arXiv subjects

Yafei Ren

Publications and source records attributed to Yafei Ren.

51 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv2020

Approaching Three-Dimensional Quantum Hall effect in Bulk HfTe5

The discovery of quantum Hall effect in two-dimensional (2D) electronic systems inspired the topological classifications of electronic systems1,2. By stacking 2D quantum Hall effects with interlayer coupling much weaker than the Landau level spacing, quasi-2D quantum Hall effects have been experimentally observed3~7, due to the similar physical origin of the 2D counterpart. Recently, in a real 3D electronic gas system where the interlayer coupling is much stronger than the Landau level spacing, 3D quantum Hall effect has been observed in ZrTe58. In this Letter, we report the electronic transport features of its sister bulk material, i.e., HfTe5, under external magnetic field. We observe a series of plateaus in Hall resistance \r{ho}xy as magnetic field increases until it reaches the quantum limit at 1~2 Tesla. At the plateau regions, the longitudinal resistance \r{ho}xx exhibits local minima. Although \r{ho}xx is still nonzero, its value becomes much smaller than \r{ho}xy at the last few plateaus. By mapping the Fermi surface via measuring the Shubonikov-de Haas oscillation, we find that the strength of Hall plateau is proportional to the Fermi wavelength, suggesting that its formation may be attributed to the gap opening from the interaction driven Fermi surface instability. By comparing the bulk band structures of ZrTe5 and HfTe5, we find that there exists an extra pocket near the Fermi level of HfTe5, which may lead to the finite but nonzero longitudinal conductance.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2019

Mesoscopic Electronic Transport in Twisted Bilayer Graphene

We numerically investigate the electronic transport properties between two mesoscopic graphene disks with a twist by employing the density functional theory coupled with non-equilibrium Green's function technique. By attaching two graphene leads to upper and lower graphene layers separately, we explore systematically the dependence of electronic transport on the twist angle, Fermi energy, system size, layer stacking order and twist axis. When choose different twist axes for either AA- or AB-stacked bilayer graphene, we find that the dependence of conductance on twist angle displays qualitatively distinction, i.e., the systems with "top" axis exhibit finite conductance oscillating as a function of the twist angle, while the ones with "hollow" axis exhibit nearly vanishing conductance for different twist angles or Fermi energies near the charge neutrality point. These findings suggest that the choice of twist axis can effectively tune the interlayer conductance, making it a crucial factor in designing of nanodevices with the twisted van der Waals multilayers.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2018

Three-dimensional quantum Hall effect and metal-insulator transition in ZrTe5

Symmetry, dimensionality, and interaction are crucial ingredients for phase transitions and quantum states of matter. As a prominent example, the integer quantum Hall effect (QHE) represents a topological phase generally regarded as characteristic for two-dimensional (2D) electronic systems, and its many aspects can be understood without invoking electron-electron interaction. The intriguing possibility of generalizing QHE to three-dimensional (3D) systems was proposed decades ago, yet it remains elusive experimentally. Here, we report clear experimental evidence for the 3D QHE observed in bulk ZrTe5 crystals. Owing to the extremely high sample quality, the extreme quantum limit with only the lowest Landau level occupied can be achieved by an applied magnetic field as low as 1.5 T. Remarkably, in this regime, we observe a dissipationless longitudinal resistivity rho_xx=0 accompanied with a well-developed Hall resistivity plateau rho_xy=(1\pm0.1) h/e^2 (λ_(F,z)/2), where λ_(F,z) is the Fermi wavelength along the field direction (z axis). This striking result strongly suggests a Fermi surface instability driven by the enhanced interaction effects in the extreme quantum limit. In addition, with further increasing magnetic field, both rho_xx and rho_xy increase dramatically and display an interesting metal-insulator transition, representing another magnetic field driven quantum phase transition. Our findings not only unambiguously reveal a novel quantum state of matter resulting from an intricate interplay among dimensionality, interaction, and symmetry breaking, but also provide a promising platform for further exploration of more exotic quantum phases and transitions in 3D systems.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2018

Quantum Anomalous Hall Phase Stabilized via Realistic Interactions on a Kagome Lattice

We study the quantum phases of spinless fermion at one-third filling on a Kagome lattice featuring a quadratic band touching Fermi point. In the presence of weak first and second nearest-neighbor repulsive interactions ($V_1$ and $V_2$), we demonstrate an interaction driven quantum anomalous Hall effect by employing exact diagonalization and density-matrix renormalization group methods. The time-reversal symmetry is broken spontaneously by forming loop currents that exhibit long-range correlation. Quantized Hall conductance corresponding to Chern number of $\pm1$ is obtained by measuring the pumped charge through inserting flux in a cylinder geometry. We find that the energy gap, which topologically protects the emerging ground states, can be enhanced remarkably by a moderate $V_2 < V_1$ via calculating the spectrum and charge excitation gaps, which highlights the experimentally feasible scheme of realizing interaction driven topological phase by spatially decaying interactions on topologically trivial lattice models.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2018

Enhanced Robustness of Zero-line Modes in Graphene via a Magnetic Field

Motivated by recent experimental results for zero-line modes (ZLMs) in a bilayer graphene system [Nature Nanotechnol. 11, 1060 (2016)], we systematically studied the influence of a magnetic field on ZLMs and demonstrated the physical origin of the enhanced robustness by employing nonequilibrium Green's functions and the Landauer-Buttiker formula. We found that a perpendicular magnetic field can separate the wavefunctions of the counter-propagating kink states into opposite directions. Specifically, the separation vanishes at the charge neutrality point. The separation increases as the Fermi level deviates from the charge neutrality point and can reach a magnitude comparable to the wavefunction spread at a moderate field strength. Such spatial separation of oppositely propagating ZLMs effectively suppresses backscattering. Moreover, the presence of a magnetic field enlarges the bulk gap and suppresses the bound states, thereby further reducing the scattering. These mechanisms effectively increase the mean free paths of the ZLMs to approximately 1 micron in the presence of a disorder.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2017

Current partition at zero-line intersection of quantum anomalous Hall topologies

At the interface between two-dimensional materials with different topologies, topologically protected one-dimensional states (also named as zero-line modes) arise. Here, we focus on the quantum anomalous Hall effect based zero-line modes formed at the interface between regimes with different Chern numbers. We find that, these zero-line modes are chiral and unilaterally conductive due to the breaking of time-reversal invariance. For a beam splitter consisting of two intersecting zero lines, the chirality ensures that current can only be injected from two of the four terminals. Our numerical results further show that, in the absence of contact resistance, the (anti-)clockwise partitions of currents from these two terminals are the same owing to the current conservation, which effectively simplifies the partition laws. We find that the partition is robust against relative shift of Fermi energy, but can be effectively adjusted by tuning the relative magnetization strengths at different regimes or relative angles between zero lines.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2017

In-Plane Magnetization Induced Quantum Anomalous Hall Effect in Atomic Crystals of Group-V Elements

We theoretically demonstrate that the in-plane magnetization induced quantum anomalous Hall effect (QAHE) can be realized in atomic crystal layers of group-V elements with buckled honeycomb lattice. We first construct a general tight-binding Hamiltonian with $sp^3$ orbitals via Slater-Koster two-center approximation, and then numerically show that for weak and strong spin-orbit couplings the systems harbor QAHEs with Chern numbers of $\mathcal{C}=\pm1$ and $\pm2$ , respectively. For the $\mathcal{C}=\pm1$ phases, we find the critical phase-transition magnetization from a trivial insulator to QAHE can become extremely small by tuning the spin-orbit coupling strength. Although the resulting band gap is small, it can be remarkably enhanced by orders via tilting the magnetization slightly away from the in-plane orientation. For the $\mathcal{C}=\pm2$ phases, we find that the band gap is large enough for the room-temperature observation. Although the critical magnetization is relatively large, it can be effectively decreased by applying a strain. All these suggest that it is experimentally feasible to realize high-temperature QAHE from in-plane magnetization in atomic crystal layers of group-V elements.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2017

Gate tunable current partition in graphene based topological zero lines

We demonstrate new mechanisms for gate tunable current partition at topological zero-line intersections in a graphene-based current splitter. Based on numerical calculations of the non-equilibrium Green's functions and Landauer-Büttiker formula, we show that the presence of a perpendicular magnetic field on the order of a few Teslas allows for carrier sign dependent current routing. In the zero-field limit the control on current routing and partition can be achieved within a range of $10\%$-$90\%$ of the total incoming current by tuning the carrier density at tilted intersections, or by modifying the relative magnitude of the bulk band gaps via gate voltage. We discuss the implications of our findings in the design of topological zero-line networks where finite orbital magnetic moments are expected when the current partition is asymmetric.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2017

Quantum anomalous Hall effect in atomic crystal layers from in-plane magnetization

We theoretically report that, with \textit{in-plane} magnetization, the quantum anomalous Hall effect (QAHE) can be realized in two-dimensional atomic crystal layers with preserved inversion symmetry but broken out-of-plane mirror reflection symmetry. We take the honeycomb lattice as an example, where we find that the low-buckled structure, which makes the system satisfy the symmetric criteria, is crucial to induce QAHE. The topologically nontrivial bulk gap carrying a Chern number of $\mathcal{C}=\pm1$ opens in the vicinity of the saddle points $M$, where the band dispersion exhibits strong anisotropy. We further show that the QAHE with electrically tunable Chern number can be achieved in Bernal-stacked multilayer systems, and the applied interlayer potential differences can dramatically decrease the critical magnetization to make the QAHE experimentally feasible.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2017

Transmission spectra and valley processing of graphene and carbon nanotube superlattices with inter-valley coupling

We numerically investigate the electronic transport properties of graphene nanoribbons and carbon nanotubes with inter-valley coupling, e.g., in \sqrt{3}N \times \sqrt{3}N and 3N \times 3N superlattices. By taking the \sqrt{3} \times \sqrt{3} graphene superlattice as an example, we show that tailoring the bulk graphene superlattice results in rich structural configurations of nanoribbons and nanotubes. After studying the electronic characteristics of the corresponding armchair and zigzag nanoribbon geometries, we find that the linear bands of carbon nanotubes can lead to the Klein tunnelling-like phenomenon, i.e., electrons propagate along tubes without backscattering even in the presence of a barrier. Due to the coupling between K and K' valleys of pristine graphene by \sqrt{3} \times \sqrt{3} supercells,we propose a valley-field-effect transistor based on the armchair carbon nanotube, where the valley polarization of the current can be tuned by applying a gate voltage or varying the length of the armchair carbon nanotubes.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2016

Spin-Pairing Correlations and Spin Polarization of Majorana Bound States in Two-Dimensional Topological Insulator Systems

We demonstrate that zero-energy Majorana bound state, in the ferromagnetic insulator (FI)-superconductor (SC) junction formed on the edge of two-dimensional topological insulator, exhibits three types of spin-triplet pairing correlations and its spin polarization direction is position independent in ferromagnetic insulator. When an electron is injected with a spin (anti-)parallel to this direction, equal-spin Andreev reflection exhibits the widest (narrowest) resonance peak. Similar behaviour is found when the coupling between two Majorana bound states in a FI-SC-FI junction is invoked, though an additional weak spin-singlet pairing correlation is generated. These signatures can readily facilitate the experimental detection of spin-triplet correlations and spin polarization of Majorana bound states.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2016

Topological phase transition from trigonal warping in van der Waals multilayers

In van der Waals multilayers of triangular lattice, trigonal warping occurs universally due to the interlayer hopping. We theoretically investigate the effect of trigonal warping upon distinctive topological phases, like the quantum anomalous Hall effect (QAHE) and the quantum valley Hall effect (QVHE). Taking Bernal-stacked bilayer graphene as an example, we find that the trigonal warping plays a crucial role in the formation of QAHE in large exchange field and/or interlayer potential difference by inducing extra band inversion points at momentum further away from high symmetric point. The presence of trigonal warping shrinks the phase space of QAHE and QVHE, leading to the emergence of valley-polarized QAHE with high Chern numbers ranging from $ \mathcal{C}=-7 $ to $ 7 $. These results suggest that the universal trigonal warping may play important role when the Bloch states at momentum away from high-symmetric points are involved.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2015

Topological Phases in Two-Dimensional Materials: A Brief Review

Topological phases with insulating bulk and gapless surface or edge modes have attracted much attention because of their fundamental physics implications and potential applications in dissipationless electronics and spintronics. In this review, we mainly focus on the recent progress in the engineering of topologically nontrivial phases (such as $\mathbb{Z}_2$ topological insulators, quantum anomalous Hall effects, quantum valley Hall effects \textit{etc.}) in two-dimensional material systems, including quantum wells, atomic crystal layers of elements from group III to group VII, and the transition metal compounds.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2015

The positive piezoconductive effect in graphene

As the thinnest conductive and elastic material, graphene is expected to play a crucial role in post-Moore era. Besides applications on electronic devices, graphene has shown great potential for nano-electromechanical systems. While interlayer interactions play a key role in modifying the electronic structures of layered materials, no attention has been given to their impact on electromechanical properties. Here we report the positive piezoconductive effect observed in suspended bi- and multi-layer graphene. The effect is highly layer number dependent and shows the most pronounced response for tri-layer graphene. The effect, and its dependence on the layer number, can be understood as resulting from the strain-induced competition between interlayer coupling and intralayer transport, as confirmed by the numerical calculations based on the non-equilibrium Green's function method. Our results enrich the understanding of graphene and point to layer number as a powerful tool for tuning the electromechanical properties of graphene for future applications.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2015

Single-Valley Engineering in Graphene Superlattices

The two inequivalent valleys in graphene preclude the protection against inter-valley scattering offered by an odd-number of Dirac cones characteristic of Z2 topological insulator phases. Here we propose a way to engineer a chiral single-valley metallic phase with quadratic crossover in a honeycomb lattice through tailored \sqrt{3}N *\sqrt{3}N or 3N *3N superlattices. The possibility of tuning valley-polarization via pseudo-Zeeman field and the emergence of Dresselhaus-type valley-orbit coupling are proposed in adatom decorated graphene superlattices. Such valley manipulation mechanisms and metallic phase can also find applications in honeycomb photonic crystals.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗