arXiv subjects

Ming Xie

Publications and source records attributed to Ming Xie.

46 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv2020

Competing zero-field Chern insulators in Superconducting Twisted Bilayer Graphene

The discovery of magic angle twisted bilayer graphene (MATBG) has unveiled a rich variety of superconducting, magnetic and topologically nontrivial phases. The existence of all these phases in one material, and their tunability, has opened new pathways for the creation of unusual gate tunable junctions. However, the required conditions for their creation - gate induced transitions between phases in zero magnetic field - have so far not been achieved. Here, we report on the first experimental demonstration of a device that is both a zero-field Chern insulator and a superconductor. The Chern insulator occurs near moire cell filling factor v = +1 in a hBN non-aligned MATBG device and manifests itself via an anomalous Hall effect. The insulator has Chern number C = +-1 and a relatively high Curie temperature of Tc = 4.5 K. Gate tuning away from this state exposes strong superconducting phases with critical temperatures of up to Tc = 3.5 K. In a perpendicular magnetic field above B > 0.5 T we observe a transition of the /C/= +1 Chern insulator from Chern number C = +-1 to C = 3, characterized by a quantized Hall plateau with Ryx = h/3e2. These observations show that interaction-induced symmetry breaking in MATBG leads to zero-field ground states that include almost degenerate and closely competing Chern insulators, and that states with larger Chern numbers couple most strongly to the B-field. By providing the first demonstration of a system that allows gate-induced transitions between magnetic and superconducting phases, our observations mark a major milestone in the creation of a new generation of quantum electronics.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2019

On the nature of the correlated insulator states in twisted bilayer graphene

We use self-consistent Hartree-Fock calculations performed in the full $π$-band Hilbert space to assess the nature of the recently discovered correlated insulator states in magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene (TBG). We find that gaps between the flat conduction and valence bands open at neutrality over a wide range of twist angles, sometimes without breaking the system's valley projected ${\cal C}_{2}{\cal T}$ symmetry. Broken spin/valley flavor symmetries then enable gapped states to form not only at neutrality, but also at total moiré band filling $n = \pm p/4$ with integer $p = 1, 2, 3$, when the twist angle is close to the magic value at which the flat bands are most narrow. Because the magic-angle flat band quasiparticles are isolated from remote band quasiparticles only for effective dielectric constants larger than $ \sim 20$, the gapped states do not necessarily break \CT symmetry and as a consequence the insulating states at $n = \pm 1/4$ and $n = \pm 3/4$ need not exhibit a quantized anomalous Hall effect.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2019

Terahertz Faraday and Kerr rotation spectroscopy of Bi$_{1-x}$Sb$_x$ films in high magnetic fields up to 30 Tesla

We report results of terahertz Faraday and Kerr rotation spectroscopy measurements on thin films of $\text{Bi}_{1-x}\text{Sb}_{x}$, an alloy system that exhibits a semimetal-to-topological-insulator transition as the Sb composition $x$ increases. By using a single-shot time-domain terahertz spectroscopy setup combined with a table-top pulsed mini-coil magnet, we conducted measurements in magnetic fields up to 30~T, observing distinctly different behaviors between semimetallic ($x < 0.07$) and topological insulator ($x > 0.07$) samples. Faraday and Kerr rotation spectra for the semimetallic films showed a pronounced dip that blue-shifted with the magnetic field, whereas spectra for the topological insulator films were positive and featureless, increasing in amplitude with increasing magnetic field and eventually saturating at high fields ($>$20~T). Ellipticity spectra for the semimetallic films showed resonances, whereas the topological insulator films showed no detectable ellipticity. To explain these observations, we developed a theoretical model based on realistic band parameters and the Kubo formula for calculating the optical conductivity of Landau-quantized charge carriers. Our calculations quantitatively reproduced all experimental features, establishing that the Faraday and Kerr signals in the semimetallic films predominantly arise from bulk hole cyclotron resonances while the signals in the topological insulator films represent combined effects of surface carriers originating from multiple electron and hole pockets. These results demonstrate that the use of high magnetic fields in terahertz magnetopolarimetry, combined with detailed electronic structure and conductivity calculations, allows us to unambiguously identify and quantitatively determine unique contributions from different species of carriers of topological and nontopological nature in Bi$_{1-x}$Sb$_x$.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2019

Theory of phonon side jump contribution in Anomalous Hall transport

The role of electron-phonon scattering in finite-temperature anomalous Hall effect is still poorly understood. In this work, we present a Boltzmann theory for the side-jump contribution from electron-phonon scattering, which is derived from the microscopic quantum mechanical theory. We show that the resulting phonon side-jump conductivity generally approaches different limiting values in the high and low temperature limits, and hence can exhibit strong temperature dependence in the intermediate temperature regime. Our theory is amenable to ab initio treatment, which makes quantitative comparison between theoretical and experimental results possible.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2019

Superconductors, Orbital Magnets, and Correlated States in Magic Angle Bilayer Graphene

Superconductivity often occurs close to broken-symmetry parent states and is especially common in doped magnetic insulators. When twisted close to a magic relative orientation angle near 1 degree, bilayer graphene has flat moire superlattice minibands that have emerged as a rich and highly tunable source of strong correlation physics, notably the appearance of superconductivity close to interaction-induced insulating states. Here we report on the fabrication of bilayer graphene devices with exceptionally uniform twist angles. We show that the reduction in twist angle disorder reveals insulating states at all integer occupancies of the four-fold spin/valley degenerate flat conduction and valence bands, i.e. at moire band filling factors nu = 0, +(-) 1, +(-) 2, +(-) 3, and superconductivity below critical temperatures as high as 3 K close to - 2 filling. We also observe three new superconducting domes at much lower temperatures close to the nu = 0 and nu = +(-) 1 insulating states. Interestingly, at nu = +(-) 1 we find states with non-zero Chern numbers. For nu = - 1 the insulating state exhibits a sharp hysteretic resistance enhancement when a perpendicular magnetic field above 3.6 tesla is applied, consistent with a field driven phase transition. Our study shows that symmetry-broken states, interaction driven insulators, and superconducting domes are common across the entire moire flat bands, including near charge neutrality.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2019

Anomalous Drag in Double Bilayer Graphene Quantum-Hall Superfluids

Semiconductor double-layers in the quantum Hall regime tend to have superfluid exciton condensate ground states when the total filling factor is an odd integer, provided that the Landau orbitals at the Fermi level in the two layers have the same orbital character. Since the $N=0$ Landau level of bilayer graphene contains states with both $n=0$ and $n=1$ orbital character, the physics of double bilayers falls outside previously studied cases. We show that the superfluid phase stiffness vanishes in double bilayer graphene when $n=0$ and $n=1$ orbitals states are degenerate in one of the layers, even though the gap for charged excitations remain large, and speculate that this property is behind the recent discovery of strong anomalous drag near a $n=0/1$ degeneracy point.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2018

Electrical Reservoirs for Bilayer Excitons

The ground state of two-dimensional (2D) electron systems with equal low densities of electrons and holes in nearby layers is an exciton fluid. We show that a reservoir for excitons can be established by contacting the two layers separately and maintaining the chemical potential difference at a value less than the spatially indirect band gap. Equilibration between the exciton fluid and the contacts proceeds via a process involving virtual intermediate states in which an unpaired electron or hole occupies a free carrier state in one of the 2D layers. We derive an approximate relationship between the exciton-contact equilibration rate and the electrical conductances between the contacts and individual 2D layers when the contact chemical potentials align with the free-carrier bands, and explain how electrical measurements can be used to measure thermodynamic properties of the exciton fluid.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2017

Polariton Supercurrent Generation in Unipolar Electro-optic Devices

We describe a mechanism by which an electrical bias voltage applied across a unipolar semiconductor quantum well can drive an exciton or polariton supercurrent. The mechanism depends on the properties of electronic quasiparticles in quantum wells or two-dimensional materials that are dressed by interactions with the coherent exciton field of an exciton condensate or the coherent exciton and photon fields of a polariton condensate, and on approximate conservation laws. We propose experiments that can be performed to realize this new light-matter coupling effect, and discuss possible applications.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2016

Microscopic Theory of Equilibrium Polariton Condensates

We present a microscopic theory of the equilibrium polariton condensate state of a semiconductor quantum well in a planar optical cavity. The theory accounts for the adjustment of matter excitations to the presence of a coherent photon field, predicts effective polariton-polariton interaction strengths that are weaker and condensate exciton fractions that are smaller than in the commonly employed exciton-photon model, and yields effective Rabi coupling strengths that depend on the detuning of the cavity photon energy relative to the bare exciton energy. The dressed quasiparticle bands that appear naturally in the theory provide a mechanism for electrical manipulation of polariton condensates.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2013

Optical conductivity of the $t_{2g}$ two-dimensional electron gas

Motivated by recent interest in perovskite surfaces and heterostructures, we present an analysis of the Kubo conductivity of a two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) formed in the $t_{2g}$ bands of an oxide with perovskite structure. We find that when the electric field is polarized in the plane of the 2DEG, the optical conductivity is dominated by nearly independent Drude contributions from two-dimensional subband Fermi surfaces, whereas for perpendicular-to-plane polarization it has strong intersubband features. Our analysis suggests that perpendicular-to-plane optical conductivity studies may help advance understanding of the interplay between lattice distortions and electron-electron interactions in complex oxide 2DEG quantum confinement physics.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗