arXiv subjects

Jian-Sheng Wang

Publications and source records attributed to Jian-Sheng Wang.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv2019

Anomalous near-field heat transfer in carbon-based nano-structures with edge states

We find an unusually optimal near field heat transfer, where the maximum heat transfer is reached at experimentally feasible gap separation. We attribute this to the localized zero-energy electronic edge states, which also substantially changes the near-field behaviors. We demonstrate these anomalous behaviors in two typical carbon-based nano-structures: zigzag single-walled carbon nanotubes and graphene nano-triangles. For the system of carbon nanotubes, the maximal heat flux in this work surpasses all the previous results reported so far by several orders of magnitude. The underlying mechanisms for the peculiar effects are uncovered from a simple Su-Schrieffer-Heeger model. Our findings also offer a novel route to active near-field thermal switch, where the heat flux can be modulated through tuning the presence or absence of edge states.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2019

Three-terminal normal-superconductor junction as thermal transistor

We propose a thermal transistor based on a three-terminal normal-superconductor (NS) junction with superconductor terminal acting as the base. The emergence of heat amplification is due to the negative differential thermal conductance (NDTC) effect for the NS diode in which the normal side maintains a higher temperature. The temperature dependent superconducting energy gap is responsible for the NDTC. By controlling quantum dot levels and their coupling strengths to the terminals, a huge heat amplification factor can be achieved. The setup offers an alternative tuning scheme of heat amplification factor and may find use in cryogenic applications.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2018

Heat transfer statistics in extreme-near-field radiation

We investigate the full counting statistics of extreme-near-field radiative heat transfer using nonequilibrium Green's function formalism. In the extreme near field, the electron-electron interactions between two metallic bodies dominate the heat transfer process. We start from a general tight-binding electron Hamiltonian and obtain a Levitov-Lesovik like scaled cumulant generating function (SCGF) using random phase approximation to deal with electron-electron interaction. The expressions of heat current and its fluctuation (second cumulant) are obtained from the SCGF. The fluctuation symmetry relation of the SCGF is verified. In the linear response limit (small temperature gradient), we express the heat current cumulant by a linear combination of lower order cumulants. The heat current fluctuation is $2k_B T^2$ times the thermal conductance with $T$ the average temperature in the linear response limit, and this provides an evaluation of heat current fluctuation by measuring the thermal conductance in extreme-near field-radiative heat transfer.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2018

Origin of unexpected large Seebeck effect in SrTiO3: nonperturbative polaron study from ab initio cumulant expansion

The experimental unexpected large Seebeck coefficient in SrTiO3 (STO) cannot be reproduced theoretically by the conventional Bloch-Boltzmann transport with electron-phonon coupling calculated perturbatively, indicating a failure of Fermi liquid picture in STO and ill-treatment of polaronic states. Starting from many-body interaction picture, the polaronic states can be precisely described by the method of cumulant expansion of retarded Green's function. By applying Kubo-Greenwood method, we found that the mysterious Seebeck coefficient can be fully described by a combination of polarons and Fermi liquid. The coexistence of two types of quasi-particles are attributed to the multi-band nature of t2g orbitals. Polarons are formed from the one with heavier electronic effective mass, while the one with lighter effective mass is renormalized into Fermi liquid quasi-particles. Our method provides a practical way to study the effect of strong electron-phonon coupling on transport properties from first principles.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2018

Bosonic Haldane insulator in the presence of local disorder: A quantum Monte Carlo study

The Haldane phase (HP) is a paradigmatic example of symmetry protected topological phase. We explore how the bosonic HP behaves in the presence of local disorder, employing quantum Monte Carlo simulations of an extended Bose-Hubbard model subject to uncorrelated, quenched disorders. We find that the HP is robust against a weak disorder and the non-local string order of HP exhibits a reentrant behavior. Besides, a direct transition between the HP and superfluid phase is uncovered. A significant part of the ground-state phase diagram is established for the model, unveiling the location of HP surrounded by Bose glass, charge density wave and superfluid phases. We also mention a possible experimental scheme with optical lattice emulator to realize the present findings.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2018

Coulomb force mediated heat transfer in the near field - geometric effect

It has been shown recently that the Coulomb part of electromagnetic interactions is more important than transverse propagation waves for the near-field enhancement of heat transfer between metal objects at a distance of order nanometers. Here we present a theory focusing solely on the Coulomb potential between electrons hopping among tight-binding sites. When the relevant systems are reduced to very small geometry, for example, a single site, the enhancement is much higher compared to a collection of them packed within a distance of a few angstroms. We credit this to the screening effect. This result may be useful in designing metal-based meta-materials to enhance heat transfer much higher.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2018

Energy transfer between two vacuum-gapped metal plates: Coulomb fluctuation and electron tunneling

Recent experimental measurements for near-field radiative heat transfer between two bodies have been able to approach the gap distance within $2 \; \textrm{nm}$, where the contributions of Coulomb fluctuation and electron's tunneling are comparable. Using the nonequilibrium Green's function method in the $G_{0}W_{0}$ approximation, based on a tight-binding model, we obtain for the energy current a Caroli formula from the Meir-Wingreen formula in the local equilibrium approximation. Also, the Caroli formula is consistent with the evanescent part of the heat transfer from the theory of fluctuational electrodynamics. We go beyond the local equilibrium approximation to study the energy transfer in the crossover region from electron tunneling to Coulomb fluctuation based on a numerical calculation.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2017

A computational study of two-terminal transport of Floquet quantum Hall insulators

Periodic driving fields can induce topological phase transitions, resulting in Floquet topological phases with intriguing properties such as very large Chern numbers and unusual edge states. Whether such Floquet topological phases could generate robust edge state conductance much larger than their static counterparts is an interesting question. In this paper, working under the Keldysh formalism, we study two-lead transport via the edge states of irradiated quantum Hall insulators using the method of recursive Floquet-Green's functions. Focusing on a harmonically-driven Hofstadter model, we show that quantized Hall conductance as large as $8e^2/h$ can be realized, but only after applying the so-called Floquet sum rule. To assess the robustness of edge state transport, we analyze the DC conductance, time-averaged current profile and local density of states. It is found that co-propagating chiral edge modes are more robust against disorder and defects as compared with the remarkable counter-propagating edge modes, as well as certain symmetry-restricted Floquet edge modes. Furthermore, we go beyond the wide-band limit, which is often assumed for the leads, to study how the conductance quantization (after applying the Floquet sum rule) of Floquet edge states can be affected if the leads have finite bandwidths. These results may be useful for the design of transport devices based on Floquet topological matter.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2017

Strong Electron-Phonon Interaction and Colossal Magnetoresistance in EuTiO$_3$

At low temperatures, EuTiO$_3$ system has very large resistivities and exhibits colossal magnetoresistance. Based on a first principle calculation and the dynamical mean-field theory for small polaron we have calculated the transport properties of EuTiO$_3$. It is found that due to electron-phonon interaction the conduction band may form a tiny subband which is close to the Fermi level. The tiny subband is responsible for the large resistivity. Besides, EuTiO$_3$ is a weak antiferromagnetic material and its magnetization would slightly shift the subband via exchange interaction between conduction electrons and magnetic atoms. Since the subband is close to the Fermi level, a slight shift of its position gives colossal magnetoresistance.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2017

Phonon-Driven Electron Scattering and Magnetothermoelectric Effect in Two-Dimensional Tin Selenide

The bulk tin selenide (SnSe) is the best thermoelectric material currently with the highest figure-of-merit due to the strong phonon-phonon interactions. We investigate the effect of electron-phonon coupling (EPC) on the transport properties of two-dimensional (2D) SnSe sheet. We demonstrate that EPC plays a key role in the scattering rate where the constant relaxation time approximation is deficient. The EPC strength is especially large in contrast to that of pristine graphene. The scattering rate depends sensitively on the system temperatures and the carrier densities when the Fermi energy approaches the band edge. We also investigate the magnetothermoelectric effect of the 2D SnSe. It is found that at low temperatures there are enormous magnetoelectrical resistivity and magnetothermal resistivity above 500\%, suggesting the high potential for device applications. Our results agree reasonably well with the experimental data.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2017

Finite coupling effects in double quantum dots near equilibrium

A weak coupling quantum master equation provides reliable steady-state results only in the van Hove limit, i.e., when the system-lead coupling approaches zero. Recently, J. Thingna et al. [Phys. Rev. E 88, 052127 (2013)] proposed an alternative approach, based on an analytic continuation of the Redfield solution, to evaluate the reduced density matrix up to second order in the system-bath coupling. The approach provides accurate results for harmonic oscillator and spin-bosonic systems. We apply this approach to study fermionic systems and the calculation on an exactly solvable double quantum dot system shows that the method is rigorously valid only near equilibrium, i.e., linear response regime. We further compare to the Redfield and the secular Redfield (Lindblad-type) master equations that are inaccurate in all parameter regimes. Lastly, we consider the non-trivial problem of strong Coulomb interaction and illustrate the interplay between system-lead coupling, inter-dot tunneling, and Coulomb strength that can be captured only via the analytic continuation method.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2017

A scalar photon theory for near-field radiative heat transfer

We study a one-dimensional model of radiative heat transfer for which the effect of the electromag- netic field is only from the scalar potential and thereby ignoring the vector potential contribution. This is a valid assumption when the distances between objects are of the order of nanometers. Using Lorenz gauge, the scalar field is quantized with the canonical quantization scheme, giving rise to scalar photons. In the limit as the speed of light approaches infinity, the theory reduces to a pure Coulomb interaction governed by the Poisson equation. The model describes very well parallel plate capacitor physics, where a new length scale related to its capacitance emerges. Shorter than this length scale we see greater radiative heat transfer. This differs markedly from the usual Rytov fluctuational electrodynamics theory in which the enhancement is due to evanescent modes shorter than the thermal wavelengths. Our theory may explain recent experiments where charge fluctuations instead of current fluctuations play a dominant role in radiative heat transfer. Finally, due to the asymmetric electron-bath couplings, thermal rectification effects are also observed and reported.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2017

Capacitor physics in ultra-near-field heat transfer

Using the nonequilibrium Green's function (NEGF) formalism, we propose a microscopic theory for near-field heat transfer between charged metal plates focusing on the Coulomb interactions. Tight-binding models for the electrons are coupled to the electromagnetic field continuum through a scalar potential. Our approach differs from the established ones based on Rytov fluctuational electrodynamics, which deals with the transverse radiative field and vector potential. For a two quantum-dot model a new length scale emerges below which the heat current exhibits great enhancement. This length scale is related to the physics of parallel plate capacitors. At long distances $d$, the energy flux decreases as $1/d^2$.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2016

Phonon transport in a one-dimensional harmonic chain with long-range interaction and mass disorder

Atomic mass and interatomic interaction are the two key quantities that significantly affect the heat conduction carried by phonons. Here, we study the effects of long-range (LR) interatomic interaction and mass-disorder on the phonon transport in a one-dimensional harmonic chain withup to 10^5 atoms. We find that while LR interaction reduces the transmission of low frequency phonons, it enhances the transmission of high frequency phonons by suppressing the localization effects caused by mass disorder. Therefore, long-range interaction is able to boost heat conductance in the high temperature regime or in the large size regime, where the high frequency modes are important.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2016

Radiative heat transfer as a Landauer-Büttiker problem

We study the radiative heat transfer between two semi-infinite half-spaces, bounded by conductive surfaces in contact with vacuum. This setup is interpreted as a four-terminal mesoscopic transport problem. The slabs and interfaces are viewed as bosonic reservoirs, coupled perfectly to a scattering center consisting of the two interfaces and vacuum. Using Rytov's fluctuational electrodynamics and assuming Kirchhoff's circuital law, we calculate the heat flow in each bath. This allows for explicit evaluation of a conductance matrix, from which one readily verifies Büttiker symmetry. Thus, radiative heat transfer in layered media with conductive interfaces becomes a Landauer-Büttiker transport problem.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2016

Quantum thermal transport through anharmonic systems: A self-consistent approach

We propose a feasible and effective approach to study quantum thermal transport through anharmonic systems. The main idea is to obtain an {\it effective} harmonic Hamiltonian for the anharmonic system by applying the self-consistent phonon theory. Using the effective harmonic Hamiltonian we study thermal transport within the framework of nonequilibrium Green's function method using the celebrated Caroli formula. We corroborate our quantum self-consistent approach using the quantum master equation that can deal with anharmonicity exactly, but is limited to the weak system-bath coupling regime. Finally, in order demonstrate its strength we apply the quantum self-consistent approach to study thermal rectification in a weakly coupled two segment anharmonic system.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2016

A microscopic theory for ultra-near-field radiation

Using the nonequilibrium Green's function (NEGF) formalism, we propose a microscopic theory for near-field radiative heat transfer between metal plates. Tight-binding models for the electrons are coupled to the electromagnetic field continuum. Our approach differs from the established ones based on fluctuational electrodynamics, in that it describes truly nonequilibrium steady states, and is nonlocal in system's dielectric properties. For a two quantum-dot model a new length scale emerges at which the heat current shows a peak. This length scale is related to the physics of parallel plate capacitors. The three-dimensional model results are consistent with the theory of Polder and van Hove except at very short distances.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2016

Electron and phonon drag in thermoelectric transport through coherent molecular conductors

We study thermoelectric transport through a coherent molecular conductor connected to two electron and two phonon baths using the nonequilibrium Green's function method. We focus on the mutual drag between electron and phonon transport as a result of `momentum' transfer, which happens only when there are at least two phonon degrees of freedom. After deriving expressions for the linear drag coefficients, obeying the Onsager relation, we further investigate their effect on nonequilibrium transport. We show that the drag effect is closely related to two other phenomena: (1) adiabatic charge pumping through a coherent conductor; (2) the current-induced nonconservative and effective magnetic forces on phonons.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗