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M. Kindermann

Publications and source records attributed to M. Kindermann.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
arXiv2018

Prediction of novel `magic' angles and correlations for twisted bilayer graphene in a perpendicular electric field

At certain angles of rotation called `magic angles' twisted bilayer graphene features almost flat bands. The resulting strong correlations drive the system to novel phases which have been observed in experiments recently. A complete understanding of the `magic' angle physics---both at the single-particle as well as the many-particle level---is still missing, and the search is ongoing. Here, we identify a new set of `magic' angles, where locally flat bands with a variety of possible many-body instabilities arise, but where the single-particle problem admits an exact solution. This occurs in the presence of an external perpendicular electric field at multicritical Lifshitz points. At these angles, which can be quantified exactly, the central band features a monkey saddle, resulting in strong electronic correlations.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗
arXiv2014

Valley Order and Loop Currents in Graphene on Hexagonal Boron Nitride

In this letter, we examine the role of Coulomb interactions in the emergence of macroscopically ordered states in graphene supported on hexagonal boron nitride substrates. Due to incommensuration effects with the substrate, graphene can develop gapped low energy modes that spatially conform into a triangular superlattice of quantum rings. In the presence of these modes, we show that Coulomb interactions lead to spontaneous formation of chiral loop currents in bulk and to macroscopic spin-valley order at zero temperature. We show that this exotic state breaks time reversal symmetry and can be detected with interferometry and polar Kerr measurements.

cond-mat.str-el↗
arXiv2014

Theory of Twisted Bilayer Graphene Near Commensuration

Incommensurately twisted graphene bilayers are described by long-wavelength theories, but to date such theories exist only at small angles of interlayer rotation. We construct a long wavelength theory without such a restriction, instead requiring nearness to commensuration. The theory inherits its energy scale from the exactly commensurate bilayer that it is close to. It is a spatial interpolation between the low-energy theories of commensurate structures with the two possible sublattice exchange (SE) symmetries: SE even and SE odd. In addition to generalizing existing theories, our theory brings into experimental reach so far elusive commensuration physics in graphene such as band gaps and nontrivial band topology.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗
arXiv2014

Effects of the contacts on shot noise in graphene nano-ribbons

We investigate the shot noise of an impurity-free graphene flake as a function of the chemical potential. For large width to length ratios, this noise has been predicted and observed to exhibit universal characteristics at the Dirac point. Furthermore, a sharp decrease of the shot noise with increasing carrier density has been predicted. This decrease has also been observed in experiments, but with much smaller slope than predicted. We reconcile this discrepancy between theory and experiment by including the effects of the contacts to the graphene ribbon.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗
arXiv2013

Landau Level Splitting in Rotationally Faulted Multilayer Graphene

We show that valley degeneracy in rotationally faulted multilayer graphene may be broken in the presence of a magnetic field and interlayer commensurations. This happens due to a simultaneous breaking of both time-reversal and inversion symmetries leading to a splitting of Landau levels linear in the field. Our theoretical work is motivated by an experiment [Y. J. Song et al., Nature 467, 185 (2010)] on epitaxially grown multilayer graphene where such linear splitting of Landau levels was observed at moderate fields. We consider both bilayer and trilayer configurations and, although a linear splitting occurs in both cases, we show that the latter produces a splitting that is in quantitative agreement with the experiment.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗
arXiv2013

Topological crystalline insulator phase in graphene multilayers

While the experimental progress on three dimensional topological insulators is rapid, the development of their two dimensional counterparts has been comparatively slow, despite their technological promise. The main reason is materials challenges of the to date only realizations of two-dimensional topological insulators, in semiconductor quantum wells. Here we identify a two dimensional topological insulator in a material which does not face similar challenges and which is by now most widely available and well-charaterized: graphene. For certain commensurate interlayer twists graphene multilayers are insulators with sizable bandgaps. We show that they are moreover in a topological phase protected by crystal symmetry. As its fundamental signature, this topological state supports one-dimensional boundary modes. They form low-dissipation quantum wires that can be defined purely electrostatically.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗
arXiv2012

Zero Energy Modes and Gate-Tunable Gap in Graphene on hexagonal Boron Nitride

In this Letter, we derive an effective theory of graphene on a hexagonal Boron Nitride (h-BN) substrate. We show that the h-BN substrate generically opens a spectral gap in graphene despite the lattice mismatch. The origin of that gap is particularly intuitive in the regime of strong coupling between graphene and its substrate, when the low-energy physics is determined by the topology of a network of zero energy modes. For twisted graphene bilayers, where inversion symmetry is present, this network percolates through the system and the spectrum is gapless. The breaking of that symmetry by h-BN causes the zero energy modes to close into rings. The eigenstates of these rings hybridize into flat bands with gaps in between. The size of this band gap can be tuned by a gate voltage and it can reach the order of magnitude needed to confine electrons at room temperature.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗
arXiv2012

Effective theory of rotationally faulted multilayer graphene - the local limit

Interlayer coupling in rotationally faulted graphene multilayers breaks the local sublattice-symmetry of the individual layers. Earlier we have presented a theory of this mechanism, which reduces to an effective Dirac model with space-dependent mass in an important limit. It thus makes a wealth of existing knowledge available for the study of rotationally faulted graphene multilayers. Agreement of this theory with a recent experiment in a strong magnetic field was demonstrated. Here we explore some of the predictions of this theory for the system in zero magnetic field at large interlayer bias, when it becomes local in space. We use that theory to illuminate the physics of localization and velocity renormalization in twisted graphene bilayers.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗
arXiv2011

Signatures of evanescent mode transport in graphene

We calculate the shot noise generated by evanescent modes in graphene for several experimental setups. For two impurity-free graphene strips kept at the Dirac point by gate potentials, separated by a long highly doped region, we find that the Fano factor takes the universal value F = 1/4. For a large superlattice consisting of many strips gated to the Dirac point interspersed among doped regions, we find F = 1/(8 ln 2). These results differ from the value F = 1/3 predicted for a disordered metal, providing an unambiguous experimental signature of evanescent mode transport in graphene.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗
arXiv2011

Landau Quantization in Twisted Bilayer Graphenes: the Dirac Comb

We study the Landau quantization of the electronic spectrum for graphene bilayers that are rotationally faulted to produce periodic superlattices. Commensurate twisted bilayers exist in two families distinguished by their sublattice exchange parity. We show that these two families exhibit distinct Landau quantized spectra distinguished both by the interlayer coupling of their zero modes and by an amplitude modulation of their spectra at energies above their low energy interlayer coherence scales. These modulations can provide a powerful experimental probe of the magnitude of a weak coherence splitting in a bilayer and its low energy mass structure.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗
arXiv2010

Local sublattice-symmetry breaking in rotationally faulted multilayer graphene

Interlayer coupling in rotationally faulted graphene multilayers breaks the local sublattice-symmetry of the individual layers. We present a theory of this mechanism, which reduces to an effective Dirac model with space-dependent mass in an important limit. It thus makes a wealth of existing knowledge available for the study of rotationally faulted graphene multilayers. We demonstrate quantitative agreement between our theory and a recent experiment.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗
arXiv2010

Scaling and interaction-assisted transport in graphene with one-dimensional defects

We analyze the scattering from one-dimensional defects in intrinsic graphene. The Coulomb repulsion between electrons is found to be able to induce singularities of such scattering at zero temperature as in one-dimensional conductors. In striking contrast to electrons in one space dimension, however, repulsive interactions here can enhance transport. We present explicit calculations for the scattering from vector potentials that appear when strips of the material are under strain. There the predicted effects are exponentially large for strong scatterers.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗
arXiv2009

Optical manipulation of edge state transport in HgTe quantum wells in the quantum hall regime

We investigate an effective low energy theory of HgTe quantum wells near their mass inversion thickness in a perpendicular magnetic field. By comparison of the effective band structure with a more elaborated and well-established model, the parameter regime and the validity of the effective model is scrutinized. Optical transitions in HgTe quantum wells are analyzed. We find selection rules which we functionalize to optically manipulate edge state transport. Qualitatively, our findings equally apply to optical edge current manipulation in graphene.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗
arXiv2008

Pseudospin entanglement and Bell test in graphene

We propose a way of producing and detecting pseudospin entanglement between electrons and holes in graphene. Electron-hole pairs are produced by a fluctuating potential and their entanglement is demonstrated by a current correlation measurement. The chirality of electrons in graphene facilitates a well-controlled Bell test with (pseudo-)spin projection angles defined in real space.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗
arXiv2007

Hall effect between parallel quantum wires

We study theoretically the parallel quantum wires of the experiment by Auslaender et al. [Science 308, 88 (2005)] at low electron density. It is shown that a Hall effect as observed in two- or three-dimensional electron systems develops as one of the two wires enters the spin-incoherent regime of small spin bandwidth. This together with magnetic field dependent tunneling exponents clearly identifies spin-incoherence in such experiments and it serves to distinguish it from disorder effects.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗
arXiv2007

Tunneling exponents sensitive to impurity scattering in quantum wires

We show that the scaling exponent for tunneling into a quantum wire in the "Coulomb Tonks gas" regime of impenetrable, but otherwise free, electrons is affected by impurity scattering in the wire. The exponent for tunneling into such a wire thus depends on the conductance through the wire. This striking effect originates from a many-body scattering resonance reminiscent of the Kondo effect. The predicted anomalous scaling is stable against weak perturbations of the ideal Tonks gas limit at sufficiently high energies, similar to the phenomenology of a quantum critical point.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗
arXiv2006

Proposal of an experimentally accessible measure of many-fermion entanglement

We propose a measure of interaction-induced ground state entanglement in many-fermion systems that is experimentally accessible. It is formulated in terms of cross-correlations of currents through resonant fermion levels weakly coupled to the probed system. The proposed entanglement measure vanishes in the absence of many-body interactions and it is related to measures of occupation number entanglement. We evaluate it for two examples of interacting electronic nanostructures.

quant-ph↗