Searcharxiv⌕ Search

arXiv subjects

Klaus Richter

Publications and source records attributed to Klaus Richter.

At least 181 records · Page 10Linked to original sources

The role of orbital dynamics in spin relaxation and weak antilocalization in quantum dots

We develop a semiclassical theory for spin-dependent quantum transport to describe weak (anti)localization in quantum dots with spin-orbit coupling. This allows us to distinguish different types of spin relaxation in systems with chaotic, regular, and diffusive orbital classical dynamics. We find, in particular, that for typical Rashba spin-orbit coupling strengths, integrable ballistic systems can exhibit weak localization, while corresponding chaotic systems show weak antilocalization. We further calculate the magnetoconductance and analyze how the weak antilocalization is suppressed with decreasing quantum dot size and increasing additional in-plane magnetic field.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

Andreev magnetotransport in low-dimensional proximity structures: Spin-dependent conductance enhancement

We study the excess conductance due to the superconducting proximity effect in a ballistic two-dimensional electron system subject to an in-plane magnetic field. We show that under certain conditions the interplay of the Zeeman spin splitting and the effect of a screening supercurrent gives rise to a spin-selective Andreev enhancement of the conductance and anomalies in its voltage, temperature and magnetic field characteristics. The magnetic-field influence on Andreev reflection is discussed in the context of using superconducting hybrid junctions for spin detection.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

Nonlinear Resonant Transport of Bose Einstein Condensates

The coherent flow of a Bose-Einstein condensate through a quantum dot in a magnetic waveguide is studied. By the numerical integration of the time-dependent Gross-Pitaevskii equation in presence of a source term, we simulate the propagation process of the condensate through a double barrier potential in the waveguide. We find that resonant transport is suppressed in interaction-induced regimes of bistability, where multiple scattering states exist at the same chemical potential and the same incident current. We demonstrate, however, that a temporal control of the external potential can be used to circumvent this limitation and to obtain enhanced transmission near the resonance on experimentally realistic time scales.

cond-mat.other↗

Spin interference effects in ring conductors subject to Rashba coupling

Quantum interference effects in rings provide suitable means for controlling spin at mesoscopic scales. Here we apply such control mechanisms to coherent spin-dependent transport in one- and two-dimensional rings subject to Rashba spin-orbit coupling. We first study the spin-induced modulation of unpolarized currents as a function of the Rashba coupling strength. The results suggest the possibility of all-electrical spintronic devices. Moreover, we find signatures of Berry phases in the conductance previously unnoticed. Second, we show that the polarization direction of initially polarized, transmitted spins can be tuned via an additional small magnetic control flux. In particular, this enables to precisely reverse the polarization direction at half a flux quantum. We present full numerical calculations for realistic two-dimensional ballistic microstructures and explain our findings in a simple analytical model for one-dimensional rings.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

Aharonov-Bohm Physics with Spin I: Geometric Phases in One-dimensional Ballistic Rings

We analytically calculate the spin-dependent electronic conductance through a one-dimensional ballistic ring in the presence of an inhomogeneous magnetic field and identify signatures of geometric and Berry phases in the general non-adiabatic situation. For an in-plane magnetic field, we rigorously prove the spin-flip effect presented in Frustaglia et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 87, 256602 (2001), which allows to control and switch the polarization of outgoing electrons by means of an Aharonov-Bohm flux, and derive analytical expressions for the energy-averaged magneto-conductance. Our results support numerical calculations for two-dimensional ballistic rings presented in the second paper (Frustaglia et al., submitted to Phys. Rev. B) of this series.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

Aharonov-Bohm Physics with Spin II: Spin-Flip Effects in Two-dimensional Ballistic Systems

We study spin effects in the magneto-conductance of ballistic mesoscopic systems subject to inhomogeneous magnetic fields. We present a numerical approach to the spin-dependent Landauer conductance which generalizes recursive Green function techniques to the case with spin. Based on this method we address spin-flip effects in quantum transport of spin-polarized and -unpolarized electrons through quantum wires and various two-dimensional Aharonov-Bohm geometries. In particular, we investigate the range of validity of a spin switch mechanism recently found which allows for controlling spins indirectly via Aharonov-Bohm fluxes. Our numerical results are compared to a transfer-matrix model for one-dimensional ring structures presented in the first paper (Hentschel et al., submitted to Phys. Rev. B) of this series.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

Semiclassical Construction of Random Wave Functions for Confined Systems

We develop a statistical description of chaotic wavefunctions in closed systems obeying arbitrary boundary conditions by combining a semiclassical expression for the spatial two-point correlation function with a treatment of eigenfunctions as Gaussian random fields. Thereby we generalize Berry's isotropic random wave model by incorporating confinement effects through classical paths reflected at the boundaries. Our approach allows to explicitly calculate highly non-trivial statistics, such as intensity distributions, in terms of usually few short orbits, depending on the energy window considered. We compare with numerical quantum results for the Africa billiard and derive non-isotropic random wave models for other prominent confinement geometries.

nlin.CD↗

Conditions for Adiabatic Spin Transport in Disordered Systems

We address the controversy concerning the necessary conditions for the observation of Berry phases in disordered mesoscopic conductors. For this purpose we calculate the spin-dependent conductance of disordered two-dimensional structures in the presence of inhomogeneous magnetic fields. Our numerical results show that for both, the overall conductance and quantum corrections, the relevant parameter defining adiabatic spin transport scales with the square root of the number of scattering events, in generalization of Stern's original proposal [Phys. Rev. Lett. 68, 1022 (1992)]. This could hinder a clear-cut experimental observation of Berry phase effects in diffusive metallic rings.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

Spin Filter Effects in Mesoscopic Ring Structures

We study the spin-dependent conductance of ballistic mesoscopic ring systems in the presence of an inhomogeneous magnetic field. We show that, for the setup proposed, even a small Zeeman splitting can lead to a considerable spin polarisation of the current. Making use of a spin-switch effect predicted for such systems we propose a device of two rings connected in series that in principle allows for both creating and coherently controlling spin polarized currents at low temperatures.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

Quantum chaos in optical systems: The annular billiard

We study the dielectric annular billiard as a quantum chaotic model of a micro-optical resonator. It differs from conventional billiards with hard-wall boundary conditions in that it is partially open and composed of two dielectric media with different refractive indices. The interplay of reflection and transmission at the different interfaces gives rise to rich dynamics of classical light rays and to a variety of wave phenomena. We study the ray propagation in terms of Poincare surfaces of section and complement it with full numerical solutions of the corresponding wave equations. We introduce and develop an S-matrix approach to open optical cavities which proves very suitable for the identification of resonances of intermediate width that will be most important in future applications like optical communication devices. We show that the Husimi representation is a useful tool in characterising resonances and establish the ray-wave correspondence in real and phase space. While the simple ray picture provides a good qualitative description of certain system classes, only the wave description reveals the quantitative details.

physics.optics↗

Semiclassical Theory of Chaotic Quantum Transport

We present a refined semiclassical approach to the Landauer conductance and Kubo conductivity of clean chaotic mesoscopic systems. We demonstrate for systems with uniformly hyperbolic dynamics that including off-diagonal contributions to double sums over classical paths gives a weak-localization correction in quantitative agreement with results from random matrix theory. We further discuss the magnetic field dependence. This semiclassical treatment accounts for current conservation.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

Quantum Transport in Nonuniform Magnetic Fields: Aharonov-Bohm Ring as a Spin Switch

We study the spin-dependent magneto conductance in mesoscopic rings subject to an inhomogeneous in-plane magnetic field. We show that the polarization direction of transmitted spin-polarized electrons can be controlled via an additional magnetic flux such that spin flips are induced at half a flux quantum. This quantum interference effect is independent of the strength of the nonuniform field applied. We give an analytical explanation for one-dimensional rings and numerical results for corresponding ballistic microstructures.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

Ballistic Quantum Transport: Effect of Geometrical Phases

We study the influence of nonuniform magnetic fields on the magneto conductance of mesoscopic microstructures. We show that the coupling of the electron spin to the inhomogenous field gives rise to effects of the Berry phase on ballistic quantum transport and discuss adiabaticity conditions required to observe such effects. We present numerical results for different ring geometries showing a splitting of Aharonov-Bohm conductance peaks for single rings and corresponding signatures of the geometrical phase in weak localization. The latter features can be qualitatively explained in a semiclassical approach to quantum transport.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

Semiclassical analysis of level widths for one-dimensional potentials

We present a semiclassical study of level widths for a class of one-dimensional potentials in the presence of an ohmic environment. Employing an expression for the dipole matrix element in terms of the Fourier transform of the classical path we obtain the level widths within the Golden rule approximation. It is found that for potentials with an asymptotic power-law behavior, which may in addition be limited by an infinite wall, the width that an eigenstate of the isolated system acquires due to the coupling to the environment is proportional to its quantum number.

quant-ph↗

Addition Spectra of Chaotic Quantum Dots: Interplay between Interactions and Geometry

We investigate the influence of interactions and geometry on ground states of clean chaotic quantum dots using the self-consistent Hartree-Fock method. We find two distinct regimes of interaction strength: While capacitive energy fluctuations $δχ$ follow approximately a random matrix prediction for weak interactions, there is a crossover to a regime where $δχ$ is strongly enhanced and scales roughly with interaction strength. This enhancement is related to the rearrangement of charges into ordered states near the dot edge. This effect is non-universal depending on dot shape and size. It may provide additional insight into recent experiments on statistics of Coulomb blockade peak spacings.

cond-mat.dis-nn↗

The magnetic susceptibility of disordered non-diffusive mesoscopic systems

Disorder-induced spectral correlations of mesoscopic quantum systems in the non-diffusive regime and their effect on the magnetic susceptibility are studied. We perform impurity averaging for non-translational invariant systems by combining a diagrammatic perturbative approach with semiclassical techniques. This allows us to study the entire range from clean to diffusive systems. As an application we consider the magnetic response of non-interacting electrons in microstructures in the presence of weak disorder. We show that in the ballistic case (elastic mean free path $\ell$ larger than the system size) there exist two distinct regimes of behaviour depending on the relative magnitudes of $\ell$ and an inelastic scattering length $L_ϕ$. We present numerical results for square billiards and derive approximate analytical results for generic chaotic geometries. The magnetic field dependence and $L_ϕ$ dependence of the disorder-induced susceptibility is qualitatively similar in both types of geometry.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

Statistics of Coulomb Blockade Peak Spacings within the Hartree-Fock Approximation

We study the effect of electronic interactions on the addition spectra and on the energy level distributions of two-dimensional quantum dots with weak disorder using the self-consistent Hartree-Fock approximation for spinless electrons. We show that the distribution of the conductance peak spacings is Gaussian with large fluctuations that exceed, in agreement with experiments, the mean level spacing of the non-interacting system. We analyze this distribution on the basis of Koopmans' theorem. We show furthermore that the occupied and unoccupied Hartree-Fock levels exhibit Wigner-Dyson statistics.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

From clean to diffusive mesoscopic systems: A semiclassical approach to the magnetic susceptibility

We study disorder-induced spectral correlations and their effect on the magnetic susceptibility of mesoscopic quantum systems in the non-diffusive regime. By combining a diagrammatic perturbative approach with semiclassical techniques we perform impurity averaging for non-translational invariant systems. This allows us to study the crossover from clean to diffusive systems. As an application we consider the susceptibility of non-interacting electrons in a ballistic microstructure in the presence of weak disorder. We present numerical results for a square billiard and approximate analytic results for generic chaotic geometries. We show that for the elastic mean free path $\ell$ larger than the system size, there are two distinct regimes of behaviour depending on the relative magnitudes of $\ell$ and an inelastic scattering length.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗