arXiv subjects

Pinder Dosanjh

Publications and source records attributed to Pinder Dosanjh.

13 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Quasiparticle interference in LiFeAs: Signature of inelastic tunneling through spin fluctuations

Quasiparticle interference (QPI) is a powerful tool to characterize the symmetry of the superconducting order parameter in unconventional superconductors, by mapping the spatial dependence of elastic tunneling of electrons between the tip of a scanning tunneling microscope and a sample. Here, we consider the influence of inelastic tunneling on quasi-particle interference, exemplarily for the iron-based superconductor LiFeAs. We clearly observe replica features in both experimental QPI maps and the dispersion extracted from QPI, which from comparison with theoretical model calculations can be attributed to inelastic tunneling. Analysis of the QPI dispersion shows that the inelastic mode that gives rise to these replica features exhibits a resonance between 8 and 10 meV. Comparison of the energy scale of the resonance energy estimated from QPI with inelastic neutron scattering indicates that the replica features arise from interaction with spin fluctuations.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2026

Direct Fabrication of a Superconducting Two-Dimensional Electron Gas on KTaO3(111) via Mg-Induced Surface Reduction

Two-dimensional electron gases (2DEGs) at the surfaces of KTaO3 have become an exciting platform for exploring strong spin-orbit coupling, Rashba physics, and low-carrier-density superconductivity. Yet, a large fraction of reported KTaO3-based 2DEGs has been realized through chemically complex overlayers that both generate carriers and can obscure the native electronic structure, making spectroscopic access to the underlying 2DEG challenging. Here, we demonstrate a simple and direct method to generate a superconducting 2DEG on KTaO3(111) using Mg-induced surface reduction in molecular-beam epitaxy (MBE). Mg has an extremely low sticking coefficient at elevated temperatures, enabling the formation of an ultrathin (less than 1-2 monolayers) MgO layer that is transparent to soft x-ray photoemission spectroscopy (XPS) and angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES). This allows direct measurement of the surface chemistry and low-energy electronic structure of the pristine reduced surface without the need for a several-nanometer-thick capping layer. XPS shows clear reduction of Ta5+ to lower oxidation states, while ARPES reveals a parabolic Ta 5d conduction band with an approximately 150 meV bandwidth and additional subband features arising from quantum confinement. Transport measurements confirm a superconducting transition below 0.7 K. Together, these results demonstrate a chemically straightforward and controllable pathway for fabricating spectroscopically accessible superconducting 2DEGs on KTaO3(111), and provide a powerful new platform for investigating the mechanisms underlying orientation-dependent superconductivity in KTaO3-based oxide interfaces.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2026

Ultrafast Two-Dimensional Spectroscopy Uncovers Ubiquitous Electron-Paramagnon Coupling in Cuprate Superconductors

The coupling between electronic excitations and collective bosonic modes is fundamental to the emergence of high-temperature superconductivity in cuprates. Despite extensive effort, conventional equilibrium and pump-probe optical spectroscopies still struggle to disentangle couplings to different bosonic modes when their energy scales overlap. Here we overcome this limitation using ultrafast two-dimensional electronic spectroscopy (2DES), which correlates coherent excitation and detection photon energies with femtosecond time resolution. Applied to optimally doped Bi$_2$Sr$_2$Ca$_{0.92}$Y$_{0.08}$Cu$_2$O$_{8+δ}$, 2DES reveals a pronounced off-diagonal resonance arising from the ultrafast generation of non-thermal bosons with energy $\hbarΩ_\mathbf{q}\simeq200$ meV. By comparing the measured spectra with a theoretical framework that explicitly includes the interaction between charge-transfer and magnetic excitations, we identify these bosons as paramagnons with momenta centered near $(π/2,π/2)$ and extending toward $(0,π)$ and $(π,0)$. The resonance persists across a large range of temperatures and doping concentrations, demonstrating that high-energy paramagnons are ubiquitously and strongly coupled to electronic excitations throughout the cuprate phase diagram. Time-domain analysis constrains the build-up of the paramagnon population to $\lesssim 10$ fs, placing a lower bound $λ\gtrsim 0.7$ on the coupling strength. More broadly, our results establish 2DES as a powerful approach for disentangling mode-selective electron-boson interactions and addressing decoherence dynamics, thereby establishing a new avenue for investigating strongly correlated quantum materials. These findings also provide a direct framework for future time-resolved resonant inelastic X-ray scattering experiments aimed at tracking the ultrafast dynamics of magnetic excitations.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2021

The Three-Dimensional Electronic Structure of LiFeAs: Strong-coupling Superconductivity and Topology in the Iron Pnictides

Amongst the iron-based superconductors, LiFeAs is unrivalled in the simplicity of its crystal structure and phase diagram. However, our understanding of this canonical compound suffers from conflict between mutually incompatible descriptions of the material's electronic structure, as derived from contradictory interpretations of the photoemission record. Here, we explore the challenge of interpretation in such experiments. By combining comprehensive photon energy- and polarization- dependent angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) measurements with numerical simulations, we establish the providence of several contradictions in the present understanding of this and related materials. We identify a confluence of surface-related issues which have precluded unambiguous identification of both the number and dimensionality of the Fermi surface sheets. Ultimately, we arrive at a scenario which supports indications of topologically non-trivial states, while also being incompatible with superconductivity as a spin-fluctuation driven Fermi surface instability.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2021

Hidden Charge Order in an Iron Oxide Square-Lattice Compound

Since the discovery of charge disproportionation in the FeO$_2$ square-lattice compound Sr$_3$Fe$_2$O$_7$ by Mössbauer spectroscopy more than fifty years ago, the spatial ordering pattern of the disproportionated charges has remained "hidden" to conventional diffraction probes, despite numerous x-ray and neutron scattering studies. We have used neutron Larmor diffraction and Fe K-edge resonant x-ray scattering to demonstrate checkerboard charge order in the FeO$_2$ planes that vanishes at a sharp second-order phase transition upon heating above 332 K. Stacking disorder of the checkerboard pattern due to frustrated interlayer interactions broadens the corresponding superstructure reflections and greatly reduces their amplitude, thus explaining the difficulty to detect them by conventional probes. We discuss implications of these findings for research on "hidden order" in other materials.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2019

Weak localization measurements of electronic scattering rates in Li-doped epitaxial graphene

Early experiments on alkali-doped graphene demonstrated that the dopant adatoms modify the conductivity of graphene significantly, as extra carriers enhance conductivity while Coulomb scattering off the adatoms suppresses it. However, conductivity probes the overall scattering rate, so a dominant channel associated with long-range Coulomb scattering will mask weaker short-range channels. We present weak localization measurements of epitaxial graphene with lithium adatoms that separately quantify intra- and intervalley scattering rates, then compare the measurements to tight-binding calculations of expected rates for this system. The intravalley rate is strongly enhanced by Li deposition, consistent with Coulomb scattering off the Li adatoms. A simultaneous enhancement of intervalley scattering is partially explained by extra carriers in the graphene interacting with residual disorder. But differences between measured and calculated rates at high Li coverage may indicate adatom-induced modifications to the band structure that go beyond the applied model. Similar adatom-induced modifications of the graphene bands have recently been observed in ARPES, but a full theoretical understanding of these effects is still in development.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2019

Testing general relativity with accretion onto compact objects

The X-ray emission of neutron stars and black holes presents a rich phenomenology that can lead us to a better understanding of their nature and to address more general physics questions: Does general relativity apply in the strong gravity regime? Is spacetime around black holes described by the Kerr metric? This white paper considers how we can investigate these questions by studying reverberation mapping and quasi-periodic oscillations in accreting systems with a combination of high-spectral and high-timing resolution. In the near future, we will be able to study compact objects in the X-rays in a new way: advancements in transition-edge sensors (TES) technology will allow for electron-volt-resolution spectroscopy combined with nanoseconds-precision timing.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2019

Exploring the physics of neutron stars with high-resolution, high-throughput X-ray spectroscopy

The advent of moderately high-resolution X-ray spectroscopy with Chandra and XMM promised to usher in a new age in the study of neutron stars: we thought we would study neutron stars like stars, with resolved absorption spectra revealing their surface chemical composition and physical conditions (e.g. surface gravity, pressure, temperature). Nature, however, did not cooperate in this endeavor, as observations of neutron stars have not revealed verified atomic absorption lines yet. In the near future, advancements in transition-edge sensors (TES) technology will allow for electron-volt-resolution spectroscopy combined with nanoseconds-precision timing. Combining these detectors with collector optics will also us to study neutron stars in much greater detail by achieving high-energy resolution with much larger collecting areas to uncover even weak spectral features over a wide range of the photon energies. Perhaps we will finally be able to study neutron stars like stars.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2016

Alkali doping of graphene: the crucial role of high temperature annealing

The doping efficiency of lithium deposited at cryogenic temperatures on epitaxial and CVD monolayer graphene has been investigated under ultra-high vacuum conditions. Change of charge carrier density was monitored by gate voltage shift of the Dirac point and by Hall measurements, in low and high doping regimes. It was found that pre-annealing the graphene greatly enhanced the maximum levels of doping that could be achieved: doping saturated at $Δn = 2\times 10^{13}$ e$^-$/cm$^2$ without annealing, independent of sample type or previous processing; after a 900 K anneal, the saturated doping rose one order of magnitude to $Δn = 2\times 10^{14}$ e$^-$/cm$^2$.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2016

Coupling of Magnetic Orders in La2CuO4+x

High transverse magnetic field and zero field muon spin rotation and relaxation measurements have been carried out in a lightly oxygen-doped high-Tc parent compound La2CuO4 in a temperature range from 2 K to 300 K. As in the stoichiometric compound, muon spin rotation spectra reveal, along with the antiferromagnetic local field, the presence of an additional source of magnetic field at the muon. The results indicate that this second magnetic order is driven by the antiferromagnetism at low temperature but the two magnetic orders decouple at higher temperature. The ability of muSR to detect this additional magnetism deteriorates with doping, thus rendering the technique impotent to reveal time-reversal symmetry breaking in superconductors.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2015

Evidence for superconductivity in Li-decorated monolayer graphene

Monolayer graphene exhibits many spectacular electronic properties, with superconductivity being arguably the most notable exception. It was theoretically proposed that superconductivity might be induced by enhancing the electron-phonon coupling through the decoration of graphene with an alkali adatom superlattice [Profeta et al. Nat. Phys. 8, 131-134 (2012)]. While experiments have indeed demonstrated an adatom-induced enhancement of the electron-phonon coupling, superconductivity has never been observed. Using angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) we show that lithium deposited on graphene at low temperature strongly modifies the phonon density of states, leading to an enhancement of the electron-phonon coupling of up to $λ\!\simeq\!0.58$. On part of the graphene-derived $π^*$-band Fermi surface, we then observe the opening of a $Δ\!\simeq\!0.9$ meV temperature-dependent pairing gap. This result suggests for the first time, to our knowledge, that Li-decorated monolayer graphene is indeed superconducting with $T_c\!\simeq\!5.9 K$.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2014

Intra-unit-cell Magnetic Order in Stoichiometric La$_2$CuO$_4$

Muon spin rotation measurements supported by magnetization experiments have been carried out in a stoichiometric high-$T_c$ parent compound La$_2$CuO$_4$ in %the a temperature range from 2~K to 340~K and in transverse magnetic fields up to 5~T. Along with the antiferromagnetic local field, muon spin rotation spectra indicate presence of an additional source of magnetic field on the muon. The characteristic splitting of about 45~G coming from this additional magnetic field is consistent with spontaneous circulating currents model of Varma.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2013

Spin Gap in Heavy Fermion UBe$_{13}$

Muon spin rotation ($μ^+$SR) experiments have been carried out in the heavy fermion compound UBe$_{13}$ in the temperature range from 0.025 K to 300 K and in magnetic fields up to 7 T, supported by resistivity and magnetization measurements. The $μ^+$SR spectra are characteristic of formation of a spin polaron which persists to the lowest temperature. A gap in the spin excitation spectrum of f-electrons opens up at about 180 K, consistent with anomalies discovered in resistivity, heat capacity, NMR and optical conductivity measurements of UBe$_{13}$.

cond-mat.str-el↗