Quantum transport in graphene heterostructures

The two dimensional charge carriers in mono- and bilayer graphene are described by massless and massive chiral Dirac Hamiltonians, respectively. This thesis describes low temperature transport experiments designed to probe the consequences of this basic fact. The first part concerns the effect of the lattice pseudospin, an analog of a relativistic electron spin, on the scattering properties of mono- and bilayer graphene. We fabricate graphene devices with an extremely narrow local gates, and study ballistic carrier transport through the resulting barrier. By analyzing the interference of quasiparticles confined to the region beneath the gate, we are able to determine that charge carriers normally incident to the barrier are transmitted perfectly, a solid state analog of the Klein tunneling of relativistic quantum mechanics. The second part of the work describes the development of hexagonal boron nitride (hBN), an insulating isomorph of graphite, as a substrate and gate dielectric for graphene electronics. We use the enhanced mobility of electrons in h-BN supported graphene to investigate the effect of electronic interactions. We find interactions drive spontaneous breaking of the emergent SU(4) symmetry of the graphene Landau levels, leading to a variety of quantum Hall isospin ferromagnetic (QHIFM) states, which we study using tilted field magnetotransport. At yet higher fields, we observe fractional quantum Hall states which show signatures of the unique symmetries and anisotropies of the graphene QHIFM. The final part of the thesis details a proposal and preliminary experiments to probe isospin ordering in bilayer graphene using capacitance measurements

Topological Photonics

Topological photonics is a rapidly emerging field of research in which geometrical and topological ideas are exploited to design and control the behavior of light. Drawing inspiration from the discovery of the quantum Hall effects and topological insulators in condensed matter, recent advances have shown how to engineer analogous effects also for photons, leading to remarkable phenomena such as the robust unidirectional propagation of light, which hold great promise for applications. Thanks to the flexibility and diversity of photonics systems, this field is also opening up new opportunities to realize exotic topological models and to probe and exploit topological effects in new ways. This article reviews experimental and theoretical developments in topological photonics across a wide range of experimental platforms, including photonic crystals, waveguides, metamaterials, cavities, optomechanics, silicon photonics, and circuit QED. A discussion of how changing the dimensionality and symmetries of photonics systems has allowed for the realization of different topological phases is offered, and progress in understanding the interplay of topology with non-Hermitian effects, such as dissipation, is reviewed. As an exciting perspective, topological photonics can be combined with optical nonlinearities, leading toward new collective phenomena and novel strongly correlated states of light, such as an analog of the fractional quantum Hall effect.Comment: 87 pages, 30 figures, published versio

Theoretical Concepts of Quantum Mechanics

Quantum theory as a scientific revolution profoundly influenced human thought about the universe and governed forces of nature. Perhaps the historical development of quantum mechanics mimics the history of human scientific struggles from their beginning. This book, which brought together an international community of invited authors, represents a rich account of foundation, scientific history of quantum mechanics, relativistic quantum mechanics and field theory, and different methods to solve the Schrodinger equation. We wish for this collected volume to become an important reference for students and researchers

Quantum fluids of light

This article reviews recent theoretical and experimental advances in the fundamental understanding and active control of quantum fluids of light in nonlinear optical systems. In presence of effective photon-photon interactions induced by the optical nonlinearity of the medium, a many-photon system can behave collectively as a quantum fluid with a number of novel features stemming from its intrinsically non-equilibrium nature. We present a rich variety of photon hydrodynamical effects that have been recently observed, from the superfluid flow around a defect at low speeds, to the appearance of a Mach-Cherenkov cone in a supersonic flow, to the hydrodynamic formation of topological excitations such as quantized vortices and dark solitons at the surface of large impenetrable obstacles. While our review is mostly focused on a class of semiconductor systems that have been extensively studied in recent years (namely planar semiconductor microcavities in the strong light-matter coupling regime having cavity polaritons as elementary excitations), the very concept of quantum fluids of light applies to a broad spectrum of systems, ranging from bulk nonlinear crystals, to atomic clouds embedded in optical fibers and cavities, to photonic crystal cavities, to superconducting quantum circuits based on Josephson junctions. The conclusive part of our article is devoted to a review of the exciting perspectives to achieve strongly correlated photon gases. In particular, we present different mechanisms to obtain efficient photon blockade, we discuss the novel quantum phases that are expected to appear in arrays of strongly nonlinear cavities, and we point out the rich phenomenology offered by the implementation of artificial gauge fields for photons.Comment: Accepted for publication on Rev. Mod. Phys. (in press, 2012

Pairing and Quadrupole Interactions in the Pseudo-Su(3) Shell Model.

Pseudo-SU(3) symmetry along with its simple symmetry-preserving and symmetry-breaking interactions is presented. This symmetry is a direct consequence of pseudo-spin symmetry which can be clearly seen in a single-particle shell model picture of heavy (A \sbsp{\sim}{\u3e} 100) atomic nuclei. Good pseudo-spin symmetry is shown to have its origin at a more fundamental level by considering relativistic mean field results for the strength parameters of the spin-orbit and the orbit-orbit interactions. As long as the residual interaction is a pseudo-spin scalar interaction, the many-particle extension of the single-particle picture is also expected to have,good total pseudo-spin symmetry. The quadrupole-quadrupole interaction Q${\cdot}Q$ can be approximated by its pseudo spin/space counterpart, $\tilde{Q}{\cdot}\tilde{Q},$ since it is approximately a good pseudo-spin scalar. Within a single major oscillator shell, this interaction possesses SU(3) (to be more precise pseudo-SU(3)) symmetry. As a caveat, the notion of identical bands in normal deformed and superdeformed nuclei can be viewed a consequence of pseudo-SU(3) dynamical symmetry. The pairing interaction, on the other hand, is an exact pseudo-spin scalar; however, it severely breaks SU(3) symmetry. To perform SU(3) shell-model calculations which include a symmetry-breaking interaction like pairing requires SU(3) technologies that consist of two parts: the SU3 and SU3RME packages. Contrary to the traditionally held view that the pairing interaction washes away the deformation, our current results show that the interaction induces triaxial deformed configurations. The combined interaction (known as the pairing-plus-quadrupole model) is systematically studied for even numbers of identical particles (either protons or neutrons) by varying the strength of each term in the interaction. Introducing a quadrupole-quadrupole interaction to a paired system pushes the ground state of the system away from a triaxiai geometry to a more prolate (oblate) one if the number of particles is below (above) the mid-shell. Further studies on the pairing and SU(3) show that the pairing interaction breaks the SU(3) symmetry in a very special way

Experimental signatures of quantum and topological states in frustrated magnetism

Frustration in magnetic materials arising from competing exchange interactions can prevent the system from adopting long-range magnetic order and can instead lead to a diverse range of novel quantum and topological states with exotic quasiparticle excitations. Here, we review prominent examples of such emergent phenomena, including magnetically-disordered and extensively degenerate spin ices, which feature emergent magnetic monopole excitations, highly-entangled quantum spin liquids with fractional spinon excitations, topological order and emergent gauge fields, as well as complex particle-like topological spin textures known as skyrmions. We provide an overview of recent advances in the search for magnetically-disordered candidate materials on the three-dimensional pyrochlore lattice and two-dimensional triangular, kagome and honeycomb lattices, the latter with bond-dependent Kitaev interactions, and on lattices supporting topological magnetism. We highlight experimental signatures of these often elusive phenomena and single out the most suitable experimental techniques that can be used to detect them. Our review also aims at providing a comprehensive guide for designing and investigating novel frustrated magnetic materials, with the potential of addressing some important open questions in contemporary condensed matter physics

Physics Division Annual Report 2006.

This report highlights the activities of the Physics Division of Argonne National Laboratory in 2006. The Division's programs include the operation as a national user facility of ATLAS, the Argonne Tandem Linear Accelerator System, research in nuclear structure and reactions, nuclear astrophysics, nuclear theory, investigations in medium-energy nuclear physics as well as research and development in accelerator technology. The mission of nuclear physics is to understand the origin, evolution and structure of baryonic matter in the universe--the core of matter, the fuel of stars, and the basic constituent of life itself. The Division's research focuses on innovative new ways to address this mission