arXiv subjects

Paul Wenk

Publications and source records attributed to Paul Wenk.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2022

Topological transitions in two-dimensional Floquet superconductors

We demonstrate the occurrence of a topological phase transition induced by an effective magnetic field in a two-dimensional electron gas with spin-orbit coupling and in proximity to an $s$-wave superconductor. The effective, perpendicular magnetic field is generated by an in plane, off-resonant ac-magnetic field or by circularly polarized light. The conditions for entering the topological phase do not rely on fine parameter tuning: For fixed frequency, one requires a minimal amplitude of the effective field which can be evaluated analytically. In this phase, chiral edge states generally emerge for a system in stripe geometry unless the Rashba and Dresselhaus coupling have the same magnitude. In this special case, for magnetic field driving the edge states become Majorana flat bands, due to the presence of a chiral symmetry; the light irradiated system is a trivial superconductor.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2020

Many-Body Localization: Transitions in Spin Models

We study the transitions between ergodic and many-body localized phases in spin systems, subject to quenched disorder, including the Heisenberg chain and the central spin model. In both cases systems with common spin lengths $1/2$ and $1$ are investigated via exact numerical diagonalization and random matrix techniques. Particular attention is paid to the sample-to-sample variance $(Δ_sr)^2$ of the averaged consecutive-gap ratio $\langle r\rangle$ for different disorder realizations. For both types of systems and spin lengths we find a maximum in $Δ_sr$ as a function of disorder strength, accompanied by an inflection point of $\langle r\rangle$, signaling the transition from ergodicity to many-body localization. The critical disorder strength is found to be somewhat smaller than the values reported in the recent literature. Further information about the transitions can be gained from the probability distribution of expectation values within a given disorder realization.

cond-mat.dis-nn↗

arXiv2020

Persistent spin textures and currents in wurtzite nanowire-based quantum structures

We explore the spin and charge properties of electrons in wurtzite semiconductor nanowires where radial and axial confinement leads to tubular or ring-shaped quantum structures. Accounting for spin-orbit interaction induced by the wurtzite lattice as well as a radial potential gradient, we analytically derive the corresponding low-dimensional Hamiltonians. It is demonstrated that the resulting tubular spin-orbit Hamiltonian allows to construct spin states that are persistent in time and robust against disorder. We find that these special scenarios are characterized by distinctive features in the optical conductivity spectrum, which enable an unambiguous experimental verification. In both types of quantum structures, we discuss the dependence of the occurring persistent charge and spin currents on an axial magnetic field and Fermi energy which show clear fingerprints of the electronic subband structure. Here, the spin-preserving symmetries become manifest in the vanishing of certain spin current tensor components. Our analytic description relates the distinctive features of the optical conductivity and persistent currents to bandstructure characteristics which allows to deduce spin-orbit coefficients and other band parameters from measurements.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2019

Floquet-Drude conductivity

This letter presents a generalization of the Drude conductivity for systems which are exposed to periodic driving. The probe bias is treated perturbatively by using the Kubo formula, whereas the external driving is included non-perturbatively using the Floquet theory. Using a new type of four-times Green's functions disorder is approached diagrammatically, yielding a fully analytical expression for the Floquet-Drude conductivity. Furthermore, the Floquet Fermi's golden rule is generalized to $tt'$-Floquet states, connecting the Floquet-Dyson series with scattering theory for Floquet states. Our formalism allows for a direct application to numerous systems e.g. graphene or spin-orbit systems.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2019

Driven Hofstadter Butterflies and Related Topological Invariants

The properties of the Hofstadter butterfly, a fractal, self similar spectrum of a two dimensional electron gas, are studied in the case where the system is additionally illuminated with monochromatic light. This is accomplished by applying Floquet theory to a tight binding model on the honeycomb lattice subjected to a perpendicular magnetic field and either linearly or circularly polarized light. It is shown how the deformation of the fractal structure of the spectrum depends on intensity and polarization. Thereby, the topological properties of the Hofstadter butterfly in presence of the oscillating electric field are investigated. A thorough numerical analysis of not only the Chern numbers but also the $W_{3}$-invariants gives the appropriate insight into the topology of this driven system. This includes a comparison of a direct $W_3$-calculation to the method based on summing up Chern numbers of the truncated Floquet Hamiltonian.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2019

In-plane magnetoelectric response in bilayer graphene

A graphene bilayer shows an unusual magnetoelectric response whose magnitude is controlled by the valley-isospin density, making it possible to link magnetoelectric behavior to valleytronics. Complementary to previous studies, we consider the effect of static homogeneous electric and magnetic fields that are oriented parallel to the bilayer's plane. Starting from a tight-binding description and using quasi-degenerate perturbation theory, the low-energy Hamiltonian is derived including all relevant magnetoelectric terms whose prefactors are expressed in terms of tight-binding parameters. We confirm the existence of an expected axion-type pseudoscalar term, which turns out to have the same sign and about twice the magnitude of the previously obtained out-of-plane counterpart. Additionally, small anisotropic corrections to the magnetoelectric tensor are found that are fundamentally related to the skew interlayer hopping parameter $γ_4$. We discuss possible ways to identify magnetoelectric effects by distinctive features in the optical conductivity.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2019

Ultralong spin lifetimes in one-dimensional semiconductor nanowires

We experimentally demonstrate ultralong spin lifetimes of electrons in the one-dimensional (1D) quantum limit of semiconductor nanowires. Optically probing single wires of different diameters reveals an increase in the spin relaxation time by orders of magnitude as the electrons become increasingly confined until only a single 1D subband is populated. We find the observed spin lifetimes of more than $200\,\textrm{ns}$ to result from the robustness of 1D electrons against major spin relaxation mechanisms, highlighting the promising potential of these wires for long-range transport of coherent spin information.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2018

Spin relaxation in wurtzite nanowires

We theoretically investigate the D'yakonov-Perel' spin relaxation properties in diffusive wurtzite semiconductor nanowires and their impact on the quantum correction to the conductivity. Although the lifetime of the long-lived spin states is limited by the dominant $k$-linear spin-orbit contributions in the bulk, these terms show almost no effect in the finite-size nanowires. Here, the spin lifetime is essentially determined by the small $k$-cubic spin-orbit terms and nearly independent of the wire radius. At the same time, these states possess in general a complex helical structure in real space that is modulated by the spin precession length induced by the $k$-linear terms. For this reason, the experimentally detected spin relaxation largely depends on the ratio between the nanowire radius and the spin precession length as well as the type of measurement. In particular, it is shown that while a variation of the radius hardly affects the magnetoconductance correction, which is governed by the long-lived spin states, the change in the spin lifetime observed in optical experiments can be dramatic. We compare our results with recent experimental studies on wurtzite InAs nanowires.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2017

Magnetoconductance correction in zinc-blende semiconductor nanowires with spin-orbit coupling

We study the effects of spin-orbit coupling on the magnetoconductivity in diffusive cylindrical semiconductor nanowires. Following up on our former study on tubular semiconductor nanowires, we focus in this paper on nanowire systems where no surface accumulation layer is formed but instead the electron wave function extends over the entire cross section. We take into account the Dresselhaus spin-orbit coupling resulting from a zinc-blende lattice and the Rashba spin-orbit coupling, which is controlled by a lateral gate electrode. The spin relaxation rate due to Dresselhaus spin-orbit coupling is found to depend neither on the spin density component nor on the wire growth direction and is unaffected by the radial boundary. In contrast, the Rashba spin relaxation rate is strongly reduced for a wire radius that is smaller than the spin precession length. The derived model is fitted to the data of magnetoconductance measurements of a heavily doped back-gated InAs nanowire and transport parameters are extracted. At last, we compare our results to previous theoretical and experimental studies and discuss the occurring discrepancies.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2016

Weak (anti)localization in tubular semiconductor nanowires with spin-orbit coupling

We compute analytically the weak (anti)localization correction to the Drude conductivity for electrons in tubular semiconductor systems of zinc blende type. We include linear Rashba and Dresselhaus spin-orbit coupling (SOC) and compare wires of standard growth directions $\langle100\rangle$, $\langle111\rangle$, and $\langle110\rangle$. The motion on the quasi-two-dimensional surface is considered diffusive in both directions: transversal as well as along the cylinder axis. It is shown that Dresselhaus and Rashba SOC similarly affect the spin relaxation rates. For the $\langle110\rangle$ growth direction, the long-lived spin states are of helical nature. We detect a crossover from weak localization to weak anti-localization depending on spin-orbit coupling strength as well as dephasing and scattering rate. The theory is fitted to experimental data of an undoped $\langle111\rangle$ InAs nanowire device which exhibits a top-gate-controlled crossover from positive to negative magnetoconductivity. Thereby, we extract transport parameters where we quantify the distinct types of SOC individually.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2016

Control of Spin Helix Symmetry in Semiconductor Quantum Wells by Crystal Orientation

We investigate the possibility of spin-preserving symmetries due to the interplay of Rashba and Dresselhaus spin-orbit coupling in n-doped zinc-blende semiconductor quantum wells of general crystal orientation. It is shown that a conserved spin operator can be realized if and only if at least two growth-direction Miller indices agree in modulus. The according spin-orbit field has in general both in-plane and out-of-plane components and is always perpendicular to the shift vector of the corresponding persistent spin helix. We also analyze higher-order effects arising from the Dresselhaus term, and the impact of our results on weak (anti)localization corrections.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2016

Conserved Spin Quantity in Strained Hole Systems with Rashba and Dresselhaus Spin-Orbit Coupling

We derive an effective Hamiltonian for a (001)-confined quasi-two-dimensional hole gas in a strained zincblende semiconductor heterostructure including both Rashba and Dresselhaus spin-orbit coupling. In the presence of uniaxial strain along the $\left\langle110\right\rangle$ axes, we find a conserved spin quantity in the vicinity of the Fermi contours in the lowest valence subband. In contrast to previous works, this quantity meets realistic requirements for the Luttinger parameters. For more restrictive conditions, we even find a conserved spin quantity for vanishing strain, restricted to the vicinity of the Fermi surface.

cond-mat.dis-nn↗

arXiv2016

Trigonal Warping in Bilayer Graphene: Energy versus Entanglement Spectrum

We present a mainly analytical study of the entanglement spectrum of Bernal-stacked graphene bilayers in the presence of trigonal warping in the energy spectrum. Upon tracing out one layer, the entanglement spectrum shows qualitative geometric differences to the energy spectrum of a graphene monolayer. However, topological quantities such as Berry phase type contributions to Chern numbers agree. The latter analysis involves not only the eigenvalues of the entanglement Hamiltonian but also its eigenvectors. We also discuss the entanglement spectra resulting from tracing out other sublattices. As a technical basis of our analysis we provide closed analytical expressions for the full eigensystem of bilayer graphene in the entire Brillouin zone with a trigonally warped spectrum.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2015

Lifetimes of Magnons in Two-Dimensional Diluted Ferromagnetic Systems

Spin dynamics in low dimensional magnetic systems has been of fundamental importance for a long time and has currently received an impetus owing to the emerging field of nanoelectronics. Knowledge of the spin wave lifetimes, in particular, can be favorable for future potential applications. We investigate the low-temperature spin wave excitations in two-dimensional disordered ferromagnetic systems, with a particular focus on the long wavelength magnon lifetimes. A semi-analytical Green's functions based approach is used to determine the dynamical spectral functions, for different magnetic impurity concentrations, from which the intrinsic linewidth is extracted. We obtain an unambiguous $q^4$ scaling of the magnon linewidth which is ascribed to the disorder induced damping of the spin waves, thereby settling a longstanding unresolved issue on the wave-vector dependence. Our findings are also in good agreement with previous theoretical studies on Heisenberg ferromagnets. Additionally, we demonstrate the futility of using the low moments associated with the spectral densities to evaluate the magnon dispersions and lifetimes.

cond-mat.dis-nn↗

arXiv2014

Signatures of spin-preserving symmetries in two-dimensional hole gases

We investigate ramifications of the persistent spin helix symmetry in two-dimensional hole gases in the conductance of disordered mesoscopic systems. To this end we extend previous models by going beyond the axial approximation for III-V semiconductors. For heavy-hole subbands we identify an exact spin-preserving symmetry analogous to the electronic case by analyzing the crossover from weak antilocalization to weak localization and spin transmission as a function of extrinsic spin-orbit interaction strength.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2014

Spin-wave excitations in presence of nanoclusters of magnetic impurities

Nanoscale inhomogeneities and impurity clustering are often found to drastically affect the magnetic and transport properties in disordered/diluted systems, giving rise to rich and complex phenomena. However, the physics of these systems still remains to be explored in more details as can be seen from the scarce literature available. We present a detailed theoretical analysis of the effects of nanoscale inhomogeneities on the spin excitation spectrum in diluted magnetic systems. The calculations are performed on relatively large systems (up to $N$=$66^3$). It is found that even low concentrations of inhomogeneities have drastic effects on both the magnon density of states and magnon excitations. These effects become even more pronounced in the case of short ranged magnetic interactions between the impurities. In contrast to the increase of critical temperatures $T_C$, reported in previous studies, the spin-stiffness $D$ is systematically suppressed in the presence of nanoscale inhomogeneities. Moreover $D$ is found to strongly depend on the inhomogeneities' concentration, the cluster size, as well as the range of the magnetic interactions. The findings are discussed in the prospect of potential spintronics applications. We believe that this detailed numerical work could initiate future experimental studies to probe this rich physics with the most appropriate tool, Inelastic Neutron Scattering (INS).

cond-mat.dis-nn↗

arXiv2013

Plasmons in spin-orbit coupled two-dimensional hole gas systems

We study the dynamical dielectric function of a two-dimensional hole gas, exemplified on [001]-GaAs and InAs quantum wells, within the Luttinger model extended to the two lowest subbands including bulk and structure inversion asymmetric terms. The plasmon dispersion shows a pronounced anisotropy for GaAs- and InAs-based systems. In GaAs this leads to a suppression of plasmons due to Landau damping in some orientations. Due to the large Rashba contribution in InAs, the lifetime of plasmons can be controlled by changing the electric field. This effect is potentially useful in plasmon field effect transistors as previously proposed for electron gases.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2012

Spontaneous magnetization in presence of nanoscale inhomogeneities in diluted magnetic systems

The presence of nanoscale inhomogeneities has been experimentally evidenced in several diluted magnetic systems, which in turn often leads to interesting physical phenomena. However, a proper theoretical understanding of the underlying physics is lacking in most of the cases. Here we present a detailed and comprehensive theoretical study of the effects of nanoscale inhomogeneities on the temperature dependent spontaneous magnetization in diluted magnetic systems, which is found to exhibit an unusual and unconventional behavior. The effects of impurity clustering on the magnetization response have hardly been studied until now. We show that nanosized clusters of magnetic impurities can lead to drastic effects on the magnetization compared to that of homogeneously diluted compounds. The anomalous nature of the magnetization curves strongly depends on the relative concentration of the inhomogeneities as well as the effective range of the exchange interactions. In addition we also provide a systematic discussion of the nature of the distributions of the local magnetization.

cond-mat.dis-nn↗