arXiv subjects

M. Myronov

Publications and source records attributed to M. Myronov.

16 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2025

Giant spin-to-charge conversion in germanium tin epilayers

We report a study of the spin-to-charge current conversion in compressively strained Ge1-xSnx alloy epilayers as a function of the Sn concentration by means of the inverse spin Hall effect (ISHE). The spin current is generated by spin-pumping effect (SPE) from a thin NiFe layer driven into ferromagnetic resonance (FMR). By simultaneously measuring the magnetic damping of the NiFe layer and the ISHE-induced charge current we extract two key spintronics parameters: the spin Hall angle and the effective spin mixing conductance. Our results reveal a giant spin-to-charge conversion and a non-monotonic dependence of the charge current signal on the Sn concentration, consistent with the variation in the magnetic damping observed in FMR. The values of spin Hall angle are comparable to those reported for heavy metals such as Pt and Ta. Furthermore, we show that the spin conductivity at the Au/GeSn interface can be enhanced by tuning the Sn concentration.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2018

Ballistic one-dimensional holes with strong g-factor anisotropy in germanium

We report experimental evidence of ballistic hole transport in one-dimensional quantum wires gate-defined in a strained SiGe/Ge/SiGe quantum well. At zero magnetic field, we observe conductance plateaus at integer multiples of 2e^2/h. At finite magnetic field, the splitting of these plateaus by Zeeman effect reveals largely anisotropic g-factors, with absolute values below 1 in the quantum-well plane, and exceeding 10 out of plane. This g-factor anisotropy is consistent with a heavy-hole character of the propagating valence-band states, in line with a predominant confinement in the growth direction. Remarkably, we observe quantized ballistic conductance in device channels up to 600 nm long. These findings mark an important step towards the realization of novel devices for applications in quantum spintronics.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2018

Self-Organised Fractional Quantisation in a Hole Quantum Wire

We have investigated hole transport in one-dimensional quantum wires in strained germanium two-dimensional layers. The ballistic conductance characteristics show the regular quantised plateaux in units of n2e2/h, where n is an integer. Additionally, new quantised levels are formed which correspond to values of n = 1/4 reducing to 1/8 in the presence of a strong parallel magnetic field which lifts the spin degeneracy but does not quantise the wavefunction. A further plateau is observed corresponding to n = 1/32 which does not change in the presence of a parallel magnetic field. These values indicate that the system is behaving as if charge was fractionalised with values e/2 and e/4, possible mechanisms are discussed.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2017

Hole weak anti-localization in a strained-Ge surface quantum well

We report a magneto-transport study of a two-dimensional hole gas confined to a strained Ge quantum well grown on a relaxed Si0.2Ge0.8 virtual substrate. The conductivity of the hole gas measured as a function of a perpendicular magnetic field exhibits a zero-field peak resulting from weak anti-localization. The peak develops and becomes stronger upon increasing the hole density by means of a top gate electrode. This behavior is consistent with a Rashba-type spin-orbit coupling whose strength is proportional to the perpendicular electric field, and hence to the carrier density. By fitting the weak anti-localization peak to a model including a dominant cubic spin-orbit coupling, we extract the characteristic transport time scales and a spin splitting energy of ~1 meV. Finally, we observe a weak anti-localization peak also for magnetic fields parallel to the quantum well and attribute this finding to a combined effect of surface roughness, Zeeman splitting, and virtual occupation of higher-energy hole subbands.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2017

Spin-orbit interaction in InAs/GaSb heterostructures quantified by weak antilocalization

We study the spin-orbit interaction (SOI) in InAs/ GaSb and InAs quantum wells. We show through temperature- and gate-dependent magnetotransport measurements of weak antilocalization that the dominant spin-orbit relaxation mechanism in our low-mobility heterostructures is Elliott-Yafet and not Dyakonov-Perel in the form of the Rashba or Dresselhaus SOI as previously suggested. We compare our findings with recent work on this material system and show that the SOI length lies within the same range. The SOI length may be controlled using an electrostatic gate, opening up prospects for developing spintronic applications.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2016

Optical Response of Strained- and Unstrained-Silicon Cold-Electron Bolometers

We describe the optical characterisation of two silicon cold-electron bolometers each consisting of a small ($32 \times 14~\mathrm{μm}$) island of degenerately doped silicon with superconducting aluminium contacts. Radiation is coupled into the silicon absorber with a twin-slot antenna designed to couple to 160-GHz radiation through a silicon lens.The first device has a highly doped silicon absorber, the second has a highly doped strained-silicon absorber.Using a novel method of cross-correlating the outputs from two parallel amplifiers, we measure noise-equivalent powers of $3.0 \times 10^{-16}$ and $6.6 \times 10^{-17}~\mathrm{W\,Hz^{-1/2}}$ for the control and strained device, respectively, when observing radiation from a 77-K source. In the case of the strained device, the noise-equivalent power is limited by the photon noise.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2015

Strong Transport Anisotropy in a Ge/SiGe Quantum Well in Tilted Magnetic Fields

We report on a strong transport anisotropy in a 2D hole gas in a Ge/SiGe quantum well, which emerges only when both perpendicular and in-plane magnetic fields are present. The ratio of resistances, measured along and perpendicular to the in-plane field, can exceed $3\times 10^4$. The anisotropy occurs in a wide range of filling factors where it is determined {\em primarily} by the tilt angle. The lack of significant anisotropy without an in-plane field, easy tunability, and persistence to higher temperatures and filling factors set this anisotropy apart from nematic phases in GaAs/AlGaAs.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2015

Spinless composite fermions in an ultra-high quality strained Ge quantum well

We report on an observation of a fractional quantum Hall effect in an ultra-high quality two-dimensional hole gas hosted in a strained Ge quantum well. The Hall resistance reveals precisely quantized plateaus and vanishing longitudinal resistance at filling factors $ν= 2/3, 4/3$ and $5/3$. From the temperature dependence around $ν= 3/2$ we obtain the composite fermion mass of $m^\star \approx 0.4\,m_e$, where $m_e$ is the mass of a free electron. Owing to large Zeeman energy, all observed states are spin-polarized and can be described in terms of spinless composite fermions.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2015

Transport anisotropy in Ge quantum wells in the absence of quantum oscillations

Recent study of a high-mobility 2D hole gas in a strained Ge quantum well revealed strong transport anisotropy in the quantum Hall regime when the magnetic field was tilted away from the sample normal. In the present study we demonstrate that the anisotropy persists to such high temperatures and filling factors that quantum oscillations are no longer observed. This finding rules out the formation of a stripe phase as a possible origin for the observed anisotropy. However, we also show that the observed anisotropy is not consistent with other known anisotropies, such as those arising from finite thickness effects or surface roughness.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2014

A Strained Silicon Cold Electron Bolometer using Schottky Contacts

We describe optical characterisation of a Strained Silicon Cold Electron Bolometer (CEB), operating on a $350~\mathrm{mK}$ stage, designed for absorption of millimetre-wave radiation. The silicon Cold Electron Bolometer utilises Schottky contacts between a superconductor and an n++ doped silicon island to detect changes in the temperature of the charge carriers in the silicon, due to variations in absorbed radiation. By using strained silicon as the absorber, we decrease the electron-phonon coupling in the device and increase the responsivity to incoming power. The strained silicon absorber is coupled to a planar aluminium twin-slot antenna designed to couple to $160~\mathrm{GHz}$ and that serves as the superconducting contacts. From the measured optical responsivity and spectral response, we calculate a maximum optical efficiency of $50~\%$ for radiation coupled into the device by the planar antenna and an overall noise equivalent power (NEP), referred to absorbed optical power, of $1.1 \times 10^{-16}~\mathrm{\mbox{W Hz}^{-1/2}}$ when the detector is observing a $300~\mathrm{K}$ source through a $4~\mathrm{K}$ throughput limiting aperture. Even though this optical system is not optimised we measure a system noise equivalent temperature difference (NETD) of $6~\mathrm{\mbox{mK Hz}^{-1/2}}$. We measure the noise of the device using a cross-correlation of time stream data measured simultaneously with two junction field-effect transistor (JFET) amplifiers, with a base correlated noise level of $300~\mathrm{\mbox{pV Hz}^{-1/2}}$ and find that the total noise is consistent with a combination of photon noise, current shot noise and electron-phonon thermal noise.

physics.ins-det↗

arXiv2013

Optical absorption in highly-strained Ge/SiGe quantum wells: the role of Γ-to-Δ scattering

We report the observation of the quantum-confined Stark effect in Ge/SiGe multiple quantum well heterostructures grown on Si(0.22)Ge(0.78) virtual substrates. The large compressive strain in the Ge quantum well layers caused by the lattice mismatch with the virtual substrate results in a blue shift of the direct absorption edge, as well as a reduction in the Γ-valley scattering lifetime because of strain-induced splittings of the conduction band valleys. We investigate theoretically the Γ-valley carrier lifetimes by evaluating the Γ-to-L and Γ-to-Δ scattering rates in strained Ge/SiGe semiconductor heterostructures. These scattering rates are used to determine the lifetime broadening of excitonic peaks and the indirect absorption in simulated absorption spectra, which are compared with measured absorption spectra for quantum well structures with systematically-varied dimensions. We find that Γ-to-Δ scattering is significant in compressively strained Ge quantum wells and that the Γ-valley electron lifetime is less than 50 fs in the highly-strained structures reported here, where Γ-to-Δ scattering accounted for approximately half of the total scattering rate.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2011

Strain enhanced electron cooling in a degenerately doped semiconductor

Enhanced electron cooling is demonstrated in a strained-silicon/superconductor tunnel junction refrigerator of volume 40 um^3. The electron temperature is reduced from 300 mK to 174 mK, with the enhancement over an unstrained silicon control (300 mK to 258 mK) being attributed to the smaller electron-phonon coupling in the strained case. Modeling and the resulting predictions of silicon-based cooler performance are presented. Further reductions in the minimum temperature are expected if the junction sub-gap leakage and tunnel resistance can be reduced. However, if only tunnel resistance is reduced, Joule heating is predicted to dominate.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2011

Strain control of electron-phonon energy loss rate in many-valley semiconductors

We demonstrate significant modification of the electron-phonon energy loss rate in a many-valley semiconductor system due to lattice mismatch induced strain. We show that the thermal conductance from the electron system to the phonon bath in strained n + Si, at phonon temperatures between 200 mK and 450 mK, is more than an order of magnitude lower than that for a similar unstrained sample.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2007

Magnetotransport in low-density $p$-Si/SiGe heterostructures: From metal through hopping insulator to Wigner glass

We study DC and AC transport in low-density $p-$Si/SiGe heterostructures at low temperatures and in a broad domain of magnetic fields up to 18 T. Complex AC conductance is determined from simultaneous measurement of velocity and attenuation of a surface acoustic wave propagating in close vicinity of the 2D hole layer. The observed behaviors of DC and AC conductance are interpreted as an evolution from metallic conductance at B=0 through hopping between localized states in intermediate magnetic fields (close to the plateau of the integer quantum Hall effect corresponding to the Landau-level filling factor $ν$=1) to formation of the Wigner glass in the extreme quantum limit ($B\gtrsim 14$, $T \lesssim 0.8$ K).

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2004

High-frequency transport in $p$-type Si/Si$_{0.87}$Ge$_{0.13}$ heterostructures studied with surface acoustic waves in the quantum Hall regime

The interaction of surface acoustic waves (SAW) with $p$-type Si/Si$_{0.87}$Ge$_{0.13}$ heterostructures has been studied for SAW frequencies of 30-300 MHz. For temperatures in the range 0.7$<T<$1.6 K and magnetic fields up to 7 T, the SAW attenuation coefficient $Γ$ and velocity change $ΔV /V$ were found to oscillate with filling factor. Both the real $σ_1$ and imaginary $σ_2$ components of the high-frequency conductivity have been determined and compared with quasi-dc magnetoresistance measurements at temperatures down to 33 mK. By analyzing the ratio of $σ_1$ to $σ_2$, carrier localization can be followed as a function of temperature and magnetic field. At $T$=0.7 K, the variations of $Γ$, $ΔV /V$ and $σ_1$ with SAW intensity have been studied and can be explained by heating of the two dimensional hole gas by the SAW electric field. Energy relaxation is found to be dominated by acoustic phonon deformation potential scattering with weak screening.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2004

Surface Acoustic Waves probe of the p-type Si/SiGe heterostructures

The surface acoustic wave (SAWs) attenuation coefficient $Γ$ and the velocity change $ΔV /V$ were measured for $p$-type Si/SiGe heterostructures in the temperature range 0.7 - 1.6 K as a function of external magnetic field $H$ up to 7 T and in the frequency range 30-300 MHz in the hole Si/SiGe heterostructures. Oscillations of $Γ$ (H) and $ΔV /V$ (H) in a magnetic field were observed. Both real $σ_1$ (H) and imaginary $σ_2$ (H) components of the high-frequency conductivity have been determined. Analysis of the $σ_1$ to $σ_2$ ratio allows the carrier localization to be followed as a function of temperature and magnetic field. At T=0.7 K the variation of $Γ$, $ΔV /V$ and $σ_1$ with SAW intensity have been studied and could be attributed to 2DHG heating by the SAW electric field. The energy relaxation time is found to be dominated by scattering at the deformation potential of the acoustic phonons with weak screening.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗