arXiv subjects

Guenther Bauer

Publications and source records attributed to Guenther Bauer.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2023

A Novel Ferroelectric Rashba Semiconductor

Fast, reversible, and low-power manipulation of the spin texture is crucial for next generation spintronic devices like non-volatile bipolar memories, switchable spin current injectors or spin field effect transistors. Ferroelectric Rashba semiconductors (FERSC) are the ideal class of materials for the realization of such devices. Their ferroelectric character enables an electronic control of the Rashba-type spin texture by means of the reversible and switchable polarization. Yet, only very few materials have been established to belong to this class of multifunctional materials. Here, Pb1-xGexTe is unraveled as a novel FERSC system down to nanoscale. The ferroelectric phase transition and concomitant lattice distortion is demonstrated by temperature dependent X-ray diffraction, and its effect on electronic properties are measured by angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy. In few nanometer-thick epitaxial heterostructures, a large Rashba spin-splitting is exhibiting a wide tuning range as a function of temperature and Ge content. Our work defines Pb1- xGexTe as a high-potential FERSC system for spintronic applications.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2022

Interaction between interface and massive states in multivalley topological heterostructures

Topological interface states in multivalley systems are studied to unravel their valley sensitivity. For this purpose, multivalley IV-VI topological crystalline insulator (TCI) heterostructures are explored using magneto-optical Landau level spectroscopy up to 34 teslas. We characterize the topological interface states emerging from the distinct L-valleys in Pb1-xSnxSe multi quantum wells grown along the [111] direction. It is shown that the shape of the 2D Fermi surfaces of topological interface states residing at the TCI/trivial insulator interfaces are strongly affected by the valley anisotropy of topologically trivial Pb1-yEuySe barriers. This phenomenon is shown to be due to the deep penetration of the topological interface states into the barriers. For the valleys tilted with respect to the confinement direction, a significant interaction between topological states and the conventional massive quantum well states is observed, evidenced by the resulting large anti-crossings between Landau levels. These are theoretically well-described by a k.p model that takes into account tilt and anisotropy of the valleys in two dimensions. Therefore, our work provides a precise characterization of the topological interface state valley splitting, as well as an accurate determination of the anisotropy of their Dirac cone dispersion.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2017

Magnetooptical determination of a topological index

When a Dirac fermion system acquires an energy-gap, it is said to have either trivial (positive energy-gap) or non-trivial (negative energy-gap) topology, depending on the parity ordering of its conduction and valence bands. The non-trivial regime is identified by the presence of topological surface or edge-state dispersing in the energy gap of the bulk and is attributed a non-zero topological index. In this work, we show that such topological indices can be determined experimentally via an accurate measurement of the effective velocity of bulk massive Dirac fermions. We demonstrate this analytically starting from the Bernevig-Hughes-Zhang Hamiltonian (BHZ) to show how the topological index depends on this velocity. We then experimentally extract the topological index in Pb1-xSnxSe and Pb1-xSnxTe using infrared magnetooptical Landau level spectroscopy. This approach is argued to be universal to all material classes that can be described by a BHZ-like model and that host a topological phase transition.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2006

Initial stage of the 2D-3D transition of a strained SiGe layer on a pit-patterned Si(001) template

We investigate the initial stage of the 2D-3D transition of strained Ge layers deposited on pit-patterned Si(001) templates. Within the pits, which assume the shape of inverted, truncated pyramids after optimized growth of a Si buffer layer, the Ge wetting layer develops a complex morphology consisting exclusively of {105} and (001) facets. These results are attributed to a strain-driven step-meandering instability on the facetted side-walls of the pits, and a step-bunching instability at the sharp concave intersections of these facets. Although both instabilities are strain-driven, their coexistence becomes mainly possible by the geometrical restrictions in the pits. It is shown that the morphological transformation of the pit surface into low-energy facets has strong influence on the preferential nucleation of Ge islands at the flat bottom of the pits.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗