arXiv subjects

M. W. Wu

Publications and source records attributed to M. W. Wu.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2015

Novel valley depolarization dynamics and valley Hall effect of exciton in mono- and bilayer MoS$_2$

We investigate the valley depolarization dynamics and valley Hall effect of exciton due to the electron-hole exchange interaction in mono- and bilayer MoS$_2$ by solving the kinetic spin Bloch equations. The effect of the exciton energy spectra by the electron-hole exchange interaction is explicitly considered. For the valley depolarization dynamics, in the monolayer MoS$_2$, it is found that in the strong scattering regime, the conventional motional narrowing picture is no longer valid, and a novel valley depolarization channel is opened. For the valley Hall effect of exciton, in both the mono- and bilayer MoS$_2$, with the exciton equally pumped in the K and K' valleys, the system can evolve into the equilibrium state where the valley polarization is parallel to the effective magnetic field due to the exchange interaction. With the drift of this equilibrium state by applied uniaxial strain, the exchange interaction can induce the {\it momentum-dependent} valley/photoluminesence polarization, which leads to the valley/photoluminesence Hall current. Specifically, the disorder strength dependence of the valley Hall conductivity is revealed. In the strong scattering regime, the valley Hall conductivity decreases with the increase of the disorder strength; whereas in the weak scattering regime, it saturates to a constant, which can be much larger than the one in Fermi system due to the absence of the Pauli blocking.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2015

Hole spin relaxation in bilayer WSe$_2$

We investigate the hole spin relaxation due to the Rashba spin-orbit coupling induced by an external perpendicular electric field in bilayer WSe$_2$. The Rashba spin-orbit coupling coefficients in bilayer WSe$_2$ are constructed from the corresponding monolayer ones. In contrast to monolayer WSe$_2$, the out-of-plane component of the bilayer Rashba spin-orbit coupling acts as a Zeeman-like field with opposite directions but identical values in the two valleys. For in-plane spins, this Zeeman-like field, together with the intervalley hole-phonon scattering, opens an intervalley spin relaxation channel, which is found to dominate the in-plane spin relaxation in bilayer WSe$_2$ even at low temperature. For out-of-plane spins, this Zeeman-like field is superimposed by the identical Hartree-Fock effective magnetic fields in the two valleys, and hence different total effective magnetic fields between two valleys are obtained. Owing to the large difference of the total fields at large spin polarization, different out-of-plane spin relaxation times in the two valleys are obtained when the intervalley hole-phonon scattering is weak at low temperature and low hole density. This difference in the spin relaxation times can be suppressed by enhancing the intervalley hole-phonon scattering through increasing temperature or hole density. Moreover, at large spin polarization and low temperature, due to the weak intravalley hole-phonon scattering but relatively strong hole-hole Coulomb scattering, the fast spin precessions are found to result in a quasi hot-hole Fermi distribution characterized by an effective hot-hole temperature larger than the temperature, which also enhances the intervalley scattering. During this process, it is interesting to discover that the initially equal hole densities in the two valleys are broken in the temporal evolution, and a valley polarization is built up. ....

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2015

Spin diffusion in ultracold spin-orbit coupled $^{40}$K gas

We investigate the steady-state spin diffusion for ultracold spin-orbit coupled $^{40}$K gas by the kinetic spin Bloch equation approach both analytically and numerically. Four configurations, i.e., the spin diffusions along two specific directions with the spin polarization perpendicular (transverse configuration) and parallel (longitudinal configuration) to the effective Zeeman field are studied. It is found that the behaviors of the steady-state spin diffusion for the four configurations are very different, which are determined by three characteristic lengths: the mean free path $l_τ$, the Zeeman oscillation length $l_Ω$ and the spin-orbit coupling oscillation length $l_α$. It is analytically revealed and numerically confirmed that by tuning the scattering strength, the system can be divided into {\it five} regimes: I, weak scattering regime ($l_τ\gtrsim l_Ω, l_α$); II, Zeeman field-dominated moderate scattering regime ($l_Ω\ll l_τ\ll l_α$); III, spin-orbit coupling-dominated moderate scattering regime ($l_α\ll l_τ\ll l_Ω$); IV, relatively strong scattering regime ($l_τ^c\ll l_τ\ll l_Ω, l_α$); V, strong scattering regime ($l_τ\ll l_Ω, l_α,l_τ^c$), with $l_τ^c$ representing the crossover length between the relatively strong and strong scattering regimes. In different regimes, the behaviors of the spacial evolution of the steady-state spin polarization are very rich, showing different dependencies on the scattering strength, Zeeman field and spin-orbit coupling strength. The rich behaviors of the spin diffusions in different regimes are hard to be understood in the framework of the simple drift-diffusion model or the direct inhomogeneous broadening picture in the literature. ...

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2015

Hot-electron effect in spin relaxation of electrically injected electrons in intrinsic Germanium

The hot-electron effect in the spin relaxation of electrically injected electrons in intrinsic Germanium is investigated by the kinetic spin Bloch equations both analytically and numerically. It is shown that in the weak-electric-field regime with $E\lesssim 0.5$~kV/cm, our calculations has reasonable agreement with the recent transport experiment in the spin-injection configuration [Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 111}, 257204 (2013)]. We reveal that the spin relaxation is significantly enhanced at low temperature in the presence of weak electric field $E\lesssim 50$~V/cm, which originates from the obvious center-of-mass drift effect due to the weak electron-phonon interaction, whereas the hot-electron effect is demonstrated to be less important. This can explain the discrepancy between the experimental observation and the previous theoretical calculation [Phys. Rev. B {\bf 86}, 085202 (2012)], which deviates from the experimental results by about two orders of magnitude at low temperature. It is further shown that in the strong-electric-field regime with $0.5\lesssim E \lesssim 2$~kV/cm, the spin relaxation is enhanced due to the hot-electron effect, whereas the drift effect is demonstrated to be marginal. Finally, we find that when $1.4 \lesssim E\lesssim 2$~kV/cm which lies in the strong-electric-field regime, a small fraction of electrons ($\lesssim 5\%$) can be driven from the L to $Γ$ valley, and the spin relaxation rates are the same for the $Γ$ and L valleys in the intrinsic sample without impurity. With the negligible influence of the spin dynamics in the $Γ$ valley to the whole system, the spin dynamics in the L valley can be measured from the $Γ$ valley by the standard direct optical transition method.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2014

Localized states in a semiconductor quantum ring with a tangent wire

We extend a special kind of localized state trapped at the intersection due to the geometric confinement, first proposed in a three-terminal-opening T-shaped structure [Euro. Phys. Lett. {\bf 55}, 539 (2001)], into a ring geometry with a tangent connection to the wire. In this ring geometry, there exists one localized state trapped at the intersection with energy lying inside the lowest subband. We systematically study this localized state and the resulting Fano-type interference due to the coupling between this localized state and the continuum ones. It is found that the increase of the inner radius of ring weakens the coupling to the continuum ones and the asymmetric Fano dip fades away. A wide energy gap in transmission appears due to the interplay of two types of antiresonances: the Fano-type antiresonance and the structure antiresonance. The size of this antiresonance gap can be modulated by adjusting the magnetic flux. Moreover, a large transmission amplitude can be obtained in the same gap area. The strong robustness of the antiresonance gap is demonstrated showing the feasibility of the proposed geometry for a real application.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2014

High-field charge transport on the surface of Bi$_2$Se$_3$

We present a theoretical study on the high-field charge transport on the surface of Bi$_2$Se$_3$ and reproduce all the main features of the recent experimental results, i.e., the incomplete current saturation and the finite residual conductance in the high applied field regime [Costache {\it et al.}, Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 112}, 086601 (2014)]. Due to the hot-electron effect, the conductance decreases and the current shows the tendency of the saturation with the increase of the applied electric field. Moreover, the electric field can excite carriers within the surface bands through interband precession and leads to a higher conductance. As a joint effect of the hot-electron transport and the carrier excitation, the conductance approaches a finite residual value in the high-field regime and the current saturation becomes incomplete. We thus demonstrate that, contrary to the conjecture in the literature, the observed transport phenomena can be understood qualitatively in the framework of surface transport alone. Furthermore, if a constant bulk conductance which is insensitive to the field is introduced, one can obtain a good quantitative agreement between the theoretical results and the experimental data.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2014

Theory optical excitation spectra and depolarization dynamics in bilayer WS$_2$ from viewpoint of excimers

We investigate the optical excitation spectra and the photoluminescence depolarization dynamics in bilayer WS$_2$. A different understanding of the optical excitation spectra in the recent photoluminescence experimentby Zhu {\em et al.} [arXiv:1403.6224] in bilayer WS$_2$ is proposed. In the experiment, four excitations (1.68, 1.93, 1.99 and 2.37 eV) are observed and identified to be indirect exciton for the $Γ$ valley, trion, A exciton and B exciton excitations, respectively, with the redshift for the A exciton energy measured to be 30$\sim$50 meV when the sample synthesized from monolayer to bilayer. According to our study, by considering there exist both the intra-layer and charge-transfer excitons in the bilayer WS$_2$, with inter-layer hopping of the hole, there exists excimer state composed by the superposition of the intra-layer and charge-transfer exciton states. Accordingly, we show that the four optical excitations in the bilayer WS$_2$ are the A charge-transfer exciton, ${\rm A}'$ excimer, ${\rm B}'$ excimer and B intra-layer exciton states, respectively, with the calculated resonance energies showing good agreement with the experiment. In our picture, the speculated indirect exciton, which involves a high-order phonon absorption/emission process, is not necessary. Furthermore, the binding energy for the excimer state is calculated to be 40 meV, providing reasonable explanation for the experimentally observed energy redshift of the A exciton. Based on the excimer states, we further derive the exchange interaction Hamiltonian. Then the photoluminescence depolarization dynamics due to the electron-hole exchange interaction is studied in the pump-probe setup by the kinetic spin Bloch equations. We find that ......

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2014

Majorana fermions in semiconductor nanostructures with two wires connected through ring

We investigate the Majorana fermions in a semiconductor nanostructure with two wires connected through a ring. The nanostructure is mirror symmetric and in the proximity of a superconductor. The Rashba spin-orbit coupling and a magnetic field parallel to the wires or perpendicular to the ring are included. Moreover, a magnetic flux is applied through the center of the ring, which makes the phase difference of the superconducting order parameters in the two wires being zero or $π$ due to the fluxoid quantization and the thermodynamic equilibrium of the supercurrent in the superconducting ring. If the phase difference is $π$, two Majorana modes are shown to appear around the ring without interacting with each other. On contrast, if the phase difference is zero, these Majorana modes disappear and the states localized around the ring have finite energies. These states can be detected via the conductance measurement by connecting two normal leads to the wires and a third one directly to the ring. It is shown in the bias dependence of the differential conductance from one of the leads connected to the wire to the one connected directly to the ring that the tunnelings through the Majorana modes (i.e., in the case with $π$ phase difference) leads to two peaks very close to the zero bias, while the tunneling through the states with finite energies (i.e., in the case with zero phase difference) leads to peaks far away from the zero bias if the ring radius is small. This difference for the cases with and without the Majorana modes in small ring radius is distinct and hence can be used to identify the Majorana modes....

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2014

Electron spin diffusion in monolayer MoS$_2$

Electron spin diffusion is investigated in monolayer MoS$_2$ in the absence of external electric and magnetic fields. The electron-impurity scattering, which is shown to play a negligible role in spin relaxation in time domain in this material, has a marked effect on the in-plane spin diffusion due to the anisotropic spin precession frequency in the spatial domain. With the electron-impurity and inter-valley electron-phonon scatterings separately included in the scattering term, we study the intra- and inter-valley diffusion processes of the in-plane spins by analytically solving the kinetic spin Bloch equations. The intra-valley process is found to be dominant in the in-plane spin diffusion, in contrast to the case of spin relaxation in time domain, where the inter-valley process can be comparable to or even more important than the intra-valley one. For the intra-valley process, we find that the in-plane spin diffusion is suppressed with the increase of impurity density but effectively enhanced by increasing electron density in both the degenerate and nondegenerate limits. We also take into account the electron-electron Coulomb scattering in the intra-valley process. Interestingly, we find that in the nondegenerate limit, the intra-valley spin diffusion length presents an opposite trend in the electron density dependence compared to the one with only electron-impurity scattering.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2014

Valley depolarization due to inter- and intra-valley electron-hole exchange interactions in monolayer MoS$_{2}$

We investigate the valley depolarization due to the electron-hole exchange interaction in monolayer MoS$_{2}$. Both the long- and short-range parts of the intra- and inter-valley electron-hole exchange interactions are calculated. We find that both the long- and short-range exchange interactions can cause the inter- and intra-valley bright exciton transitions. With the intra-valley bright exciton transition channel nearly forbidden due to the large splitting of the valence bands, the inter-valley channel due to the exchange interaction can cause the valley depolarization efficiently by the Maialle-Silva-Sham mechanism [Phys. Rev. B {\bf 47}, 15776 (1993)]. With only the long-range exchange interaction, the calculations show good agreement with the recent valley polarization experiments, including the time-resolved valley polarization measurement, the pump-probe experiment and the steady-state PL polarization measurement. We further show that for the A-exciton with large (small) center-of-mass momentum, the long-range exchange interaction can cause the {\em fast} ({\em slow}) inter-valley exciton transition.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2013

Intrinsic electron spin relaxation due to the D'yakonov-Perel' mechanism in monolayer MoS$_2$

Intrinsic electron spin relaxation due to the D'yakonov-Perel' mechanism is studied in monolayer Molybdenum Disulphide. An intervalley in-plane spin relaxation channel is revealed due to the opposite effective magnetic fields perpendicular to the monolayer Molybdenum Disulphide plane in the two valleys together with the intervalley electron-phonon scattering. The intervalley electron-phonon scattering is always in the weak scattering limit, which leads to a rapid decrease of the in-plane spin relaxation time with increasing temperature. A decrease of the in-plane spin relaxation time with the increase of the electron density is also shown.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2013

Electron spin relaxation due to D'yakonov-Perel' and Elliot-Yafet mechanisms in monolayer MoS$_2$: Role of intravalley and intervalley processes

We investigate the in-plane spin relaxation of electrons due to the D'yakonov-Perel' and Elliot-Yafet mechanisms including the intra- and inter-valley processes in monolayer MoS$_2$. We construct the effective Hamiltonian for the conduction band using the Löwdin partition method from the anisotropic two-band Hamiltonian with the intrinsic spin-orbit coupling of the conduction band included. The spin-orbit coupling of the conduction band induces the intra- and inter-valley D'yakonov-Perel' spin relaxation. In addition, the Elliot-Yafet spin relaxation also takes place due to the interband spin mixing. We find that the D'yakonov-Perel' mechanism dominates the in-plane spin relaxation. In the framework of this mechanism, the intravalley process is shown to play a more important role at low temperature whereas the intervalley one becomes more important at high temperature. At the temperature in between, the leading process of the in-plane spin relaxation changes from the intervalley to intravalley one as the electron density increases. Moreover, we find that the intravalley process is dominated by the electron-electron Coulomb scattering even with high impurity density since the dominant term in the spin-orbit coupling is isotropic, which does not lead to the spin relaxation together with the electron-impurity scattering. This is very different from the previous studies in semiconductors and graphene.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2013

Ambipolar spin transport in (111) GaAs quantum wells

We present a microscopic theory for transport of the spin polarized charge density wave with both electrons and holes in the $(111)$ GaAs quantum wells. We analytically show that, contradicting to the commonly accepted belief, the spin and charge motions are bound together only in the fully polarized system but can be separated in the case of low spin polarization or short spin lifetime even when the spatial profiles of spin density wave and charge density wave overlap with each other. We further show that, the Coulomb drag between electrons and holes can markedly enhance the hole spin diffusion if the hole spin motion can be separated from the charge motion. In the high spin polarized system, the Coulomb drag can boost the hole spin diffusion coefficient by more than one order of magnitude.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2013

Majorana fermions in $T$-shaped semiconductor nanostructures

We investigate the Majorana fermions in a $T$-shaped semiconductor nanostructure with the Rashba spin-orbit coupling and a magnetic field in the proximity of an s-wave superconductor. It is found that the properties of the low-energy modes (including the Majorana and near-zero-energy modes) at the ends of this system are similar to those in the Majorana nanowire. However, very distinct from the nanowire, one Majorana mode emerges at the intersection of the $T$-shaped structure when the number of the low-energy modes at each end $N$ is odd, whereas neither Majorana nor near-zero-energy mode appears at the intersection for even $N$. We also discover that the intersection Majorana mode plays an important role in the transport through the above $T$-shaped nanostructure with each end connected with a normal lead. Due to the presence of the intersection mode, the deviation of the zero-bias conductance from the ideal value in the long-arm limit $Ne^2/h$ is more pronounced in the regime of odd $N$ compared to the one of even $N$. Furthermore, when the magnetic field increases from the regime of odd $N$ to the one of even $N+1$, the deviation from the ideal value tends to decrease. This behavior is also very distinct from that in a nanowire, where the deviation always tends to increase with the increase of magnetic field.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2013

Anomalous D'yakonov-Perel' spin relaxation in InAs (110) quantum wells under strong magnetic field: role of Hartree-Fock self-energy

We investigate the influence of the Hartree-Fock self-energy, acting as an effective magnetic field, on the anomalous D'yakonov-Perel' spin relaxation in InAs (110) quantum wells when the magnetic field in the Voigt configuration is much stronger than the spin-orbit-coupled field. The transverse and longitudinal spin relaxations are discussed both analytically and numerically. For the transverse configuration, it is found that the spin relaxation is very sensitive to the Hartree-Fock effective magnetic field, which is very different from the conventional D'yakonov-Perel' spin relaxation. Even an extremely small spin polarization ($P=0.1\%$) can significantly influence the behavior of the spin relaxation. It is further revealed that this comes from the {\em unique} form of the effective inhomogeneous broadening, originated from the mutually perpendicular spin-orbit-coupled field and strong magnetic field. It is shown that this effective inhomogeneous broadening is very small and hence very sensitive to the Hartree-Fock field. Moreover, we further find that in the spin polarization dependence, the transverse spin relaxation time decreases with the increase of the spin polarization in the intermediate spin polarization regime, which is also very different from the conventional situation, where the spin relaxation is always suppressed by the Hartree-Fock field. It is revealed that this {\em opposite} trends come from the additional spin relaxation channel induced by the HF field. For the longitudinal configuration, we find that the spin relaxation can be either suppressed or enhanced by the Hartree-Fock field if the spin polarization is parallel or antiparallel to the magnetic field.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2013

Spin relaxation in ultracold spin-orbit coupled $^{40}$K gas

We report the anomalous Dyakonov-Perel' spin relaxation in ultracold spin-orbit coupled $^{40}$K gas when the coupling between $|9/2,9/2\ >$ and $|9/2,7/2\ >$ states (atcing as the effective Zeeman magnetic field) is much stronger than the spin-orbit coupled field. Both the transverse and longitudinal spin relaxations are investigated with small and large spin polarizations. It is found that with small spin polarization, the transverse (longitudinal) spin relaxation is divided into four (two) regimes: the normal weak scattering regime, the anomalous Dyakonov-Perel'-like regime, the anomalous Elliott-Yafet-like regime and the normal strong scattering regime (the anomalous Elliott-Yafet-like regime and the normal strong scattering regime), with only the normal weak scattering regime being in the weak scattering limit. This is very different from the conventional situation under the weak magnetic field, which is divided into the weak and strong scattering regimes according to the weak/strong scattering limit. With large spin polarization, we find that the Hartree-Fock self-energy, which acts as an effective magnetic field, can markedly suppress the transverse spin relaxation in both weak and strong scattering limits. Moreover, by noting that as both the momentum relaxation time and the Hartree-Fock effective magnetic field vary with the scattering length in cold atoms, the anomalous Dyakonov-Perel'-like regime is suppressed and the transverse spin relaxation is hence divided into three regimes in the scattering length dependence: the normal weak scattering regime, the anomalous Elliott-Yafet-like regime and the strong scattering regime. On the other hand, the longitudinal spin relaxation is again divided into the anomalous EY-like and normal strong scattering regimes. ...

cond-mat.quant-gas↗

arXiv2013

Negative differential transmission in graphene

By using the Kubo linear response theory with the Keldysh Green function approach, we investigate the mechanism leading to the negative differential transmission in system with the equilibrium electron density much smaller than the photon-excited one. It is shown that the negative differential transmission can appear at low probe-photon energy (in the order of the scattering rate) or at high energy (much larger than the scattering rate). For the low probe-photon energy case, the negative differential transmission is found to come from the increase of the intra-band conductivity due to the large variation of electron distribution after the pumping. As for the high probe-photon energy case, the negative differential transmission is shown to tend to appear with the hot-electron temperature being closer to the equilibrium one and the chemical potential higher than the equilibrium one but considerably smaller than half of the probe-photon energy. We also show that this negative differential transmission can come from both the inter- and the intra-band components of the conductivity. Especially, for the inter-band component, its contribution to the negative differential transmission is shown to come from both the Hartree-Fock self-energy and the scattering. Furthermore, the influence of the Coulomb-hole self-energy is also addressed.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2013

Comment on "Magnetotransport through graphene spin valves" and its following works

We show that the key formula in the works [Ding, Zhu, and Berakdar, Phys. Rev. B {\bf 79}, 045405 (2009); {\bf 84}, 115433 (2011); Ding, Zhu, Zhang, and Berakdar, Phys. Rev. B {\bf 82}, 155143 (2010)] is invalid in the extended graphene system they investigated. The correct formalism in the extended infinite system is also presented in this comment.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗