arXiv subjects

Wei Ren

Publications and source records attributed to Wei Ren.

At least 91 records · Page 5Linked to original sources

arXiv2024

Dynamical Coulomb Blockade as a Signature of the Sign-Reversing Cooper Pairing Potential

Coulomb blockade occurs for electrons tunneling into nanoislands because of the quantization of charge. Here, using spectroscopy measurements of nonmagnetic islands grown on a high-Tc superconductor [one-unit-cell (1-UC) FeSe], we systematically investigate the dynamical Coulomb blockade (DCB), which is found to reflect the Cooper pairing potential in the superconducting substrate. The tunneling spectra are acquired on single-crystalline Pb nanoislands and show a clear suppression of the tunnel current around zero bias-voltage with a gap-like structure. The observed spectral gaps can be attributed to DCB based on our comprehensive investigations, including experiments with finely varying island sizes and calculations of the spectra using the P(E) theory of DCB. Our detailed analysis suggests that the observed DCB can be related to the sign-reversing pairing potential in the 1-UC FeSe substrate below the islands. The sign reversal is furthermore revealed in a transition of the superconducting gap of FeSe from a U- to a V-like lineshape as the distance between neighboring doublet islands is decreased, indicating the presence of a nodal-like gap as expected for a sign-reversing superconductor. Our configuration of nonmagnetic nanoislands on a high-Tc superconductor for spectroscopy measurements may serve as a local, spatially sensitive, and tunable probe for detecting the sign-reversing order parameter in unconventional superconductors.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2024

Effects of model size in density-functional-theory study of alloys: A case study of CsPbBr$_2$Cl

The primary challenge of density-functional-theory exploration of alloy systems concerns the size of computational model. Small alloy models can hardly exhibit the chemical disorder properly, while large models induce difficulty in sampling the alignments within the massive material space. We study this problem with the γ phase of the mixed halide inorganic perovskite alloy CsPbBr$_2$Cl. The distribution of alloy formation energy becomes narrower when the size of the model system increases along $\sqrt{2}\times\sqrt{2}\times2$, $2\times2\times2$, and $2\sqrt{2}\times2\sqrt{2}\times2$ models. This is primarily because the distribution of Br distribution parameters, which plays a leading role in determining the formation energy range, is more narrow for larger models. As a result, larger entropy stability effect can be observed with larger models especially at high temperatures, for which the approximation using mixing entropy based on the ideal solution model becomes better.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2024

Quasiparticle and Excitonic Structures of Few-layer and Bulk GaSe: Interlayer Coupling, Self-energy, and Electron-hole Interaction

Metal monochalcogenide GaSe is a classic layered semiconductor that has received increasing research interest due to its highly tunable electronic and optical properties for ultrathin electronics applications. Despite intense research efforts, a systematic understanding of the layer-dependent electronic and optical properties of GaSe remains to be established, and there appear significant discrepancies between different experiments. We have performed GW plus Bethe-Salpeter equation (BSE) calculations for few-layer and bulk GaSe, aiming at understanding the effects of interlayer coupling and dielectric screening on excited state properties of GaSe, and how the electronic and optical properties evolve from strongly two-dimensional (2D) like to intermediate thick layers, and to three-dimensional (3D) bulk character. Using a new definition of the exciton binding energy, we are able to calculate the binding energies of all excitonic states. Our results reveal an interesting correlation between the binding energy of an exciton and the spread of its wave function in the real and momentum spaces. We find that the existence of (nearly) parallel valence and conduction bands facilitates the formation of excitonic states that spread out in the momentum space. Thus, these excitons tend to be more localized in real space and have large exciton binding energies. The interlayer coupling substantially suppresses the Mexican-hat-like dispersion of the top valence band seen in monolayer system, explaining the greatly enhanced photoluminescence (PL) as layer thickness increases. Our results also help resolve apparent discrepancies between different experiments. After including the quasiparticle and excitonic effects as well the optical activities of excitons, our results compare well with available experimental results.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2024

Zonotope-based Symbolic Controller Synthesis for Linear Temporal Logic Specifications

This paper studies the controller synthesis problem for nonlinear control systems under linear temporal logic (LTL) specifications using zonotope techniques. A local-to-global control strategy is proposed for the desired specification expressed as an LTL formula. First, a novel approach is developed to divide the state space into finite zonotopes and constrained zonotopes, which are called cells and allowed to intersect with the neighbor cells. Second, from the intersection relation, a graph among all cells is generated to verify the realization of the accepting path for the LTL formula. The realization verification determines if there is a need for the control design, and also results in finite local LTL formulas. Third, once the accepting path is realized, a novel abstraction-based method is derived for the controller design. In particular, we only focus on the cells from the realization verification and approximate each cell thanks to properties of zonotopes. Based on local symbolic models and local LTL formulas, an iterative synthesis algorithm is proposed to design all local abstract controllers, whose existence and combination establish the global controller for the LTL formula. Finally, the proposed framework is illustrated via a path planning problem of mobile robots.

eess.SY↗

arXiv2024

Motion Control of Two Mobile Robots under Allowable Collisions

This letter investigates the motion control problem of two mobile robots under allowable collisions. Here, the allowable collisions mean that the collisions do not damage the mobile robots. The occurrence of the collisions is discussed and the effects of the collisions on the mobile robots are analyzed to develop a hybrid model of each mobile robot under allowable collisions. Based on the effects of the collisions, we show the necessity of redesigning the motion control strategy for mobile robots. Furthermore, impulsive control techniques are applied to redesign the motion control strategy to guarantee the task accomplishment for each mobile robot. Finally, an example is used to illustrate the redesigned motion control strategy.

cs.RO↗

arXiv2024

Easy-to-configure zero-dimensional valley-chiral modes in a graphene point junction

The valley degree of freedom in 2D materials can be manipulated for low-dissipation quantum electronics called valleytronics. At the boundary between two regions of bilayer graphene with different atomic or electrostatic configuration, valley-polarized current has been realized. However, the demanding fabrication and operation requirements limit device reproducibility and scalability toward more advanced valleytronics circuits. We demonstrate a new device architecture of a point junction where a valley-chiral 0D PN junction is easily configured, switchable, and capable of carrying valley current with an estimated polarization of ~80%. This work provides a new building block in manipulating valley quantum numbers and scalable valleytronics.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2024

Electron Collimation in Twisted Bilayer Graphene via Gate-defined Moiré Barriers

Electron collimation via a graphene pn-junction allows electrostatic control of ballistic electron trajectories akin to that of an optical circuit. Similar manipulation of novel correlated electronic phases in twisted-bilayer graphene (tBLG) can provide additional probes to the underlying physics and device components towards advanced quantum electronics. In this work, we demonstrate collimation of the electron flow via gate-defined moiré barriers in a tBLG device, utilizing the band-insulator gap of the moiré superlattice. A single junction can be tuned to host a chosen combination of conventional pseudo barrier and moiré tunnel barriers, from which we demonstrate improved collimation efficiency. By measuring transport through two consecutive moiré collimators separated by 1 um, we demonstrate evidence of electron collimation in tBLG in the presence of realistic twist-angle inhomogeneity.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2024

$π$ Phase Interlayer Shift and Stacking Fault in the Kagome Superconductor CsV$_3$Sb$_5$

The stacking degree of freedom is a crucial factor in tuning material properties and has been extensively investigated in layered materials. The kagome superconductor CsV$_3$Sb$_5$ was recently discovered to exhibit a three-dimensional CDW phase below TCDW ~94 K. Despite the thorough investigation of in-plane modulation, the out-of-plane modulation has remained ambiguous. Here, our polarization- and temperature-dependent Raman measurements reveal the breaking of C$_6$ rotational symmetry and the presence of three distinct domains oriented at approximately 120°to each other. The observations demonstrate that the CDW phase can be naturally explained as a 2c staggered order phase with adjacent layers exhibiting a relative $π$ phase shift. Further, we discover a first-order structural phase transition at approximately 65 K and suggest that it is a stacking order-disorder phase transition due to stacking fault, supported by the thermal hysteresis behavior of a Cs-related phonon mode. Our findings highlight the significance of the stacking degree of freedom in CsV$_3$Sb$_5$ and offer structural insights to comprehend the entanglement between superconductivity and CDW.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2024

Mixed-halide perovskite alloys $\text{CsPb}(\text{I}_{1-x}^{}\text{Br}_x^{})_3^{}$ and $\text{CsPb}(\text{Br}_{1-x}^{}\text{Cl}_x^{})_3^{}$: New insight of configuration entropy effect from first principles and phase diagrams

Stability is one of the key issues in mixed-halide perovskite alloys which are promising in emergent optoelectronics. Previous density-functional-theory (DFT) and machine learning studies indicate that the formation-energy convex hulls of these materials are very shallow, and stable alloy compositions are rare. In this work, we revisit this problem using DFT with special focus on the effects of configuration and vibration entropies. Allowed by the $20$-atomic models for the $\text{CsPb}(\text{I}_{1-x}^{}\text{Br}_x^{})_3^{}$ and $\text{CsPb}(\text{Br}_{1-x}^{}\text{Cl}_x^{})_3^{}$ series, the partition functions and therewith thermodynamic state functions are calculated by traversing all possible mixed-halide configurations. We can thus evaluate the temperature- and system-dependent configuration entropy, which largely corrects the conventional approach based on the ideal solution model. Finally, temperature-composition phase diagrams that include $α$, $β$, $γ$ and $δ$ phases of both alloys are constructed based on the free energy data, for which the contribution of phonon vibrations is included.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2024

Emulation-based Stabilization for Networked Control Systems with Stochastic Channels

This paper studies the stabilization problem of networked control systems (NCSs) with random packet dropouts caused by stochastic channels. To describe the effects of stochastic channels on the information transmission, the transmission times are assumed to be deterministic, whereas the packet transmission is assumed to be random. We first propose a stochastic scheduling protocol to model random packet dropouts, and address the properties of the proposed stochastic scheduling protocol. The proposed scheduling protocol provides a unified modelling framework for a general class of random packet dropouts due to different stochastic channels. Next, the proposed scheduling protocol is embedded into the closed-loop system, which leads to a stochastic hybrid model for NCSs with random packet dropouts. Based on this stochastic hybrid model, we follow the emulation approach to establish sufficient conditions to guarantee uniform global asymptotical stability in probability. In particular, an upper bound on the maximally allowable transmission interval is derived explicitly for all stochastic protocols satisfying Lyapunov conditions that guarantee uniform global asymptotic stability in probability. Finally, two numerical examples are presented to demonstrate the derived results.

eess.SY↗

arXiv2024

TIER: Text-Image Encoder-based Regression for AIGC Image Quality Assessment

Recently, AIGC image quality assessment (AIGCIQA), which aims to assess the quality of AI-generated images (AIGIs) from a human perception perspective, has emerged as a new topic in computer vision. Unlike common image quality assessment tasks where images are derived from original ones distorted by noise, blur, and compression, \textit{etc.}, in AIGCIQA tasks, images are typically generated by generative models using text prompts. Considerable efforts have been made in the past years to advance AIGCIQA. However, most existing AIGCIQA methods regress predicted scores directly from individual generated images, overlooking the information contained in the text prompts of these images. This oversight partially limits the performance of these AIGCIQA methods. To address this issue, we propose a text-image encoder-based regression (TIER) framework. Specifically, we process the generated images and their corresponding text prompts as inputs, utilizing a text encoder and an image encoder to extract features from these text prompts and generated images, respectively. To demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed TIER method, we conduct extensive experiments on several mainstream AIGCIQA databases, including AGIQA-1K, AGIQA-3K, and AIGCIQA2023. The experimental results indicate that our proposed TIER method generally demonstrates superior performance compared to baseline in most cases.

cs.CV↗

arXiv2023

Differentiable modeling to unify machine learning and physical models and advance Geosciences

Process-Based Modeling (PBM) and Machine Learning (ML) are often perceived as distinct paradigms in the geosciences. Here we present differentiable geoscientific modeling as a powerful pathway toward dissolving the perceived barrier between them and ushering in a paradigm shift. For decades, PBM offered benefits in interpretability and physical consistency but struggled to efficiently leverage large datasets. ML methods, especially deep networks, presented strong predictive skills yet lacked the ability to answer specific scientific questions. While various methods have been proposed for ML-physics integration, an important underlying theme -- differentiable modeling -- is not sufficiently recognized. Here we outline the concepts, applicability, and significance of differentiable geoscientific modeling (DG). "Differentiable" refers to accurately and efficiently calculating gradients with respect to model variables, critically enabling the learning of high-dimensional unknown relationships. DG refers to a range of methods connecting varying amounts of prior knowledge to neural networks and training them together, capturing a different scope than physics-guided machine learning and emphasizing first principles. Preliminary evidence suggests DG offers better interpretability and causality than ML, improved generalizability and extrapolation capability, and strong potential for knowledge discovery, while approaching the performance of purely data-driven ML. DG models require less training data while scaling favorably in performance and efficiency with increasing amounts of data. With DG, geoscientists may be better able to frame and investigate questions, test hypotheses, and discover unrecognized linkages.

cs.LG↗

arXiv2023

Mössbauer spectroscopy study of the magnetostructural and spin-state transitions in the breathing pyrochlore LiFeCr$_{4}$O$_{8}$

We report on investigations of the complex magnetostructural and spin-state transitions in the breathing pyrochlore LiFeCr$_{4}$O$_{8}$ by means of magnetization, Mössbauer spectroscopy, and density functional theory (DFT) calculations. Three transitions corresponding to the ferrimagnetic transition at $T_N\sim94$ K, the spin-gap transition at $T_{SG}\sim50$ K, and the magnetostructural transition at $T_{MS}\sim19$ K were observed from the $χ$(T) curve, whereas only $T_N$ and $T_{MS}$ were evidenced for the Fe site from our Mössbauer measurements, suggesting that the spin-gap transition is absent at the Fe site. This indicates that the spin-gap transition is an effect of the breathing Cr$_4$ lattice, in agreement with our DFT calculations from which we see nearly decoupled electronic states for the FeO$_4$ and CrO$_6$ units. From the temperature dependence of the hyperfine magnetic field we also observed a spin-state transition for the Fe spins at $T_{MS}$ consistent with earlier neutron diffraction measurements. These local characteristics are believed to be important for a complete understanding of the complex magnetostructural coupling effects observed in similar systems.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2023

Multiple Control Functionals for Interconnected Time-Delay Systems

Safety is essential for autonomous systems, in particular for interconnected systems in which the interactions among subsystems are involved. Motivated by the recent interest in cyber-physical and interconnected autonomous systems, we address the safe stabilization problem of interconnected systems with time delays. We propose multiple control Lyapunov and barrier functionals for the stabilization and safety control problems, respectively. In order to investigate the safe stabilization control problem, the proposed multiple control functionals are combined together via two methods: the optimization-based method and the sliding mode based method. The resulting controllers can be of either explicit or implicit forms, both of which ensure the safe stabilization objective of the whole system. The derived results are illustrated via a reach-avoid problem of multi-robot systems.

eess.SY↗

arXiv2023

Charge doping into spin minority states mediates doubling of $T_\mathrm{C}$ in ferromagnetic CrGeTe$_3$

The recent discovery of the persistence of long-range magnetic order when van der Waals layered magnets are thinned towards the monolayer limit has provided a tunable platform for the engineering of novel magnetic structures and devices. Here, we study the evolution of the electronic structure of CrGeTe$_3$ as a function of electron doping in the surface layer. From angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy, we observe spectroscopic fingerprints that this electron doping drives a marked increase in $T_\mathrm{C}$, reaching values more than double that of the undoped material, in agreement with recent studies using electrostatic gating. Together with density functional theory calculations and Monte Carlo simulations, we show that, surprisingly, the increased $T_\mathrm{C}$ is mediated by the population of spin-minority Cr $t_{2g}$ states, forming a half-metallic 2D electron gas at the surface. We show how this promotes a novel variant of double exchange, and unlocks a significant influence of the Ge -- which was previously thought to be electronically inert in this system -- in mediating Cr-Cr exchange.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2023

Selective Manipulation and Tunneling Spectroscopy of Broken-Symmetry Quantum Hall States in a Hybrid-edge Quantum Point Contact

We present a device architecture of hybrid-edge and dual-gated quantum point contact. We demonstrate improved electrostatic control over the separation, position, and coupling of each broken-symmetry compressible strip in graphene. Via low-temperature magneto-transport measurement, we demonstrate selective manipulation over the evolution, hybridization, and transmission of arbitrarily chosen quantum Hall states in the channel. With gate-tunable tunneling spectroscopy, we characterize the energy gap of each symmetry-broken quantum Hall state with high resolution on the order of ~0.1 meV.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2023

Tunable Inter-Moiré Physics in Consecutively-Twisted Trilayer Graphene

We fabricate a twisted trilayer graphene device with consecutive twist angles of 1.33 and 1.64 degrees, in which we electrostatically tune the electronic states from each of the two co-existing moiré superlattices and the interactions between them. When both moiré superlattices contribute equally to electrical transport, we report a new type of inter-moiré Hofstadter butterfly. Its Brown-Zak oscillation corresponds to one of the intermediate quasicrystal length scales of the reconstructed moiré of moiré (MoM) superlattice, shedding new light on emergent physics from competing atomic orders.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2023

PL-CVIO: Point-Line Cooperative Visual-Inertial Odometry

Low-feature environments are one of the main Achilles' heels of geometric computer vision (CV) algorithms. In most human-built scenes often with low features, lines can be considered complements to points. In this paper, we present a multi-robot cooperative visual-inertial navigation system (VINS) using both point and line features. By utilizing the covariance intersection (CI) update within the multi-state constraint Kalman filter (MSCKF) framework, each robot exploits not only its own point and line measurements, but also constraints of common point and common line features observed by its neighbors. The line features are parameterized and updated by utilizing the Closest Point representation. The proposed algorithm is validated extensively in both Monte-Carlo simulations and a real-world dataset. The results show that the point-line cooperative visual-inertial odometry (PL-CVIO) outperforms the independent MSCKF and our previous work CVIO in both low-feature and rich-feature environments.

cs.RO↗