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Zelei Zhang

Publications and source records attributed to Zelei Zhang.

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Occupation-Driven Josephson Diode in a Symmetric Junction

We propose a Josephson diode mechanism in which nonreciprocity arises not from a conventional asymmetric Andreev spectrum but from nonequilibrium occupation of the current-carrying states engineered by attached reservoirs. We realize this mechanism in a double-quantum-dot junction, where a phase-textured nonlocal reservoir acts as a quantum Zeno selector: rapid dissipation freezes out the bright state directly coupled to the jump operator $L$, while preserving an orthogonal dark Andreev channel whose supercurrent remains comparable to that of the lossless junction. In the infinite-gap limit, the steady-state current factorizes as $I_{\rm ss}=I_A P_\gamma$, so that even when the Andreev current $I_A$ is strictly reciprocal, the phase asymmetry of $P_\gamma$ alone can produce a Josephson diode effect through reservoir engineering. We further show that local Coulomb repulsion can drive the system toward a nearly ideal diode regime via a dark-pair resonance. Using Keldysh-Lindblad calculations, we demonstrate that our results remain robust for realistic junctions with a finite superconducting gap and dissipation.

cond-mat.mes-hall

Many-body Josephson diode effect in superconducting quantum interferometers

We propose a many-body mechanism for a strong Josephson diode effect (JDE) in an interacting nanoscale SQUID formed by two parallel quantum dots coupled to superconducting leads. Unlike conventional diode behavior, where nonreciprocity originates from a skewed current-phase relation within a single, continuously evolving ground state, the JDE reported here is \emph{branch selected}: the positive and negative critical currents are optimized on different many-body branches across the $0$-$\pi$ phase boundary, yielding a substantial enhancement of the diode efficiency. We further show that a \emph{nonlocal} Cooper-pair tunneling channel, which binds the two electrons on different arms, is essential: it reshapes the $0$-$\pi$ boundary and produces a pronounced ``diode band'' in parameter space, in sharp contrast to the fragile hotspot obtained when only local Cooper-pair transfer is available. While the key physics is captured by an effective model in the superconducting atomic limit, our conclusions remain robust for realistic finite-gap devices, as demonstrated within a generalized atomic-limit framework.

cond-mat.supr-con

Nonequilibrium mean-field approach for quantum transport with off-diagonal disorder

For the nanoscale structures, disorder scattering plays a vital role in the carriers' transport, including electrons and high-frequency phonons. The capability for effectively treating the disorders, including both diagonal and off-diagonal disorders, is indispensable for quantum transport simulation of realistic device materials. In this work, we report a self-consistent nonequilibrium mean-field quantum transport approach, by combining the auxiliary coherent potential approximation (ACPA) and non-equilibrium Green's function method, for calculating the phonon transport through disordered material structures with the force-constant disorders (including the Anderson-type disorder). The nonequilibrium vertex correction (NVC) is derived in an extended local degree of freedom to account for both the multiple disorder scattering by force-constant disorder and the nonequilibrium quantum statistics. We have tested ACPA-NVC method with the fluctuation-dissipation theorem at the equilibrium and obtained very good agreement with supercell calculations for the phonon transmission. To demonstrate the applicability, we apply ACPA-NVC to calculate the thermal conductance for the disordered Ni/Pt interface, and important effects of force-constant disorder are revealed. ACPA-NVC method provides an effective quantum transport approach for simulating disordered nanoscale devices, and the generalization to simulate disordered nanoelectronic device is straightforward.

cond-mat.mes-hall

Auxiliary dynamical mean-field approach for Anderson-Hubbard model with off-diagonal disorder

This work reports a theoretical framework that combines the auxiliary coherent potential approximation (ACPA-DMFT) with dynamical mean-field theory to study strongly correlated and disordered electronic systems with both diagonal and off-diagonal disorders. In this method, by introducing an auxiliary coupling space with extended local degree of freedom,the diagonal and off-diagonal disorders are treated in a unified and self-consistent framework of coherent potential approximation, within which the dynamical mean-field theory is naturally combined to handle the strongly correlated Anderson-Hubbard model. By using this approach, we compute matsubara Green's functions for a simple cubic lattice at finite temperatures and derive impurity spectral functions through the maximum entropy method. Our results reveal the critical influence of off-diagonal disorder on Mott-type metal-insulator transitions. Specifically, a reentrant phenomenon is identified, where the system transitions between insulating and metallic states under varying interaction strengths. The ACPA-DMFT method provides an efficient and robust computational method for exploring the intricate interplay of disorder and strong correlations.

cond-mat.str-el