic excitation (plasmons). For both kinds of particles the ensuing effect is the suppression of the density of states by electron-electron interactions. We demonstrate that the optical absorption between gapless and gapped states is affected by the many-body effects in the opposite way. The absorption probability is enhanced compared with the non-interacting value and develops a power-law frequency dependence with the exponent -0.2 for typical nanotubes.

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Decay of a plasmon into neutral modes in a carbon nanotube

We evaluate the rate of energy loss of a plasmon in a disorder-free carbon nanotube. The plasmon decays into neutral bosonic excitations of the electron liquid. The process is mediated either by phonon-assisted backscattering of a single electron, or Umklapp backscattering of two electrons. To lowest order in the backscattering interactions the partial decay rates are additive. At zero doping the corresponding decay rates scale as power-laws of the temperature with positive and negative exponents for the two mechanisms, respectively. The precise values of the exponents depend on the Luttinger liquid parameter. At finite doping the decay rates are described by universal crossover functions of frequency and chemical potential measured in units of temperature. In the evaluation of the plasmon decay, we concentrate on a finite-length geometry allowing excitation of plasma resonances.

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Guided plasmons in graphene p-n junctions

Spatial separation of electrons and holes in graphene gives rise to existence of plasmon waves confined to the boundary region. Theory of such guided plasmon modes within hydrodynamics of electron-hole liquid is developed. For plasmon wavelengths smaller than the size of charged domains plasmon dispersion is found to be ω~ q^(1/4). Frequency, velocity and direction of propagation of guided plasmon modes can be easily controlled by external electric field. In the presence of magnetic field spectrum of additional gapless magnetoplasmon excitations is obtained. Our findings indicate that graphene is a promising material for nanoplasmonics.

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Spin-Hall Effect in Chiral Electron Systems: from Semiconductor Heterostructures to Topological Insulators

The phenomenon of mesoscopic Spin-Hall effect reveals in a nonequilibrium spin accumulation (driven by electric current) at the edges of a ballistic conductor or, more generally, in the regions with varying electron density. In this paper we review our recent results on spin accumulation in ballistic two-dimensional semiconductor heterostructures with Rashba/Dresselhaus spin orbit interactions, and extend the method developed previously to predict the existince of spin-Hall effect on the surface of three-dimensional topological insulators. The major difference of the new Spin-Hall effect is its magnitude, which is predicted to be much stronger than in semiconductor heterostructures. This happens because in semiconductors the spin accumulation appears due to a small spin-orbit interaction, while the spin-orbit constitutes a leading term in the Hamiltonian of topological insulator.

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The photon absorption edge in superconductors and gapped 1D systems

Opening of a gap in the low-energy excitations spectrum affects the power-law singularity in the photon absorption spectrum $A(Ω)$. In the normal state, the singularity, $A(Ω)\propto [D/(Ω-Ω_{\rm th})]^α$, is characterized by an interaction-dependent exponent $α$. On the contrary, in the supeconducting state the divergence, $A(Ω)\propto (D/Δ)^α(Ω-\tildeΩ_{\rm th})^{-1/2}$, is interaction-independent, while threshold is shifted, $\tildeΩ_{\rm th}=Ω_{\rm th}+Δ$; the ``normal-metal'' form of $A(Ω)$ resumes at $(Ω-\tildeΩ_{\rm th})\gtrsim Δ\exp(1/α)$. If the core hole is magnetic, it creates in-gap states; these states transform drastically the absorption edge. In addition, processes of scattering off the magnetic core hole involving spin-flip give rise to inelastic absorption with one or several {\it real} excited pairs in the final state, yielding a structure of peaks in $A(Ω)$ at multiples of $2Δ$ above the threshold frequency. The above conclusions apply to a broad class of systems, e.g., Mott insulators, where a gap opens at the Fermi level due to the interactions.

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Dynamic conductivity in graphene beyond linear response

The independence of the dynamic conductivity of intrinsic graphene of frequency takes its origin in the compensation of the vanishing density of states by the diverging matrix element of the corresponding interband transition. The applicability of the linear response approach, however, breaks down when this matrix element becomes comparable with the inverse electron lifetime. We show that the physics of the ac conductivity in this regime is determined by Rabi oscillations and obtain it beyond the first order perturbation theory. Under strong applied electric fields the induced current eventually saturates at a value determined by the frequency and the lifetime. We also calculate the electromagnetic response of a graphene sheet and find that the optical transparency is increased by the non-linear effects and make experimental predictions.

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Mesoscopic Spin-Hall Effect in 2D electron systems with smooth boundaries

Spin-Hall effect in ballistic 2D electron gas with Rashba-type spin-orbit coupling and smooth edge confinement is studied. We predict that the interplay of semiclassical electron motion and quantum dynamics of spins leads to several distinct features in spin density along the edge that originate from accumulation of turning points from many classical trajectories. Strong peak is found near a point of the vanishing of electron Fermi velocity in the lower spin-split subband. It is followed by a strip of negative spin density that extends until the crossing of the local Fermi energy with the degeneracy point where the two spin subbands intersect. Beyond this crossing there is a wide region of a smooth positive spin density. The total amount of spin accumulated in each of these features exceeds greatly the net spin across the entire edge. The features become more pronounced for shallower boundary potentials, controlled by gating in typical experimental setups.

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Minimal conductivity in graphene: interaction corrections and ultraviolet anomaly

Conductivity of a disorder-free intrinsic graphene is studied to the first order in the long-range Coulomb interaction and is found to be σ=σ_0(1+0.01 g), where 'g' is the dimensionless ("fine structure") coupling constant. The calculations are performed using three different methods: i) electron polarization function, ii) Kubo formula for the conductivity, iii) quantum transport equation. Surprisingly, these methods yield different results unless a proper ultraviolet cut-off procedure is implemented, which requires that the interaction potential in the effective Dirac Hamiltonian is cut-off at small distances (large momenta).

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Scattering of plasmons at the intersection of two metallic nanotubes: Implications for tunnelling

We study theoretically the plasmon scattering at the intersection of two metallic carbon nanotubes. We demonstrate that for a small angle of crossing, $θ\ll 1$, the transmission coefficient is an oscillatory function of $λ/θ$, where $λ$ is the interaction parameter of the Luttinger liquid in an individual nanotube. We calculate the tunnel density of states, $ν(ω,x)$, as a function of energy, $ω$, and distance, $x$, from the intersection. In contrast to a single nanotube, we find that, in the geometry of crossed nanotubes, conventional "rapid" oscillations in $ν(ω,x)$ due to the plasmon scattering acquire an aperiodic "slow-breathing" envelope which has $λ/θ$ nodes.

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Plasmons in the presence of Tamm-Shockley states with Rashba splitting at noble metal surfaces

Au(111) or similar noble metal surfaces feature Tamm-Shockley surface states that are known to possess considerable spin-orbit splitting of the Rashba type of order $Δ=0.1$ eV. When interacting with an electromagnetic field such states are expected to have resonances when the frequency of the field is near the energy of the spin-orbit splitting $Δ$. These resonances originate in the intersubband transitions between spin-split subbands. Such resonances can be observed in the frequency dependence of the surface impedance. Plasmons in thin metal films are gapless and can be strongly affected by these spin resonances, acquiring significant modification of the spectrum when it intersects the $ω=Δ$ line. Finally, an interesting demonstration of the intersubband resonances can be obtained when metal films are coated with ionic dielectrics that have a frequency of longitudinal/transverse optical phonons above/below $Δ$. The dielectric function between the two optical phonon frequencies is negative which forbids propagation of conventional plasmon-polaritons. However, the presence of spin-orbit-split surface states allows plasmon-polaritons to exist in this otherwise forbidden range of frequencies.

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Charge response function and a novel plasmon mode in graphene

Polarizability of non-interacting 2D Dirac electrons has a 1/\sqrt{qv-ω} singularity at the boundary of electron-hole excitations. The screening of this singularity by long-range electron-electron interactions is usually treated within the random phase approximation. The latter is exact only in the limit of N -> infinity, where N is the ``color'' degeneracy. We find that the ladder-type vertex corrections become crucial close to the threshold as the ratio of the n-th order ladder term to the same order RPA contribution is (\ln|qv-ω|)^n/N^n$. We perform analytical summation of the infinite series of ladder diagrams which describe excitonic effect. Beyond the threshold, qv>ω, the real part of the polarization operator is found to be positive leading to the appearance of a strong and narrow plasmon resonance.

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Zero-bias tunneling anomaly in a clean 2D electron gas caused by smooth density variations

We show that smooth variations, δn({\bf r}), of the local electron concentration in a clean 2D electron gas give rise to a zero-bias anomaly in the tunnel density of states, ν(ω), even in the absence of scatterers, and thus, without the Friedel oscillations. The energy width, ω_0, of the anomaly scales with the magnitude, δn, and characteristic spatial extent, D, of the fluctuations as (δn/D)^{2/3}, while the relative magnitude δν/νscales as (δn/D). With increasing ω, the averaged δνoscillates with ω. We demonstrate that the origin of the anomaly is a weak curving of the classical electron trajectories due to the smooth inhomogeneity of the gas. This curving suppresses the corrections to the electron self-energy which come from the virtual processes involving two electron-hole pairs

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Spin-Hall edge spin polarization in a ballistic 2D electron system

Universal properties of spin-Hall effect in ballistic 2D electron systems are addressed. The net spin polarization across the edge of the conductor is second order, ~λ^2, in spin-orbit coupling constant independent of the form of the boundary potential, with the contributions of normal and evanescent modes each being ~ \sqrtλ but of opposite signs. This general result is confirmed by the analytical solution for a hard-wall boundary, which also yields the detailed distribution of the local spin polarization. The latter shows fast (Friedel) oscillations with the spin-orbit coupling entering via the period of slow beatings only. Long-wavelength contributions of evanescent and normal modes exactly cancel each other in the spectral distribution of the local spin density.

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Smearing of the 2D Kohn anomaly in a nonquantizing magnetic field: Implications for the interaction effects

Thermodynamic and transport characteristics of a clean two-dimensional interacting electron gas are shown to be sensitive to the weak perpendicular magnetic field even at temperatures much higher than the cyclotron energy, when the quantum oscillations are completely washed out. We demonstrate this sensitivity for two interaction-related characteristics: electron lifetime and the tunnel density of states. The origin of the sensitivity is traced to the field-induced smearing of the Kohn anomaly; this smearing is the result of curving of the semiclassical electron trajectories in magnetic field.

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