arXiv subjects

H. A. Fertig

Publications and source records attributed to H. A. Fertig.

At least 73 records · Page 4Linked to original sources

arXiv2007

MagnetoResistance of graphene-based spin valves

We study the magnetoresistance of spin-valve devices using graphene as a non-magnetic material to connect ferromagnetic leads. As a preliminary step we first study the conductivity of a graphene strip connected to metallic contacts for a variety of lead parameters, and demonstrate that the resulting conductivity is rather insensitive to them. We then compute the conductivity of the spin-valve device in the parallel and antiparallel spin polarization configurations, and find that it depends only weakly on the relative spin orientations of the leads, so that the magnetoresistance $MR$ of the system is very small. The smallness of $MR$ is a consequence of the near independence of the graphene conductivity from the electronic details of the leads. Our results indicate that, although graphene has properties that make it attractive for spintronic devices, the performance of an graphene-based spin-valve is likely to be poor.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2007

Collective modes of CP(3) Skyrmion crystals in quantum Hall ferromagnets

The two-dimensional electron gas in a bilayer quantum Hall system can sustain an interlayer coherence at filling factor nu=1 even in the absence of tunneling between the layers. This system has low-energy charged excitations which may carry textures in real spin or pseudospin. Away from filling factor nu =1 a finite density of these is present in the ground state of the 2DEG and forms a crystal. Depending on the relative size of the various energy scales, such as tunneling (Delta_SAS), Zeeman coupling (Delta_Z) or electrical bias (Delta_b), these textured crystal states can involve spin, pseudospin, or both intertwined. In this article, we present a comprehensive numerical study of the collective excitations of these textured crystals using the GRPA. For the pure spin case, at finite Zeeman coupling the state is a Skyrmion crystal with a gapless phonon mode, and a separate Goldstone mode that arises from a broken U(1) symmetry. At zero Zeeman coupling, we demonstrate that the constituent Skyrmions break up, and the resulting state is a meron crystal with 4 gapless modes. In contrast, a pure pseudospin Skyrme crystal at finite tunneling has only the phonon mode. For Delta_SAS=0, the state evolves into a meron crystal and supports an extra gapless U(1) mode in addition to the phonon. For a CP(3) Skyrmion crystal, we find a U(1) gapless mode in the presence of the symmetry-breaking fields. In addition, a second mode with a very small gap is present in the spectrum.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2007

Diluted Graphene Antiferromagnet

We study RKKY interactions between local magnetic moments for both doped and undoped graphene. We find in both cases that the interactions are primarily ferromagnetic for moments on the same sublattice, and antiferromagnetic for moments on opposite sublattices. This suggests that at sufficiently low temperatures dilute magnetic moments embedded in graphene can order into a state analogous to that of a dilute antiferromagnet. We find that in the undoped case one expects no net magnetic moment, and demonstrate numerically that this effect generalizes to ribbons where the magnetic response is strongest at the edge, suggesting the possibility of an unusual spin-transfer device. For doped graphene we find that moments at definite lattice sites interact over longer distances than those placed in interstitial sites of the lattice ($1/R^2$ vs. $1/R^3$) because the former support a Kohn anomaly that is suppressed in the latter due to the absence of backscattering.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2007

Elementary Electronic Excitations in Graphene Nanoribbons

We analyze the collective mode spectrum of graphene nanoribbons within the random phase approximation. In the undoped case, only metallic armchair nanoribbons support a propagating plasmon mode. Landau damping of this mode is shown to be suppressed through the chirality of the single particle wavefunctions. We argue that undoped zigzag nanoribbons should not support plasmon excitations because of a broad continuum of particle-hole excitations associated with surface states, into which collective modes may decay. Doped nanoribbons have properties similar to those of semiconductor nanowires, including a plasmon mode dispersing as $q\sqrt{-\ln qW}$ and a static dielectric response that is divergent at $q=2k_F$.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2006

Excitations from Filled Landau Levels in Graphene

We consider graphene in a strong perpendicular magnetic field at zero temperature with an integral number of filled Landau levels and study the dispersion of single particle-hole excitations. We first analyze the two-body problem of a single Dirac electron and hole in a magnetic field interacting via Coulomb forces. We then turn to the many-body problem, where particle-hole symmetry and the existence of two valleys lead to a number of effects peculiar to graphene. We find that the coupling together of a large number of low-lying excitations leads to strong many-body corrections, which could be observed in inelastic light scattering or optical absorption. We also discuss in detail how the appearance of different branches in the exciton dispersion is sensitive to the number of filled spin and valley sublevels.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2006

Pseudospin vortex-antivortex states with interwoven spin textures in double layer quantum Hall systems

Recent experiments on strongly correlated bilayer quantum Hall systems strongly suggest that, contrary to the usual assumption, the electron spin degree of freedom is not completely frozen either in the quantum Hall or in the compressibles states that occur at filling factor $ν=1.$ These experiments imply that the quasiparticles at $ν=1$ could have both spin and pseudospin textures i.e. they could be CP$^{3}$ skyrmions. Using a microscopic unrestricted Hartree-Fock approximation, we compute the energy of several crystal states with spin, pseudospin and mixed spin-pseudospin textures around $ν=1$ as a function of interlayer separation $d$ for different values of tunneling ($Δ_{SAS}$), Zeeman ($Δ_{Z}$), and bias ($Δ_{b}$) energies. We show that in some range of these parameters, crystal states involving a certain amount of spin depolarization have lower energy than the fully spin polarized crystals. We study this depolarization dependence on $d,Δ_{SAS},Δ_{Z}$ and $Δ_{b}$ and discuss how it can lead to the fast NMR relaxation rate observed experimentally.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2006

Collective Excitations of a Two-Component Bose Condensate at Finite Temperature

We compare the collective modes for Bose-condensed systems with two degenerate components with and without spontaneous intercomponent coherence at finite temperature using the time-dependent Hartree-Fock approximation. We show that the interaction between the condensate and non-condensate in these two cases results in qualitatively different collective excitation spectra. We show that at zero temperature the single-particle excitations of the incoherent Bose condensate can be probed by intercomponent excitations.

cond-mat.other↗

arXiv2006

Superfluidity without Symmetry-Breaking: The Time-Dependent Hartree-Fock Approximation for Bose-Condensed Systems

We develop a time-dependent Hartree-Fock approximation that is appropriate for Bose-condensed systems. Defining a {\it depletion Green's function} allows the construction of condensate and depletion particle densities from eigenstates of a single time-dependent Hamiltonian, guaranteeing that our approach is a conserving approximation. The poles of this Green's function yield the energies of number-changing excitations for which the condensate particle number is held fixed, which we show has a gapped spectrum in the superfluid state. The linearized time-dependent version of this has poles at the collective frequencies of the system, yielding the expected zero sound mode for a uniform infinite system. We show how the approximations may be expressed in a general linear response formalism.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2006

Luttinger Liquid at the Edge of a Graphene Vacuum

We demonstrate that an undoped two-dimensional carbon plane (graphene) whose bulk is in the integer quantum Hall regime supports a non-chiral Luttinger liquid at an armchair edge. This behavior arises due to the unusual dispersion of the non-interacting edges states, causing a crossing of bands with different valley and spin indices at the edge. We demonstrate that this stabilizes a domain wall structure with a spontaneously ordered phase degree of freedom. This coherent domain wall supports gapless charged excitations, and has a power law tunneling $I-V$ with a non-integral exponent. In proximity to a bulk lead, the edge may undergo a quantum phase transition between the Luttinger liquid phase and a metallic state when the edge confinement is sufficiently strong relative to the interaction energy scale.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2006

Electronic States of Graphene Nanoribbons

We study the electronic states of narrow graphene ribbons (``nanoribbons'') with zigzag and armchair edges. The finite width of these systems breaks the spectrum into an infinite set of bands, which we demonstrate can be quantitatively understood using the Dirac equation with appropriate boundary conditions. For the zigzag nanoribbon we demonstrate that the boundary condition allows a particle- and a hole-like band with evanescent wavefunctions confined to the surfaces, which continuously turn into the well-known zero energy surface states as the width gets large. For armchair edges, we show that the boundary condition leads to admixing of valley states, and the band structure is metallic when the width of the sample in lattice constant units is divisible by 3, and insulating otherwise. A comparison of the wavefunctions and energies from tight-binding calculations and solutions of the Dirac equations yields quantitative agreement for all but the narrowest ribbons.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2006

Correlation functions for the $XY$ model in a Magnetic Field

Recent studies of the two-dimensional, classical $XY$ magnet in a magnetic field suggest that it has three distinct vortex phases: a linearly confined phase, a logarithmically confined phase, and a free vortex phase. In this work we study spin-spin correlation functions in this model by analytical analysis and numerical simulations to search for signatures of the various phases. In all three phases, the order parameter is nonzero and $<\cos(þ({\bf r}_1))\cos(þ({\bf r}_2))>$ remains nonzero for $r \equiv |{\bf r}_1-{\bf r}_2|\rightarrow \infty$, indicating the expected long range order. The correlation function for transverse fluctuations of the spins, $C(r)=<\sin(þ({\bf r}_1))\sin(þ({\bf r}_2))>$, falls exponentially in all three phases. A renormalization group analysis suggests that the logarithmically confined phase should have a spatially anisotropic correlation length. In addition, there is a generic anisotropy in the prefactor which is always present. We find that this prefactor anisotropy becomes rather strong in the presence of a magnetic field, masking the effects of any anisotropy in the correlation length in the simulations.

cond-mat.other↗

arXiv2006

Edge States and the Quantized Hall Effect in Graphene

We study edges states of graphene ribbons in the quantized Hall regime, and show that they can be described within a continuum model (the Dirac equation) when appropriate boundary conditions are adopted. The two simplest terminations, zigzag and armchair edges, are studied in detail. For zigzag edges, we find that the lowest Landau level states terminate in two types of edge states, dispersionless and current-carrying surface states. The latter involve components on different sublattices that may be separated by distances far greater than the magnetic length. For armchair edges, the boundary conditions are met by admixing states from different valleys, and we show that this leads to a single set of edges states for the lowest Landau level and two sets for all higher Landau levels. In both cases, the resulting Hall conductance step for the lowest Landau level is half that between higher Landau levels, as observed in experiment.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2005

Coherence Network in the Quantum Hall Bilayer

Recent experiments on quantum Hall bilayers near total filling factor 1 have demonstrated that they support an ``imperfect'' two-dimensional superfluidity, in which there is nearly dissipationless transport at non-vanishing temperature observed both in counterflow resistance and interlayer tunneling. We argue that this behavior may be understood in terms of a {\it coherence network} induced in the bilayer by disorder, in which an incompressible, coherent state exists in narrow regions separating puddles of dense vortex-antivortex pairs. A renormalization group analysis shows that it is appropriate to describe the system as a vortex liquid. We demonstrate that the dynamics of the nodes of the network leads to a power law temperature dependence of the tunneling resistance, whereas thermally activated hops of vortices across the links control the counterflow resistance.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2005

Solitonic Excitations in Linearly Coherent Channels of Bilayer Quantum Hall Stripes

In some range of interlayer distances, the ground state of the two-dimensional electron gas at filling factor nu =4N+1 with N=0,1,2,... is a coherent stripe phase in the Hartree-Fock approximation. This phase has one-dimensional coherent channels that support charged excitations in the form of pseudospin solitons. In this work, we compute the transport gap of the coherent striped phase due to the creation of soliton-antisoliton pairs using a supercell microscopic unrestricted Hartree-Fock approach. We study this gap as a function of interlayer distance and tunneling amplitude. Our calculations confirm that the soliton-antisoliton excitation energy is lower than the corresponding Hartree-Fock electron-hole pair energy. We compare our results with estimates of the transport gap obtained from a field-theoretic model valid in the limit of slowly varying pseudospin textures.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2005

Deconfinement and phase diagram of bosons in a linear optical lattice with a particle reservoir

We investigate the zero-temperature phases of bosons in a one-dimensional optical lattice with an explicit tunnel coupling to a Bose condensed particle reservoir. Renormalization group analysis of this system is shown to reveal three phases: one in which the linear system is fully phase-locked to the reservoir; one in which Josephson vortices between the one-dimensional system and the particle reservoir deconfine due to quantum fluctuations, leading to a decoupled state in which the one-dimensional system is metallic; and one in which the one-dimensional system is in a Mott insulating state.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2005

Replica study of pinned bubble crystals

In higher Landau levels ($N>1$), the ground state of the two-dimensional electron gas in a strong perpendicular magnetic field evolves from a Wigner crystal for small filling $ν$ of the partially filled Landau level, into a succession of bubble states with increasing number of guiding centers per bubble as $ν$ increases, to a modulated stripe state near $ν=0.5$. In this work, we compute the frequency-dependent longitudinal conductivity $% σ_{xx}(ω) $ of the Wigner and bubble crystal states in the presence of disorder. We apply an elastic theory to the crystal states which is characterized by a shear and a bulk modulus. We obtain both moduli from the microscopic time-dependent Hartree-Fock approximation. We then use the replica and Gaussian variational methods to handle the effects of disorder. Within the semiclassical approximation we get the dynamical conductivity as well as the pinning frequency as functions of the Landau level filling factor and compare our results with recent microwave experiments.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2005

Vortices and Dissipation in a Bilayer Thin Film Superconductor

Vortex dynamics in a bilayer thin film superconductor are studied through a Josephson-coupled double layer XY model. A renormalization group analysis shows that there are three possible states associated with the relative phase of the layers: a free vortex phase, a logarithmically confined vortex-antivortex pair phase, and a linearly confined phase. The phases may be distinguished by measuring the resistance to counterflow current. For a geometry in which current is injected and removed from the two layers at the same edge by an ideal (dissipationless) lead, we argue that the three phases yield distinct behaviors: metallic conductivity in the free vortex phase, a power law I-V in the logarithmically confined phase, and true dissipationless superconductivity in the linearly confined phase. Numerical simulations of a resistively shunted Josephson junction model reveal size dependences for the resistance of this system that support these expectations.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2004

Dynamical Conductivity of Disordered Quantum Hall Stripes

We present a detailed theory for finite-frequency conductivities Re$[σ_{αβ}(ω)]$ of quantum Hall stripes, which form at Landau level $N\geq 2$ close to half filling, in the presence of weak Gaussian disorder. We use an effective elastic theory to describe the low-energy dynamics of the stripes with the dynamical matrix being determined through matching the density-density correlation function obtained in the microscopic time-dependent Hartree-Fock approximation. We then apply replicas and the Gaussian variational method to deal with the disorder. Within this method, a set of saddle point equations for the retarded self energies are obtained, which are solved numerically to get Re$[σ_{αβ}(ω)]$. We find a quantum depinning transition as $Δν$, the fractional part of the filling factor, approaches a critical value $Δν_c$ from below. For $Δν<Δν_c$, the pinned state is realized in a replica symmetry breaking (RSB) solution, and the frequency-dependent conductivities in both the directions perpendicular and parallel to the stripes show resonant peaks. These peaks shift to zero frequency as $Δν\to Δν_c$. For $Δν\geΔν_c$, we find a partial RSB (PRSB) solution in which there is RSB perpendicular to the stripes, but replica symmetry along the stripes, leading to free sliding along the stripe direction. The quantum depinning transition is in the Kosterlitz-Thouless universality class. The result is consistent with a previous renormalization group analysis.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗