arXiv subjects

Michael Pepper

Publications and source records attributed to Michael Pepper.

33 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2015

Self assembled Wigner crystals as mediators of spin currents and quantum information

Technological applications of many-body structures that emerge in gated devices under minimal control are largely unexplored. Here we show how emergent Wigner crystals in a semiconductor quantum wire can facilitate a pivotal requirement for a scalable quantum computer, namely transmitting quantum information encoded in spins faithfully over a distance of micrometers. The fidelity of the transmission is remarkably high, faster than the relevant decohering effects, independent of the details of the spatial charge configuration in the wire, and realizable in dilution refrigerator temperatures. The transfer can evidence near unitary many-body nonequilibrium dynamics hitherto unseen in a solid-state device. It could also be useful in spintronics as a method for pure spin current over a distance without charge movement.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2015

Quantum Dot Spin Cellular Automata for Realizing a Quantum Processor

We show how "single" quantum dots, each hosting a singlet-triplet qubit, can be placed in arrays to build a spin quantum cellular automaton. A fast ($\sim 10$ ns) deterministic coherent singlet-triplet filtering, as opposed to current incoherent tunneling/slow-adiabatic based quantum gates (operation time $\sim 300$ ns), can be employed to produce a two-qubit gate through capacitive (electrostatic) coupling that can operate over significant distances. This is the coherent version of the widely discussed charge and nano-magnet cellular automata and would offer speed, reduce dissipation, perform quantum computation, while interfacing smoothly with its classical counterpart. This combines the best of two worlds -- the coherence of spin pairs known from quantum technologies, and the strength and range of electrostatic couplings from the charge based classical cellular automata.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2015

Interplay of hybrid and unhybrid quantum transport of interacting electron pairs through a short conduction channel

For quantum ballistic transport of electrons through a short conduction channel, the role of Coulomb interaction may significantly modify the energy levels of an electron pair at low temperatures as the channel becomes wide. In this regime, the Coulomb effect on the orbital triplet and singlet electron-pair state is calculated and found to lead to four split energy levels, including two hybrid and two unhybrid states. Moreover, due to the interplay of hybrid and unhybrid Coulomb interactions between two electrons, our calculations reveal that the ground pair-state will switch from one hybrid orbit-triplet state (strong confinement) to the unhybrid orbit-singlet state (intermediate confinement) as the channel width gradually increases and then back to the original hybrid orbit-triplet state (weak confinement), due to larger total spin of the orbit-singlet state, as the channel width becomes larger than a threshold value. This switching behavior leaves a footprint in the conductance as well as in the diffusion thermoelectric power of electrons. Here, the predicted reoccurrence of the hybrid orbit-triplet state (spin-$0$ state) as a ground state is shown to relate to the higher spin degeneracy of the spin-$1$ state as well as to the strong Coulomb repulsion in the central region of the channel, which separates two electrons away and pushes them to different channel edges. The conductance reoccurrence region expands from the weak to the intermediate confinement regime with increasing linear electron density.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2014

Many-body effects in a quasi-one-dimensional electron gas

We have investigated electron transport in a quasi-one dimensional (quasi-1D) electron gas as a function of the confinement potential. At a particular potential configuration, and electron concentration, the ground state of a 1D quantum wire splits into two rows to form an incipient Wigner lattice. It was found that application of a transverse magnetic field can transform a double-row electron configuration into a single-row due to magnetic enhancement of the confinement potential. The movements of the energy levels have been monitored under varying conditions of confinement potential and in-plane magnetic field. It is also shown that when the confinement is weak, electron occupation drives a reordering of the levels such that the normal ground state passes through the higher levels. The results show that the levels can be manipulated by utilising their different dependence on spatial confinement and electron concentration, thus enhancing the understanding of many body interactions in mesoscopic 1D quantum wires.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2014

Density-dependent thermopower oscillations in mesoscopic two-dimensional electron gases

We present thermopower $S$ and resistance $R$ measurements on GaAs-based mesoscopic two-dimensional electron gases (2DEGs) as functions of the electron density $n_s$. At high $n_s$ we observe good agreement between the measured $S$ and $S_{\rm{MOTT}}$, the Mott prediction for a non-interacting metal. As $n_s$ is lowered, we observe a crossover from Mott-like behaviour to that where $S$ shows strong oscillations and even sign changes. Remarkably, there are absolutely no features in $R$ corresponding to those in $S$. In fact, $R$ is devoid of even any universal conductance fluctuations. A statistical analysis of the thermopower oscillations from two devices of dissimilar dimensions suggest a universal nature of the oscillations. We critically examine whether they can be mesoscopic fluctuations of the kind described by Lesovik and Khmelnitskii in Sov. Phys. JETP. \textbf{67}, 957 (1988).

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2012

Unconventional Metallicity and Giant Thermopower in a Strongly Interacting Two Dimensional Electron System

We present thermal and electrical transport measurements of low-density (10$^{14}$ m$^{-2}$), mesoscopic two-dimensional electron systems (2DESs) in GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructures at sub-Kelvin temperatures. We find that even in the supposedly strongly localised regime, where the electrical resistivity of the system is two orders of magnitude greater than the quantum of resistance $h/e^2$, the thermopower decreases linearly with temperature indicating metallicity. Remarkably, the magnitude of the thermopower exceeds the predicted value in non-interacting metallic 2DESs at similar carrier densities by over two orders of magnitude. Our results indicate a new quantum state and possibly a novel class of itinerant quasiparticles in dilute 2DESs at low temperatures where the Coulomb interaction plays a pivotal role.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2012

Colossal non-saturating linear magnetoresistance in two-dimensional electron systems at a GaAs/AlGaAs heterointerface

Engineering devices with a large electrical response to magnetic field is of fundamental importance for a range of applications such as magnetic field sensing and magnetic read-heads. We show that a colossal non-saturating linear magnetoresistance (NLMR) arises in two-dimensional electron systems hosted in a GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructure in the strongly insulating regime. When operated at high source-drain bias, the magnetoresistance of our devices increases almost linearly with magnetic field reaching nearly 10,000% at 8 Tesla, thus surpassing many known non-magnetic materials that exhibit giant NLMR. The temperature dependence and mobility analysis indicate that the NLMR has a purely classical origin, driven by nanoscale inhomogeneities. A large NLMR combined with small device dimensions makes these systems a new and attractive candidate for on-chip magnetic field sensing.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2012

Transport Through an Electrostatically Defined Quantum Dot Lattice in a Two-Dimensional Electron Gas

Quantum dot lattices (QDLs) have the potential to allow for the tailoring of optical, magnetic and electronic properties of a user-defined artificial solid. We use a dual gated device structure to controllably tune the potential landscape in a GaAs/AlGaAs two-dimensional electron gas, thereby enabling the formation of a periodic QDL. The current-voltage characteristics, I(V), follow a power law, as expected for a QDL. In addition, a systematic study of the scaling behavior of I(V) allows us to probe the effects of background disorder on transport through the QDL. Our results are particularly important for semiconductor-based QDL architectures which aim to probe collective phenomena.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2010

Signatures of an Anomalous Nernst Effect in a Mesoscopic Two-Dimensional Electron System

We investigate the Nernst effect in a mesoscopic two-dimensional electron system (2DES) at low magnetic fields, before the onset of Landau level quantization. The overall magnitude of the Nernst signal agrees well with semi-classical predictions. We observe reproducible mesoscopic fluctuations in the signal which diminish significantly with an increase in temperature. We also show that the Nernst effect exhibits an anomalous component which is correlated with an oscillatory Hall effect. This behavior may be able to distinguish between different spin-correlated states in the 2DES.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2010

Thermoelectric Properties of Electrostatically Tunable Antidot Lattices

We report on the fabrication and characterization of a device which allows the formation of an antidot lattice (ADL) using only electrostatic gating. The antidot potential and Fermi energy of the system can be tuned independently. Well defined commensurability features in magnetoresistance as well as magnetothermopower are obsereved. We show that the thermopower can be used to efficiently map out the potential landscape of the ADL.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2010

Evidence of gate-tunable topological excitations in two-dimensional electron systems

Topological defects are ubiquitous from solid state physics to cosmology, where they drive phase transitions by proliferating as domain walls, monopoles or vortices. As quantum excitations, they often display fractional charge and anyonic statistics, making them relevant to topologically protected quantum computation, but realizing a controlled physical resource for topological excitations has been difficult. Here we report evidence of topological excitations during the localization transition in strongly interacting two-dimensional electron systems (2DESs) in GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructures. We find the electrical conductivity at low electron densities to follow a Berezinskii-Kosterlitz Thouless (BKT)-like order-disorder transition implying a gate-tunable proliferation of charged topological defects. At low temperatures, a weakening in the temperature dependence of conductivity was observed, and linked to the zero point fluctuations and delocalization of the defects. Our experiments also cast crucial insight on the nature of the ground state in strongly interacting 2DESs in presence of disorder.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2009

Highly enhanced thermopower in two-dimensional electron systems at milliKelvin temperatures

We report experimental observation of an unexpectedly large thermopower in mesoscopic two-dimensional (2D) electron systems on GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructures at sub-Kelvin temperatures and zero magnetic field. Unlike conventional non-magnetic high-mobility 2D systems, the thermopower in our devices increases with decreasing temperature below 0.3 K, reaching values in excess of 100 $μ$V/K, thus exceeding the free electron estimate by more than two orders of magnitude. With support from a parallel independent study of the local density of states, we suggest such a phenomenon to be linked to intrinsic localized states and many-body spin correlations in the system.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2007

Quantisation of Hopping Magnetoresistance Prefactor in Strongly Correlated Two-Dimensional Electron Systems

We report an universal behaviour of hopping transport in strongly interacting mesoscopic two-dimensional electron systems (2DES). In a certain window of background disorder, the resistivity at low perpendicular magnetic fields follows the expected relation $ρ(B_\perp) = ρ_{\rm{B}}\exp(αB_\perp^2)$. The prefactor $ρ_{\rm{B}}$ decreases exponentially with increasing electron density but saturates to a finite value at higher densities. Strikingly, this value is found to be universal when expressed in terms of absolute resistance and and shows quantisation at $R_{\rm{B}}\approx h/e^2$ and $R_{\rm{B}}\approx 1/2$ $ h/e^2$. We suggest a strongly correlated electronic phase as a possible explanation.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2007

Observation of a two-dimensional spin-lattice in non-magnetic semiconductor heterostructures

Tunable magnetic interactions in high-mobility nonmagnetic semiconductor heterostructures are centrally important to spin-based quantum technologies. Conventionally, this requires incorporation of "magnetic impurities" within the two-dimensional (2D) electron layer of the heterostructures, which is achieved either by doping with ferromagnetic atoms, or by electrostatically printing artificial atoms or quantum dots. Here we report experimental evidence of a third, and intrinsic, source of localized spins in high-mobility GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructures, which are clearly observed in the limit of large setback distance (=80 nm) in modulation doping. Local nonequilibrium transport spectroscopy in these systems reveals existence of multiple spins, which are located in a quasi-regular manner in the 2D Fermi sea, and mutually interact at temperatures below 100 milliKelvin via the Ruderman-Kittel-Kasuya-Yosida (RKKY) indirect exchange. The presence of such a spin-array, whose microscopic origin appears to be disorder-bound, simulates a 2D lattice-Kondo system with gate-tunable energy scales.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2005

Zero-bias anomaly and Kondo-assisted quasi-ballistic 2D transport

Nonequilibrium transport measurements in mesoscopic quasi-ballistic 2D electron systems show an enhancement in the differential conductance around the Fermi energy. At very low temperatures, such a zero-bias anomaly splits, leading to a suppression of linear transport at low energies. We also observed a scaling of the nonequilibrium characteristics at low energies which resembles electron scattering by two-state systems, addressed in the framework of two-channel Kondo model. Detailed sample-to-sample reproducibility indicates an intrinsic phenomenon in unconfined 2D systems in the low electron-density regime.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗