arXiv subjects

Geoff C. Gardner

Publications and source records attributed to Geoff C. Gardner.

5 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2023

Multimode Ultrastrong Coupling in Three-Dimensional Photonic-Crystal Cavities

Recent theoretical studies have highlighted the role of spatially varying cavity electromagnetic fields in exploring novel cavity quantum electrodynamics (cQED) phenomena, such as the potential realization of the elusive Dicke superradiant phase transition. One-dimensional photonic-crystal cavities (PCCs), widely used for studying solid-state cQED systems, have uniform spatial profiles in the lateral plane. Three-dimensional (3D) PCCs, which exhibit discrete in-plane translational symmetry, overcome this limitation, but fabrication challenges have hindered the achievement of strong coupling in 3D-PCCs. Here, we report the realization of multimode ultrastrong coupling in a 3D-PCC at terahertz frequencies. The multimode coupling between the 3D-PCC's cavity modes and the cyclotron resonance of a Landau-quantized two-dimensional electron gas in GaAs is significantly influenced by the spatial profiles of the cavity modes, leading to distinct coupling scenarios depending on the probe polarization. Our experimental results are in excellent agreement with a multimode extended Hopfield model that accounts for the spatial inhomogeneity of the cavity field. Guided by the model, we discuss the possible strong ground-state correlations between different cavity modes and introduce relevant figures of merit for the multimode ultrastrong coupling regime. Our findings emphasize the importance of spatially nonuniform cavity mode profiles in probing nonintuitive quantum phenomena expected for the ground states of cQED systems in the ultrastrong coupling regime.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2023

Fractional focusing peaks and collective dynamics in two-dimensional Fermi liquids

Carrier transport in materials is often diffusive due to momentum-relaxing scattering with phonons and defects. Suppression of momentum-relaxing scattering can lead to the ballistic and hydrodynamic transport regimes, wherein complex non-Ohmic current flow patterns, including current vortices, can emerge. In the ballistic regime addressed here, transverse magnetic focusing is habitually understood in a familiar single-particle picture of carriers injected from a source, following ballistic cyclotron orbits and reaching a detector. We report on a distinctive nonlocal magnetoresistance phenomenon exclusive to fermions, in an enclosed mesoscopic geometry wherein transverse focusing magnetoresistance peaks also occur at values of the cyclotron diameter that are incommensurate with the distance between the source and detector. In low-temperature experiments and simulations using GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructures with high electron mobility, we show that the peaks occur independently of the location of the detector, and only depend on the source-drain separation. We reproduce the experimental findings using simulations of ballistic transport in both semiclassical and quantum-coherent transport models. The periodicity of magnetic field at which the peaks occur is matched to the lithographically defined device scale. It is found that, unlike in transverse magnetic focusing, the magnetoresistance structure cannot be attributed to any set of ordered single-particle trajectories but instead requires accounting for the collective dynamics of the fermion distribution and of all particle trajectories. The magnetoresistance is further associated with current flow vorticity, a collective phenomenon.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2019

Resistivity anisotropy of quantum Hall stripe phases

Quantum Hall stripe phases near half-integer filling factors $ν\ge 9/2$ were predicted by Hartree-Fock (HF) theory and confirmed by discoveries of giant resistance anisotropies in high-mobility two-dimensional electron gases. A theory of such anisotropy was proposed by MacDonald and Fisher, although they used parameters whose dependencies on the filling factor, electron density, and mobility remained unspecified. Here, we fill this void by calculating the hard-to-easy resistivity ratio as a function of these three variables. Quantitative comparison with experiment yields very good agreement which we view as evidence for the "plain vanilla" smectic stripe HF phases.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2019

Observation of new plasmons in the fractional quantum Hall effect: interplay of topological and nematic orders

Collective modes of exotic quantum fluids reveal underlying physical mechanisms responsible for emergent complex quantum ground states. We observe unexpected new collective modes in the fractional quantum Hall (FQH) regime: intra-Landau-level plasmons in the second Landau level measured by resonant inelastic light scattering. The plasmons herald rotational-symmetry-breaking phases in tilted magnetic fields and reveal long-range translational invariance in these phases. The fascinating dependence of plasmon features on filling factor provide new insights on interplays between topological quantum Hall order and nematic electronic liquid crystal phases. A marked intensity minimum in the plasmon spectrum at Landau level filling factor v = 5/2 strongly suggests that this paired state, which could support non-Abelian excitations, overwhelms competing nematic phases, unveiling the robustness of the 5/2 superfluid state for small tilt angles. At v = 7/3, a sharp and strong plasmon peak that links to emerging macroscopic coherence supports the proposed model of a FQH nematic state at this filling factor.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2015

Fabrication of Artificial Graphene in a GaAs Quantum Heterostructure

The unusual electronic properties of graphene, which are a direct consequence of its two-dimensional (2D) honeycomb lattice, have attracted a great deal of attention in recent years. Creation of artificial lattices that recreate graphene's honeycomb topology, known as artificial graphene, can facilitate the investigation of graphene-like phenomena, such as the existence of massless Dirac fermions, in a tunable system. In this work, we present the fabrication of artificial graphene in an ultra-high quality GaAs/AlGaAs quantum well, with lattice period as small as 50 nm, the smallest reported so far for this type of system. Electron-beam lithography is used to define an etch mask with honeycomb geometry on the surface of the sample, and different methodologies are compared and discussed. An optimized anisotropic reactive ion etching process is developed to transfer the pattern into the AlGaAs layer and create the artificial graphene. The achievement of such high-resolution artificial graphene should allow the observation for the first time of massless Dirac fermions in an engineered semiconductor.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗