arXiv subjects

Lili Wang

Publications and source records attributed to Lili Wang.

At least 109 records · Page 6Linked to original sources

arXiv2019

Insulating Parent Phase and Distinct Doping Evolution to Superconductivity in Single-Layer FeSe/SrTiO3 Films

The single-layer FeSe/SrTiO3 (FeSe/STO) films have attracted much attention because of their simple crystal structure, distinct electronic structure and record high superconducting transition temperature (Tc). The origin of the dramatic Tc enhancement in single-layer FeSe/STO films and the dichotomy of superconductivity between single-layer and multiple-layer FeSe/STO films are still under debate. Here we report a comprehensive high resolution angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy and scanning tunneling microscopy/spectroscopy measurements on the electronic structure evolution with doping in single-layer and multiple-layer FeSe/STO films. We find that the single-layer FeSe/STO films have a distinct parent phase and a route of doping evolution to superconductivity that are fundamentally different from multiple-layer FeSe/STO films. The parent phase of the single-layer FeSe/STO films is insulating, and its doping evolution is very similar to that of doping a Mott insulator in cuprate superconductors. In multiple-layer FeSe/STO films, high-Tc superconductivity occurs by suppressing the nematic order in the parent compound with electron doping. The single-layer FeSe/STO films represent the first clear case in the iron-based superconductors that the parent compound is an insulator. Our observations of the unique parent state and doping evolution in the single-layer FeSe/STO films provide key insight in understanding its record high-Tc superconductivity. They also provide a new route of realizing superconductivity in iron-based superconductors that is common in high temperature cuprate superconductors.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2019

A Distributed Observer for a Discrete-Time Linear System

A simply structured distributed observer is described for estimating the state of a discrete-time, jointly observable, input-free, linear system whose sensed outputs are distributed across a time-varying network. It is explained how to construct the local estimators which comprise the observer so that their state estimation errors all converge exponentially fast to zero at a fixed, but arbitrarily chosen rate provided the network's graph is strongly connected for all time. This is accomplished by exploiting several well-known properties of invariant subspaces plus several kinds of suitably defined matrix norms.

eess.SY↗

arXiv2019

Superconductivity above 28 K in single unit cell FeSe films interfaced with GaO$_{2-δ}$ layer on NdGaO$_{3}$(110)

We prepared single unit cell FeSe films on GaO$_{2-δ}$ terminated perovskite NdGaO$_{3}$(110) substrates and performed ex situ transport and scanning transmission electron microscopy measurements on the FeTe protected films. Our experimental measurements showed that the single unit cell FeSe films interfaced with GaO$_{2-δ}$ layer are electron doped via interface charge transfer. Most importantly, this type of heterostructure can host interface enhanced superconductivity with an onset temperature of about 28 K, which is much higher than the value of 8 K in bulk FeSe. Our work indicates that FeSe/GaO$_{2-δ}$can be a comparative platform with the FeSe/TiO$_{2-δ}$ family for understanding the mechanism of interface enhanced high temperature superconductivity.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2019

Coulomb gap induced by electronic correlation and enlarged superconducting gap in laterally confined Pb islands grown on SrTiO3

We report high-resolution scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) study of nano-sized Pb islands grown on SrTiO3, where three distinct types of gaps with different energy scales are revealed. At low temperature, an enlarged superconducting gap (Δs) emerges while there is no enhancement in superconducting transition temperature (Tc), giving rise to a larger BCS ratio 2Δs/kBTc ~ 6.22. The strong coupling here may originate from the electron-phonon coupling on the metal-oxide interface. As the superconducting gap is suppressed under applied magnetic field or at elevated temperature, Coulomb gap and pseudogap appear, respectively. The Coulomb gap is sensitive to the lateral size of Pb islands, indicating that quantum size effect is able to influence electronic correlation, which is usually ignored in low-dimensional superconductivity. Our experimental results shall shed important light on the interplay between quantum size effect and correlations in nano-sized superconductors.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2019

Edge states at nematic domain walls in FeSe films

Quantum spin Hall (QSH) effect is an intriguing phenomenon arising from the helical edge states in two-dimensional topological insulators. We use molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) to prepare FeSe films with atomically sharp nematic domain boundaries, where tensile strains, nematicity suppression and topological band inversion are simultaneously achieved. Using scanning tunneling microscopy (STM), we observe edge states at the Fermi level that spatially distribute as two distinct strips in the vicinity of the domain boundaries. At the endpoint of the boundaries, a bound state at the Fermi level is further observed. The topological origin of the edge states is supported by density functional theory calculations. Our findings not only demonstrate a candidate for QSH states, but also provide a new pathway to realize topological superconductivity in a single-component film.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2018

Dirichlet p-Laplacian eigenvalues and Cheeger constants on symmetric graphs

In this paper, we study eigenvalues and eigenfunctions of $p$-Laplacians with Dirichlet boundary condition on graphs. We characterize the first eigenfunction (and the maximum eigenfunction for a bipartite graph) via the sign condition. By the uniqueness of the first eigenfunction of $p$-Laplacian, as $p\to 1,$ we identify the Cheeger constant of a symmetric graph with that of the quotient graph. By this approach, we calculate various Cheeger constants of spherically symmetric graphs.

math.SP↗

arXiv2018

Consensus and Disagreement of Heterogeneous Belief Systems in Influence Networks

Recently, an opinion dynamics model has been proposed to describe a network of individuals discussing a set of logically interdependent topics. For each individual, the set of topics and the logical interdependencies between the topics (captured by a logic matrix) form a belief system. We investigate the role the logic matrix and its structure plays in determining the final opinions, including existence of the limiting opinions, of a strongly connected network of individuals. We provide a set of results that, given a set of individuals' belief systems, allow a systematic determination of which topics will reach a consensus, and which topics will disagreement in arise. For irreducible logic matrices, each topic reaches a consensus. For reducible logic matrices, which indicates a cascade interdependence relationship, conditions are given on whether a topic will reach a consensus or not. It turns out that heterogeneity among the individuals' logic matrices, including especially differences in the signs of the off-diagonal entries, can be a key determining factor. This paper thus attributes, for the first time, a strong diversity of limiting opinions to heterogeneity of belief systems in influence networks, in addition to the more typical explanation that strong diversity arises from individual stubbornness.

cs.SI↗

arXiv2018

Realizing an Epitaxial Stanene with an Insulating Bandgap

Stanene, a single atomic layer of Sn in a honeycomb lattice, is predicted a candidate wide bandgap two-dimensional (2D) topological insulator and can host intriguing topological states of matter such as quantum anomalous Hall effect and topological superconductivity with different surface modifications. Despite intensive research efforts, one still cannot obtain bulk-insulating stanene samples-a prerequisite for any transport studies and applications of stanene. Here we show the experimental realization of an epitaxial stanene with an insulating bulk bandgap by using PbTe(111) substrates. With low-temperature molecular beam epitaxy, we are able to grow single layer stanene on PbTe(111). In-situ angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy shows the characteristic stanene bands with its Fermi level lying in the bandgap. Doping Sr in PbTe removes the substrate states located in the stanene gap, resulting in a stanene sample with truly insulating bulk. This experimental progress paves the way for studies of stanene-based topological quantum effects.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2018

Experimental realization of an intrinsic magnetic topological insulator

Intrinsic magnetic topological insulator (TI) is a stoichiometric magnetic compound possessing both inherent magnetic order and topological electronic states. Such a material can provide a shortcut to various novel topological quantum effects but remains elusive experimentally so far. Here, we report the experimental realization of high-quality thin films of an intrinsic magnetic TI---MnBi$_2$Te$_4$---by alternate growth of a Bi$_2$Te$_3$ quintuple-layer and a MnTe bilayer with molecular beam epitaxy. The material shows the archetypical Dirac surface states in angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy and is demonstrated to be an antiferromagnetic topological insulator with ferromagnetic surfaces by magnetic and transport measurements as well as first-principles calculations. The unique magnetic and topological electronic structures and their interplays enable the material to embody rich quantum phases such as quantum anomalous Hall insulators and axion insulators in a well-controlled way.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2018

Surface symmetry breaking and disorder effects on superconductivity in perovskite BaBi3 epitaxial films

The structural or electronic symmetry breaking of the host lattice is a recurrent phenomenon in many quantum materials, including superconductors. Yet, how these broken symmetry states affect the electronic pair wave function of superconductivity have been rarely elucidated. Here, using low-temperature scanning tunneling microscopy and first-principles calculations, we identify the broken rotational symmetry via stripe ordering on the (001) surface of perovskite BaBi3 films grown by molecular beam epitaxy, and show that it consequently leads to anisotropic superconductivity with twofold symmetry. In contrast, the structural disorder smears out the anisotropy of electron pairing and fills superconducting subgap density of states as the film thickness is reduced. A quasi-long range model of superconducting fluctuations is revealed to describe the tunneling conductance spectra of thin BaBi3 films well, and to exemplify how disorders contribute to the low-energy quasiparticle excitations in superconductors. Our findings help understand the effects of symmetry breaking states and disorders on superconductivity, particularly the existing tunneling conductance spectra there.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2018

Atomic Visualization of Copper Oxide Structure in Infinite-Layer Cuprate SrCuO2

We report on atomic-scale visualization of the structure of infinite-layer cuprate SrCuO2 thin films grown on Nb-doped SrTiO3 substrates by molecular beam epitaxy. In-situ scanning tunneling microscopy study reveals stoichiometric copper oxide (CuO2) plane with a 2 x 2 surface reconstruction, prompted by preferential clustering of four adjacent CuO2 plaquettes. By imaging the subsurface Sr atoms, intra-unit-cell rotational symmetry breaking is observed, which, together with the adjacent CuO2 clustering, can be well accounted for by a periodic up-down buckling of oxygen ions on the CuO2 plane. Further post-annealing leads to an incommensurate stripe structure of the surface layer. Our findings provide important structural information for deeply understanding the electronic structure of superconducting CuO2 plane as well as high temperature superconductivity in cuprates.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2018

Quantum anomalous Hall multilayers grown by molecular beam epitaxy

Quantum anomalous Hall (QAH) effect is a quantum Hall effect that occurs without the need of external magnetic field. A system composed of multiple parallel QAH layers is an effective high Chern number QAH insulator and the key to the applications of the dissipationless chiral edge channels in low energy consumption electronics. Such a QAH multilayer can also be engineered into other exotic topological phases such as a magnetic Weyl semimetal with only one pair of Weyl points. This work reports the first experimental realization of QAH multilayers in the superlattices composed of magnetically doped (Bi,Sb)$_2$Te$_3$ topological insulator and CdSe normal insulator layers grown by molecular beam epitaxy. The obtained multilayer samples show quantized Hall resistance $h/Ne$$^2$, where $h$ is the Planck's constant, $e$ is the elementary charge and $N$ is the number of the magnetic topological insulator layers, resembling a high Chern number QAH insulator.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2018

Anisotropic superconductivity and elongated vortices with unusual bound states in quasi-one-dimensional nickel-bismuth compounds

We report low temperature scanning tunneling microscopy and spectroscopy studies of Ni-Bi films grown by molecular beam epitaxy. Highly anisotropic and twofold symmetric superconducting gaps are revealed in two distinct composites, Bi-rich NiBi3 and near-equimolar NixBi, both sharing quasi-one-dimensional crystal structure. We further reveal axially elongated vortices in both phases, but Caroli-de Gennes-Matricon states solely within the vortex cores of NiBi3. Intriguingly, although the localized bound state splits energetically off at a finite distance ~10 nm away from a vortex center along the minor axis of elliptic vortex, no splitting is found along the major axis. We attribute the elongated vortices and unusual vortex behaviors to the combined effects of twofold superconducting gap and Fermi velocity. The findings provide a comprehensive understanding of the electron pairing and vortex matter in quasi-one-dimensional superconductors

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2018

Observation of Interface Superconductivity in a SnSe2-Epitaxial Graphene van der Waals Heterostructure

We report on the direct observation of interface superconductivity in single-unit-cell SnSe2 films grown on graphitized SiC(0001) substrate by means of van der Waals epitaxy. Tunneling spectrum in the superconducting state reveals rather conventional character with a fully gapped order parameter. The occurrence of superconductivity is further confirmed by the presence of vortices under external magnetic field. Through interface engineering, we unravel the mechanism of superconductivity that originates from a two-dimensional electron gas formed at the interface of SnSe2 and graphene. Our finding opens up novel strategies to hunt for and understand interface superconductivity based on van der Waals heterostructures.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2018

Observation of tunneling gap in epitaxial ultrathin films of pyrite-type copper disulfide

We report scanning tunneling microscopy investigation on epitaxial ultrathin films of pyrite-type copper disulfide. Layer by layer growth of CuS2 films with a preferential orientation of (111) on SrTiO3(001) and Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+δ substrates is achieved by molecular beam epitaxy growth. For ultrathin films on both kinds of substrates, we observed symmetric tunneling gap around Fermi level that persists up to ~ 15 K. The tunneling gap degrades with either increasing temperature or increasing thickness, suggesting new matter states at the extreme two dimensional limit.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2017

Origin of charge transfer and enhanced electron-phonon coupling in single unit-cell FeSe films on SrTiO3

Interface charge transfer and electron-phonon coupling have been suggested to play a crucial role in the recently discovered high-temperature superconductivity of single unit-cell FeSe films on SrTiO3. However, their origin remains elusive. Here, using ultraviolet photoemission spectroscopy (UPS) and element-sensitive X-ray photoemission spectroscopy (XPS), we identify the strengthened Ti-O bond that contributes to the interface enhanced electron-phonon coupling and unveil the band bending at the FeSe/SrTiO3 interface that leads to the charge transfer from SrTiO3 to FeSe films. We also observe band renormalization that accompanies the onset of superconductivity. Our results not only provide valuable insights into the mechanism of the interface-enhanced superconductivity, but also point out a promising route towards designing novel superconductors in heterostructures with band-bending induced charge transfer and interfacial enhanced electron-phonon coupling.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2017

An extensive impurity-scattering study on the pairing symmetry of monolayer FeSe films on SrTiO3

Determination of the pairing symmetry in monolayer FeSe films on SrTiO3 is a requisite for understanding the high superconducting transition temperature in this system, which has attracted intense theoretical and experimental studies but remains controversial. Here, by introducing several types of point defects in FeSe monolayer films, we conduct a systematic investigation on the impurity-induced electronic states by spatially resolved scanning tunneling spectroscopy. Ranging from surface adsorption, chemical substitution to intrinsic structural modification, these defects generate a variety of scattering strength, which renders new insights on the pairing symmetry.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2017

Uniform Consistency in Stochastic Block Model with Continuous Community Label

\cite{bickel2009nonparametric} developed a general framework to establish consistency of community detection in stochastic block model (SBM). In most applications of this framework, the community label is discrete. For example, in \citep{bickel2009nonparametric,zhao2012consistency} the degree corrected SBM is assumed to have a discrete degree parameter. In this paper, we generalize the method of \cite{bickel2009nonparametric} to give consistency analysis of maximum likelihood estimator (MLE) in SBM with continuous community label. We show that there is a standard procedure to transform the $||\cdot||_2$ error bound to the uniform error bound. We demonstrate the application of our general results by proving the uniform consistency (strong consistency) of the MLE in the exponential network model with interaction effect. Unfortunately, in the continuous parameter case, the condition ensuring uniform consistency we obtained is much stronger than that in the discrete parameter case, namely $nμ_n^5/(\log n)^{8}\rightarrow\infty$ versus $nμ_n/\log n\rightarrow\infty$. Where $nμ_n$ represents the average degree of the network. But continuous is the limit of discrete. So it is not surprising as we show that by discretizing the community label space into sufficiently small (but not too small) pieces and applying the MLE on the discretized community label space, uniform consistency holds under almost the same condition as in discrete community label space. Such a phenomenon is surprising since the discretization does not depend on the data or the model. This reminds us of the thresholding method.

stat.ME↗