arXiv subjects

Helmuth Berger

Publications and source records attributed to Helmuth Berger.

At least 73 records · Page 4Linked to original sources

arXiv2015

Torque magnetometry study of magnetically ordered state and spin reorientation in the quasi-one-dimensional $S=1/2$ Heisenberg antiferromagnet CuSb$_2$O$_6$

We present an experimental study of macroscopic and microscopic magnetic anisotropy of a spin tetramer system \cso using torque magnetometry and ESR spectroscopy. Large rotation of macroscopic magnetic axes with temperature observed from torque magnetometry agrees reasonably well with the rotation of the $\mathbf{g}$ tensor above $T \gtrsim 50$~K. Below 50~K, the $\mathbf{g}$ tensor is temperature independent, while macroscopic magnetic axes continue to rotate. Additionally, the susceptibility anisotropy has a temperature dependence which cannot be reconciled with the isotropic Heisenberg model of interactions between spins. ESR linewidth analysis shows that anisotropic exchange interaction must be present in \csos. These findings strongly support the presence of anisotropic exchange interactions in the Hamiltonian of the studied system. Below $T_N=8$~K, the system enters a long - range antiferromagnetically ordered state with easy axis along the $<\bar{1} 0 1>^*$ direction. Small but significant rotation of magnetic axes is also observed in the antiferromagnetically ordered state suggesting strong spin-lattice coupling in this system.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2015

The Role of Transport Agents in MoS2 Single Crystals

We report resistivity, thermoelectric power and thermal conductivity of MoS2 single crystals prepared by chemical vapour transport (CVT) method using I2, Br2 and TeCl4 as transport agents. The material presents low-lying donor and acceptor levels, which dominate the in-plane charge transport. Intercalates into the Van der Waals gap strongly influence the inter-plane resistivity. Thermoelectric power displays the characteristics of strong electron-phonon interaction. Detailed theoretical model of thermal conductivity reveals the presence of high number of defects in the MoS2 structure. We show that these defects are inherent to CVT growth method, coming mostly from the transport agent molecules inclusion as identified by Total Reflection X-ray Fluorescence analysis (TXRF) and in-beam activation analysis (IBAA).

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2015

Electrostatically Induced Superconductivity at the Surface of WS$_2$

We investigate transport through ionic liquid gated field effect transistors (FETs) based on exfoliated crystals of semiconducting WS$_2$. Upon electron accumulation, at surface densities close to -or just larger than- 10$^{14}$ cm$^{-2}$, transport exhibits metallic behavior, with the surface resistivity decreasing pronouncedly upon cooling. A detailed characterization as a function of temperature and magnetic field clearly shows the occurrence of a gate-induced superconducting transition below a critical temperature $T_c \approx 4$ K, a finding that represents the first demonstration of superconductivity in tungsten-based semiconducting transition metal dichalcogenides. We investigate the nature of superconductivity and find significant inhomogeneity, originating from the local detaching of the frozen ionic liquid from the WS$_2$ surface. Despite the inhomogeneity, we find that in all cases where a fully developed zero resistance state is observed, different properties of the devices exhibit a behavior characteristic of a Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless transition, as it could be expected in view of the two-dimensional nature of the electrostatically accumulated electron system.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2014

Magnetic anisotropy of spin tetramer system SeCuO$_3$ studied by torque magnetometry and ESR spectroscopy

We present an experimental study of macroscopic and microscopic magnetic anisotropy of a spin tetramer system SeCuO$_3$ using torque magnetometry and ESR spectroscopy. Large rotation of macroscopic magnetic axes with temperature observed from torque magnetometry agrees reasonably well with the rotation of the $\textbf{g}$ tensor above $T \gtrsim 50$~K. Below 50~K, the $\textbf{g}$ tensor is temperature independent, while macroscopic magnetic axes continue to rotate. Additionally, the susceptibility anisotropy has a temperature dependence which cannot be reconciled with the isotropic Heisenberg model of interactions between spins. ESR linewidth analysis shows that anisotropic exchange interaction must be present in SeCuO$_3$. These findings strongly support the presence of anisotropic exchange interactions in the Hamiltonian of the studied system. Below $T_N=8$~K, the system enters a long - range antiferromagnetically ordered state with easy axis along the $<\bar{1} 0 1>^*$ direction. Small but significant rotation of magnetic axes is also observed in the antiferromagnetically ordered state suggesting strong spin-lattice coupling in this system.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2014

Microscopic evidence for strong periodic lattice distortion in 2D charge-density wave systems

In the quasi-2D electron systems of the layered transition metal dichalcogenides (TMD) there is still a controversy about the nature of the transitions to charge-density wave (CDW) phases, i.e. whether they are described by a Peierls-type mechanism or by a lattice-driven model. By performing scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) experiments on the canonical TMD-CDW systems, we have imaged the electronic modulation and the lattice distortion separately in 2H-TaS$_2$, TaSe$_2$, and NbSe$_2$. Across the three materials, we found dominant lattice contributions instead of the electronic modulation expected from Peierls transitions, in contrast to the CDW states that show the hallmark of contrast inversion between filled and empty states. Our results imply that the periodic lattice distortion (PLD) plays a vital role in the formation of CDW phases in the TMDs and illustrate the importance of taking into account the more complicated lattice degree of freedom when studying correlated electron systems.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2014

Scanning photocurrent microscopy reveals electron-hole asymmetry in ionic liquid-gated WS2 transistors

We perform scanning photocurrent microscopy on WS2 ionic liquid-gated field effect transistors exhibiting high-quality ambipolar transport. By properly biasing the gate electrode we can invert the sign of the photocurrent showing that the minority photocarriers are either electrons or holes. Both in the electron- and the hole-doping regimes the photocurrent decays exponentially as a function of the distance between the illumination spot and the nearest contact, in agreement with a two-terminal Schottky-barrier device model. This allows us to compare the value and the doping dependence of the diffusion length of the minority electrons and holes on a same sample. Interestingly, the diffusion length of the minority carriers is several times larger in the hole accumulation regime than in the electron accumulation regime, pointing out an electron-hole asymmetry in WS2.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2014

Mono- and Bilayer WS2 Light-Emitting Transistors

We have realized ambipolar ionic liquid gated field-effect transistors based on WS2 mono- and bilayers, and investigated their opto-electronic response. A thorough characterization of the transport properties demonstrates the high quality of these devices for both electron and hole accumulation, which enables the quantitative determination of the band gap (Δ1L = 2.14 eV for monolayers and Δ2L = 1.82 eV for bilayers). It also enables the operation of the transistors in the ambipolar injection regime with electrons and holes injected simultaneously at the two opposite contacts of the devices in which we observe light emission from the FET channel. A quantitative analysis of the spectral properties of the emitted light, together with a comparison with the band gap values obtained from transport, show the internal consistency of our results and allow a quantitative estimate of the excitonic binding energies to be made. Our results demonstrate the power of ionic liquid gating in combination with nanoelectronic systems, as well as the compatibility of this technique with optical measurements on semiconducting transition metal dichalcogenides. These findings further open the way to the investigation of the optical properties of these systems in a carrier density range much broader than that explored until now.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2013

Doping Dependence of the Plasmon Dispersion in 2H-Tantalum-Diselenide

Inelastic electron scattering is applied to investigate the impact of potassium intercalation on the charge carrier plasmon energy and dispersion in the charge-density wave (CDW) bearing compound 2H-tantalum-diselenide. We observe an unususal doping dependence of the plasmon dispersion, which even changes sign upon alkali addition. In contrast to the continous energy shift of the plasmon position upon doping at lowest momentum transfer, its dispersion changes in a rather discontinuous manner. We argue that the observed dynamics can only be explained in a picture, where complex phenomena are taken into account including the suppression of the CDW upon doping as well as the interplay of the CDW and the plasma resonance.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2013

Quantitative Determination of the Band-Gap of WS2 with Ambipolar Ionic Liquid-Gated Transistors

We realized ambipolar Field-Effect Transistors by coupling exfoliated thin flakes of tungsten disulphide (WS2) with an ionic liquid-dielectric. The devices show ideal electrical characteristics, including very steep sub-threshold slopes for both electrons and holes and extremely low OFF-state currents. Thanks to these ideal characteristics, we determine with high precision the size of the band-gap of WS2 directly from the gate-voltage dependence of the source-drain current. Our results demonstrate how a careful use of ionic liquid dielectrics offers a powerful strategy to study quantitatively the electronic properties of nano-scale materials.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2013

Exciton properties of selected aromatic hydrocarbon systems

We have examined the singlet excitons in two representatives of acene-type (tetracene and pentacene) and phenacene-type (chrysene and picene) molecular crystals, respectively, using electron energy-loss spectroscopy at low temperatures. We show that the excitation spectra of the two hydrocarbon families significantly differ. Moreover, close inspection of the data indicates that there is an increasing importance of charge-transfer excitons at lowest excitation energy with increasing length of the molecules.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2012

Momentum dependence of the excitons in pentacene

We have carried out electron energy-loss investigations of the lowest singlet excitons in pentacene at 20 K. Our studies allow to determine the full exciton band structure in the a*,b* reciprocal lattice plane. The lowest singlet exciton can move coherently within this plane, and the resulting exciton dispersion is highly anisotropic. The analysis of the energetically following (satellite) features indicates a strong admixture of charge transfer excitations to the exciton wave function.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2012

Three-Dimensional Fermiology by Soft-X-Ray ARPES: Origin of Charge Density Waves in VSe2

Electronic structure of crystalline materials is their fundamental characteristic which is the basis of almost all their physical and chemical properties. Angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) is the main experimental tool to study all electronic structure aspects with resolution in k-space. However, its application to three-dimensional (3D) materials suffers from a fundamental problem of ill-defined surface-perpendicular wavevector kz. Here, we achieve sharp definition of kz to enable precise navigation in 3D k space by pushing ARPES into the soft-X-ray photon energy range. Essential to break through the notorious problem of small photoexcitation cross-section was an advanced photon flux performance of our instrumentation. We explore the electronic structure of a transition metal dichalcogenide VSe2 which develops charge density waves (CDWs) possessing exotic 3D character. We experimentally identify nesting of its 3D Fermi surface (FS) as the precursor for these CDWs. Our study demonstrates an immense potential of soft-X-ray ARPES (SX-ARPES) to resolve various aspects of 3D electronic structure.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2012

Interplay between the magnetic and electric degrees-of-freedom in multiferroic Co3TeO6

Neutron diffraction, magnetic susceptibility, specific heat, and dielectric constant measurements of single crystal Co3TeO6 have been measured to study the interplay between the ferroelectricity and magnetic order. Long range incommensurate magnetic order develops below TM1=26 K, which is followed by three additional zero-field phase transitions at TM2=19.5 K, TM3=18 K, and TM4=16 K where the incommensurate order changes and commensurate order develops. In magnetic fields up to 14 T we find that the magnetic intensities and incommensurate wave vector are dramatically altered as ferroelectricity develops, with a fifth abrupt transition around 10 T. The overall behavior characterizes Co3TeO6 as a type-II multiferroic.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2011

Magnetic order and transitions in the spin-web compound Cu3TeO6

The spin-web compound Cu3TeO6, belongs to an intriguing group of materials where magnetism is governed by 3d9 copper Cu2+ ions. This compound has been sparsely experimentally studied and we here present the first investigation of its local magnetic properties using muon-spin relaxation/rotation (μ+SR). Our results show a clear long-range 3D magnetic order below TN as indicated by clear zero-field (ZF) muon-precessions. At TN = 61.7 K a very sharp transition is observed in the weak transverse-field (wTF) as well as ZF data. Contrary to suggestions by susceptibility measurements and inelastic neutron scattering, we find no evidence for either static or dynamic (on the time-scale of μ+SR) spin-correlations above TN.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2011

Nonuniform and coherent motion of superconducting vortices in the picometer-per-second regime

We investigated vortex dynamics in a single-crystal sample of type-II superconductor NbSe$_{2}$ using scanning tunneling microscopy at 4.2 K. The decay of the magnetic field at a few nT/s in our superconducting magnet induced the corresponding motion of vortices at a few pm/s. Starting with an initial magnetic field of 0.5 T, we continued to observe motion of vortices within a field of view of 400$\times$400 nm$^2$ subject to decay of the magnetic field over a week. Vortices moved collectively, and maintained triangular lattices due to strong vortex-vortex interactions during the motion. However, we observed two peculiar characteristics of vortex dynamics in this superconductor. First, the speed and direction of the vortex lattice motion were not uniform in time. Second, despite the non-uniform motion, we also found that there exists an energetically favored configuration of the moving vortices in the single-crystal sample of NbSe$_{2}$ based on the overlaid trajectories and their suppressed speeds. We model the system with weak bulk pinning, strong bulk pinning, and edge barrier effects.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2011

The Effect of Charge Order on the Plasmon Dispersion in Transition-Metal Dichalcogenides

We investigate the dispersion of the charge carrier plasmon in the three prototypical charge-density wave bearing transition-metal dichalcogenides 2H-TaSe2, 2H-TaS2 and 2H-NbSe2 employing electron energy-loss spectroscopy. For all three compounds the plasmon dispersion is found to be negative for small momentum transfers. This is in contrast to the generic behavior observed in simple metals as well as the related system 2H-NbS2, which does not exhibit charge order. We present a semiclassical Ginzburg-Landau model which accounts for these observations, and argue that the vicinity to a charge ordered state is thus reflected in the properties of the collective excitations.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2010

Momentum-dependent snapshots of a melting charge density wave

Charge density waves (CDWs) underpin the electronic properties of many complex materials. Near-equilibrium CDW order is linearly coupled to a periodic, atomic-structural distortion, and the dynamics is understood in terms of amplitude and phase modes. However, at the shortest timescales lattice and charge order may become de-coupled, highlighting the electronic nature of this many-body broken symmetry ground state. Using time and angle resolved photoemission spectroscopy with sub-30-fs XUV pulses, we have mapped the time- and momentum-dependent electronic structure in photo-stimulated 1T-TaS2, a prototypical two-dimensional charge density wave compound. We find that CDW order, observed as a splitting of the uppermost electronic bands at the Brillouin zone boundary, melts well before relaxation of the underlying structural distortion. Decoupled charge and lattice modulations challenge the view of Fermi Surface nesting as a driving force for charge density wave formation in 1T-TaS2.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2010

Polaronic conductivity in the photoinduced phase of 1T-TaS2

The transient optical conductivity of photoexcited 1T-TaS2 is determined over a three-order-of-magnitude frequency range. Prompt collapse and recovery of the Mott gap is observed. However, we find important differences between this transient metallic state and that seen across the thermally-driven insulator-metal transition. Suppressed low-frequency conductivity, Fano phonon lineshapes, and a mid-infrared absorption band point to polaronic transport. This is explained by noting that the photo-induced metallic state of 1T-TaS2 is one in which the Mott gap is melted but the lattice retains its low-temperature symmetry, a regime only accessible by photo-doping.

cond-mat.str-el↗