arXiv subjects

Leonid S. Levitov

Publications and source records attributed to Leonid S. Levitov.

47 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv2011

Hot Carrier-Assisted Intrinsic Photoresponse in Graphene

Graphene is a new material showing high promise in optoelectronics, photonics, and energy-harvesting applications. However, the underlying physical mechanism of optoelectronic response has not been established. Here, we report on the intrinsic optoelectronic response of high-quality dual-gated monolayer and bilayer graphene p-n junction devices. Local laser excitation at the p-n interface leads to striking six-fold photovoltage patterns as a function of bottom- and top-gate voltages. These patterns, together with the measured spatial and density dependence of the photoresponse, provide strong evidence that non-local hot-carrier transport, rather than the photovoltaic effect, dominates the intrinsic photoresponse in graphene. This novel regime, which features a long-lived and spatially distributed hot carrier population, may open the doorway for optoelectronic technologies exploiting efficient energy transport at the nanoscale.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2011

Hot Carrier Transport and Photocurrent Response in Graphene

Strong electron-electron interactions in graphene are expected to result in multiple-excitation generation by the absorption of a single photon. We show that the impact of carrier multiplication on photocurrent response is enhanced by very inefficient electron cooling, resulting in an abundance of hot carriers. The hot-carrier-mediated energy transport dominates the photoresponse and manifests itself in quantum efficiencies that can exceed unity, as well as in a characteristic dependence of the photocurrent on gate voltages. The pattern of multiple photocurrent sign changes as a function of gate voltage provides a fingerprint of hot-carrier-dominated transport and carrier multiplication.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2011

Capacitance of Graphene Bilayer as a Which-Layer Probe

The unique capabilities of capacitance measurements in bilayer graphene enable probing of layer-specific properties that are normally out of reach in transport measurements. Furthermore, capacitance measurements in the top-gate and penetration field geometries are sensitive to different physical quantities: the penetration field capacitance probes the two layers equally, whereas the top gate capacitance preferentially samples the near layer, resulting in the "near-layer capacitance enhancement" effect observed in recent top-gate capacitance measurements. We present a detailed theoretical description of this effect and show that capacitance can be used to determine the equilibrium layer polarization, a potentially useful tool in the study of broken symmetry states in graphene.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2008

Pulse calibration and non-adiabatic control of solid-state artificial atoms

Transitions in an artificial atom, driven non-adiabatically through an energy-level avoided crossing, can be controlled by carefully engineering the driving protocol. We have driven a superconducting persistent-current qubit with a large-amplitude, radio-frequency field. By applying a bi-harmonic waveform generated by a digital source, we demonstrate a mapping between the amplitude and phase of the harmonics produced at the source and those received by the device. This allows us to image the actual waveform at the device. This information is used to engineer a desired time dependence, as confirmed by detailed comparison with simulation.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2008

Amplitude Spectroscopy of a Solid-State Artificial Atom

The energy-level structure of a quantum system plays a fundamental role in determining its behavior and manifests itself in a discrete absorption and emission spectrum. Conventionally, spectra are probed via frequency spectroscopy whereby the frequency νof a harmonic driving field is varied to fulfill the conditions ΔE = h ν, where the driving field is resonant with the level separation ΔE (h is Planck's constant). Although this technique has been successfully employed in a variety of physical systems, including natural and artificial atoms and molecules, its application is not universally straightforward, and becomes extremely challenging for frequencies in the range of 10's and 100's of gigahertz. Here we demonstrate an alternative approach, whereby a harmonic driving field sweeps the atom through its energy-level avoided crossings at a fixed frequency, surmounting many of the limitations of the conventional approach. Spectroscopic information is obtained from the amplitude dependence of the system response. The resulting ``spectroscopy diamonds'' contain interference patterns and population inversion that serve as a fingerprint of the atom's spectrum. By analyzing these features, we determine the energy spectrum of a manifold of states with energies from 0.01 to 120 GHz \times h in a superconducting artificial atom, using a driving frequency near 0.1 GHz. This approach provides a means to manipulate and characterize systems over a broad bandwidth, using only a single driving frequency that may be orders of magnitude smaller than the energy scales being probed.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2008

Conformal Invariance and Shape-Dependent Conductance of Graphene Samples

For a sample of an arbitrary shape, the dependence of its conductance on the longitudinal and Hall conductivity is identical to that of a rectangle. We use analytic results for a conducting rectangle, combined with the semicircle model for transport coefficients, to study properties of the monolayer and bilayer graphene. A conductance plateau centered at the neutrality point, predicted for square geometry, is in agreement with recent experiments. For rectangular geometry, the conductance exhibits maxima at the densities of compressible quantum Hall states for wide samples, and minima for narrow samples. The positions and relative sizes of these features are different in the monolayer and bilayer cases, indicating that the conductance can be used as a tool for sample diagnostic.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2007

Electronic transport and quantum Hall effect in bipolar graphene p-n-p junction

We have developed a device fabrication process to pattern graphene into nanostructures of arbitrary shape and control their electronic properties using local electrostatic gates. Electronic transport measurements have been used to characterize locally gated bipolar graphene $p$-$n$-$p$ junctions. We observe a series of fractional quantum Hall conductance plateaus at high magnetic fields as the local charge density is varied in the $p$ and $n$ regions. These fractional plateaus, originating from chiral edge states equilibration at the $p$-$n$ interfaces, exhibit sensitivity to inter-edge backscattering which is found to be strong for some of the plateuas and much weaker for other plateaus. We use this effect to explore the role of backscattering and estimate disorder strength in our graphene devices.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2007

Charge and Spin Transport at the Quantum Hall Edge of Graphene

Landau level bending near the edge of graphene, described using 2d Dirac equation, provides a microscopic framework for understanding the quantum Hall Effect (QHE) in this material. We review properties of the QHE edge states in graphene, with emphasis on the novel phenomena that arise due to Dirac character of electronic states. A method of mapping out the dispersion of the edge states using scanning tunneling probes is proposed. The Zeeman splitting of Landau levels is shown to create a particularly interesting situation around the Dirac point, where it gives rise to counter-circulating modes with opposite spin. These chiral spin modes lead to a rich variety of spin transport phenomena, including spin Hall effect, spin filtering and injection, and electric detection of spin current. The estimated Zeeman spin gap, enhanced by exchange, of a few hundred Kelvin, makes graphene an attractive system for spintronics. Comparison to recent transport measurements near nu=0 is presented.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2007

Dissipative Quantum Hall Effect in Graphene near the Dirac Point

We report on the unusual nature of nu=0 state in the integer quantum Hall effect (QHE) in graphene and show that electron transport in this regime is dominated by counter-propagating edge states. Such states, intrinsic to massless Dirac quasiparticles, manifest themselves in a large longitudinal resistivity rho_xx > h/e^2, in striking contrast to rho_xx behavior in the standard QHE. The nu=0 state in graphene is also predicted to exhibit pronounced fluctuations in rho_xy and rho_xx and a smeared zero Hall plateau in sigma_xy, in agreement with experiment. The existence of gapless edge states puts stringent constraints on possible theoretical models of the nu=0 state.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2006

Order from Disorder in Graphene Quantum Hall Ferromagnet

Valley-polarized quantum Hall states in graphene are described by a Heisenberg O(3) ferromagnet model, with the ordering type controlled by the strength and sign of valley anisotropy. A mechanism resulting from electron coupling to strain-induced gauge field, giving leading contribution to the anisotropy, is described in terms of an effective random magnetic field aligned with the ferromagnet z axis. We argue that such random field stabilizes the XY ferromagnet state, which is a coherent equal-weight mixture of the $K$ and $K'$ valley states. Other implications such as the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless ordering transition and topological defects with half-integer charge are discussed.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2005

Mach-Zehnder Interferometry in a Strongly Driven Superconducting Qubit

We demonstrate Mach-Zehnder-type interferometry in a superconducting flux qubit. The qubit is a tunable artificial atom, whose ground and excited states exhibit an avoided crossing. Strongly driving the qubit with harmonic excitation sweeps it through the avoided crossing two times per period. As the induced Landau-Zener transitions act as coherent beamsplitters, the accumulated phase between transitions, which varies with microwave amplitude, results in quantum interference fringes for n=1...20 photon transitions. The generalization of optical Mach-Zehnder interferometry, performed in qubit phase space, provides an alternative means to manipulate and characterize the qubit in the strongly-driven regime.

cond-mat.supr-con↗