arXiv subjects

Vladimir A. Sablikov

Publications and source records attributed to Vladimir A. Sablikov.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2020

Spin-orbit-driven electron pairing in two dimensions

We show that the spin-orbit interaction (SOI) arising due to the in-plane electric field of the Coulomb repulsion between electrons in a two-dimensional quantum well produces an attractive component in the pair interaction Hamiltonian that depends on the spins and momenta of electrons. If the Rashba SOI constant of the material is high enough the attractive component overcomes the Coulomb repulsion and the centrifugal barrier, which leads to the formation of the two-electron bound states. There are two distinct types of two-electron bound states. The relative bound states are formed by the electrons orbiting around their common barycenter. They have the triplet spin structure and are independent of the center-of-mass momentum. In contrast, the convective bound states are formed because of the center-of-mass motion, which couples the electrons with opposite spins. The binding energy in the meV range is attainable for realistic conditions.

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arXiv2020

Pair spin-orbit interaction in low-dimensional electron systems

The pair spin-orbit interaction (PSOI) is the spin-orbit component of the electron-electron interaction that originates from the Coulomb fields of the electrons. This relativistic component, which has been commonly assumed small in the low-energy approximation, appears large and very significant in materials with the strong SOI. The PSOI, being determined by the spins and momenta of electrons, has highly unusual properties among which of most interest is the mutual attraction of the electrons in certain spin configurations. We review the nature of the PSOI in solids and its manifestations in low-dimensional systems that have been studied to date. The specific results depend on the configuration of the Coulomb fields in a particular structure. The main actual structures are considered: one-dimensional quantum wires and two-dimensional layers, both suspended and placed in various dielectric media, as well as in the presence of a metallic gate. We discuss the possible types of the two-electron bound states, the conditions of their formation, their spectra together with the spin and orbital structure. In a many-particle system, the PSOI breaks the spin-charge separation as a result of which spin and charge degrees of freedom are mixed in the collective excitations. At sufficiently strong PSOI, one of the collective modes softens. This signals of the instability, which eventually leads to the reconstruction of the homogeneous state of the system.

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arXiv2019

Radiative Decay of Bound Electron Pairs in Two-Dimensional Topological Insulators

Bound electron pairs (BEPs) with energy in the band gap are interesting because they can participate in charge and spin transport in modern topologically nontrivial materials. We address the problem of their stability and study the radiative decay of the BEPs formed due to the negative reduced effective mass in two-dimensional topological insulators. The decay time is found to be rather large on the scale of the characteristic relaxation times of the electron system and significantly dependent on the topological properties and dispersion of the band states. In topological phase the decay time is much longer than in the trivial one, and is estimated as $\sim$1~ns for the HgTe/CdHgTe heterostructures. However, the longest decay time is in the topological phase with nearly flat dispersion in the band extema.

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arXiv2019

Deformed Wigner crystal in a one-dimensional quantum dot

The spatial Fourier spectrum of the electron density distribution in a finite 1D system and the distribution function of electrons over single-particle states are studied in detail to show that there are two universal features in their behavior, which characterize the electron ordering and the deformation of Wigner crystal by boundaries. The distribution function has a $δ$-like singularity at the Fermi momentum $k_F$. The Fourier spectrum of the density has a step-like form at the wavevector $2k_F$, with the harmonics being absent or vanishing above this threshold. These features are found by calculations using exact diagonalization method. They are shown to be caused by Wigner ordering of electrons, affected by the boundaries. However the common Luttinger liquid model with open boundaries fails to capture these features, because it overestimates the deformation of the Wigner crystal. An improvement of the Luttinger liquid model is proposed which allows one to describe the above features correctly. It is based on the corrected form of the density operator conserving the particle number.

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arXiv2019

Van Hove scenario of anisotropic transport in a two-dimensional spin-orbit coupled electron gas in an in-plane magnetic field

We study electronic transport in two-dimensional spin-orbit coupled electron gas subjected to an in-plane magnetic field. The interplay of the spin-orbit interaction and the magnetic field leads to the Van Hove singularity of the density of states and strong anisotropy of Fermi contours. We develop a method that allows one to exactly calculate the nonequilibrium distribution function for these conditions within the framework of the semiclassical Boltzmann equation without using the scattering time approximation. The method is applied to calculate the conductivity tensor and the tensor of spin polarization induced by the electric field (Aronov-Lyanda-Geller-Edelstein effect). It is found that both the conductivity and the spin polarization have a sharp singularity as functions of the Fermi level or magnetic field, which occurs when the Fermi level passes through the Van Hove singularity. In addition, the transport anisotropy dramatically changes near the singularity.

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arXiv2018

Coulomb pairing of electrons in thin films with strong spin-orbit interaction

In low-dimensional structures with strong Rashba spin-orbit interaction (SOI), the Coulomb fields between moving electrons produce a SOI component of the pair interaction that competes with the potential Coulomb repulsion. If the Rashba SOI constant of the material is sufficiently high, the total electron-electron interaction becomes attractive, which leads to the formation of the two-electron bound states. We show that because of the dielectric screening in a thin film the binding energy is significantly higher as compared to the case of the bulk screening.

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arXiv2018

Singlet-triplet transition in double quantum dots in two-dimensional topological insulators

We study two-electron states confined in two coupled quantum dots formed by a short-range potential in a two-dimensional topological insulator. It is shown that there is a fairly wide range of the system parameters, where the ground state is a tripletlike state formed by a superposition of two spin-polarized states. Outside this range, the ground state is a singlet. A transition between the singlet and triplet states can be realized by changing the potential of the quantum dots. The effect is caused by a significant change in the energies of the Coulomb repulsion and the exchange interaction of electrons due to the presence of the pseudospin components of the wave function when the band spectrum is inverted.

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arXiv2017

Dynamics of one-dimensional electrons with broken spin-charge separation

Spin-charge separation is known to be broken in many physically interesting one-dimensional (1D) and quasi-1D systems with spin-orbit interaction because of which spin and charge degrees of freedom are mixed in collective excitations. Mixed spin-charge modes carry an electric charge and therefore can be investigated by electrical means. We explore this possibility by studying the dynamic conductance of a 1D electron system with image-potential-induced spin-orbit interaction. The real part of the admittance reveals an oscillatory behavior versus frequency that reflects the collective excitation resonances for both modes at their respective transit frequencies. By analyzing the frequency dependence of the conductance the mode velocities can be found and their spin-charge structure can be determined quantitatively.

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arXiv2017

Image-potential-induced spin-orbit interaction in one-dimensional electron systems

We study the spin-orbit interaction effects in a one-dimensional electron system that result from the image charges in a nearby metallic gate. The nontrivial property of the image-potential-induced spin-orbit interaction (iSOI) is that it directly depends on the electron density because of which a positive feedback arises between the electron density and the iSOI magnitude. As a result, the system becomes unstable against the density fluctuations under certain conditions. In addition, the iSOI contributes to the electron-electron interaction giving rise to strong changes in electron correlations and collective excitation spectra. We trace the evolution of the spectrum of the collective excitations and their spin-charge structures with the change in the iSOI parameter. One out of two collective modes softens as the iSOI amplitude grows to become unstable at its critical value. Interestingly, this mode evolves from a pure spin excitation to a pure charge one. At the critical point its velocity turns to zero together with the charge stiffness.

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arXiv2017

Effect of short-range electron correlations in dynamic transport in a Luttinger liquid

The density operator in the Luttinger model consists of two components, one of which describes long-wave fluctuations and the other is related to the rapid oscillations of the charge-density-wave (CDW) type, caused by short-range electron correlations. It is commonly believed that the conductance is determined by the long-wave component. The CDW component is considered only when an impurity is present. We investigate the contribution of this component to the dynamic density response of a Luttinger liquid free from impurities. We show that the conventional form of the CDW density operator does not conserve the number of particles in the system. We propose the corrected CDW density operator devoid of this shortcoming and calculate the dissipative conductance in the case when the one-dimensional conductor is locally disturbed by a conducting probe. The contribution of the CDW component to conductance is found to dominate over that of the long-wave component in the low-frequency regime.

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arXiv2016

Optical transitions in two-dimensional topological insulators with point defects

Nontrivial properties of electronic states in topological insulators are inherent not only to the surface and boundary states, but to bound states localized at structure defects as well. We clarify how the unusual properties of the defect-induced bound states are manifested in optical absorption spectra in two-dimensional topological insulators. The calculations are carried out for defects with short-range potential. We find that the defects give rise to the appearance of specific features in the absorption spectrum, which are an inherent property of topological insulators. They have the form of two or three absorption peaks that are due to intracenter transitions between electron-like and hole-like bound states.

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arXiv2015

Probe-assisted spin manipulation in one-dimensional quantum dots

We study a spin structure that arises in a one-dimensional quantum dot with zero total spin under the action of a charged tip of a scanning probe microscope in the presence of a weak magnetic field. The evolution of the spin structure with changing the probe position is traced to show that the movable probe can be an effective tool to manipulate the spin. The spin structures are formed when the probe is located in certain regions along the dot due to the Coulomb interaction of electrons as they are redistributed between the two sections in which the quantum dot is divided by the potential barrier created by the probe. There are two main states: spin-polarized and non-polarized ones. The transition between them is accompanied by a spin precession governed by the Rashba spin-orbit interaction induced by the electric field of the probe. In the transition region the spin density changes strongly while the charge distribution remains nearly unchanged.

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arXiv2015

Helical bound states in the continuum of the edge states in two dimensional topological insulators

We study bound states embedded into the continuum of edge states in two-dimensional topological insulators. These states emerge in the presence of a short-range potential of a structural defect coupled to the boundary. In this case the edge states flow around the defect and have two resonances in the local density of states. The bound state in continuum (BIC) arises due to an interference of the resonances when they are close to the degeneracy. We find the condition under which the BIC appears, study the spacial distribution of the electron density, and show that the BIC has a helical structure with an electron current circulating around the defect.

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arXiv2015

Electronic states induced by nonmagnetic defects in two-dimensional topological insulators

We study in-gap electronic states induced by a nonmagnetic defect with short-range potential in two-dimensional topological insulators and trace their evolution as the distance between the defect and the boundary changes. The defect located far from the boundary is found to produce two bound states independently of the sign of its potential. The states are classified as electronlike and holelike. Each of these states can have two types of the spatial distribution of the electron density. The first-type states have a maximum of the density in the center and the second-type ones have a minimum. When the defect is coupled with the boundary, the bound states are transformed correspondingly into resonances of two types and take up the form of the edge states flowing around the defect. Under certain conditions, two resonances interfere giving rise to the formation of a bound state embedded into the continuum spectrum of the edge states flowing around the defect. We calculate the spatial distribution of the electron density in the edge states flowing around the defect and estimate the charge accumulated near the defect. The current density field of the edge states flowing around the defect contains two components one of which flows around the defect and the other circulates around it.

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arXiv2014

Non-magnetic defects in the bulk of two-dimensional topological insulators

We found that non-magnetic defects in two-dimensional topological insulators induce bound states of two kinds for each spin orientation: electron- and hole-like states. Depending on the sign of the defect potential these states can be also of two kinds with different distribution of the electron density. The density has a maximum or minimum in the center. A surprising effect caused by the topological order is a singular dependence of the bound-state energy on the defect potential.

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arXiv2014

Metastable and spin-polarized states in electron systems with localized electron-electron interaction

We study the formation of spontaneous spin polarization in inhomogeneous electron systems with pair interaction localized in a small region that is not separated by a barrier from surrounding gas of non-interacting electrons. Such a system is interesting as a minimal model of a quantum point contact, in which the electron-electron interaction is strong in a small constriction coupled to electron reservoirs without barriers. Based on the analysis of the grand potential within the self-consistent field approximation, we find that the formation of the polarized state strongly differs from the Bloch or Stoner transition in homogeneous interacting systems. The main difference is that a metastable state appears in the critical point in addition to the globally stable state, so that when the interaction parameter exceeds a critical value, two states coexist. One state has spin polarization and the other is unpolarized. Another feature is that the spin polarization increases continuously with the interaction parameter and has a square-root singularity in the critical point. We study the critical conditions and the grand potentials of the polarized and unpolarized states for one-dimensional and two-dimensional models in the case of extremely small size of the interaction region.

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arXiv2012

Spin current in an electron waveguide tunnel-coupled to topological insulator

We show that electron tunneling from edge states in two-dimensional topological insulator into a parallel electron waveguide leads to the appearance of spin-polarized current in the waveguide. The spin polarization $P$ can be very close to unity and the electron current passing through the tunnel contact splits in the waveguide into two branches flowing from the contact. The polarization essentially depends on the electron scattering by the contact and the electron-electron interaction in the one-dimensional edge states. The electron-electron interaction is treated within the Luttinger liquid model. The main effect of the interaction stems from the renormalization of the electron velocity, due to which the polarization increases with the interaction strength. Electron scattering by the contact leads to a decrease in $P$. A specific effect occurs when the bottom of the subbands in the waveguide crosses the Dirac point of the spectrum of edge states when changing the voltage or chemical potential. This leads to changing the direction of the spin current.

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arXiv2011

Interface states in two-dimensional electron systems with spin-orbital interaction

Interface states at a boundary between regions with different spin-orbit interactions (SOIs) in two-dimensional (2D) electron systems are investigated within the one-band effective mass method with generalized boundary conditions for envelope functions. We have found that the interface states unexpectedly exist even if the effective interface potential equals zero. Depending on the system parameters, the energy of these states can lie in either or both forbidden and conduction bands of bulk states. The interface states have chiral spin texture similar to that of the edge states in 2D topological insulators. However, their energy spectrum is more sensitive to the interfacial potential, the largest effect being produced by the spin-dependent component of the interfacial potential. We have also studied the size quantization of the interface states in a strip of 2D electron gas with SOI and found an unusual (non-monotonic) dependence of the quantization energy on the strip width.

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