3,191 research outputs found
Superconductivity enhanced conductance fluctuations in few layer graphene nanoribbons
We investigate the mesoscopic disorder induced rms conductance variance
in a few layer graphene nanoribbon (FGNR) contacted by two
superconducting (S) Ti/Al contacts. By sweeping the back-gate voltage, we
observe pronounced conductance fluctuations superimposed on a linear background
of the two terminal conductance G. The linear gate-voltage induced response can
be modeled by a set of inter-layer and intra-layer capacitances.
depends on temperature T and source-drain voltage .
increases with decreasing T and . When lowering , a
pronounced cross-over at a voltage corresponding to the superconducting energy
gap is observed. For |V_{sd}|\ltequiv \Delta the fluctuations are
markedly enhanced. Expressed in the conductance variance of one
graphene-superconducutor (G-S) interface, values of 0.58 e^2/h are obtained at
the base temperature of 230 mK. The conductance variance in the sub-gap region
are larger by up to a factor of 1.4-1.8 compared to the normal state. The
observed strong enhancement is due to phase coherent charge transfer caused by
Andreev reflection at the nanoribbon-superconductor interface.Comment: 15 pages, 5 figure
From Andreev to Majorana bound states in hybrid superconductor-semiconductor nanowires
Electronic excitations above the ground state must overcome an energy gap in
superconductors with spatially-homogeneous s-wave pairing. In contrast,
inhomogeneous superconductors such as those with magnetic impurities or weak
links, or heterojunctions containing normal metals or quantum dots, can host
subgap electronic excitations that are generically known as Andreev bound
states (ABSs). With the advent of topological superconductivity, a new kind of
ABS with exotic qualities, known as Majorana bound state (MBS), has been
discovered. We review the main properties of ABSs and MBSs, and the
state-of-the-art techniques for their detection. We focus on hybrid
superconductor-semiconductor nanowires, possibly coupled to quantum dots, as
one of the most flexible and promising experimental platforms. We discuss how
the combined effect of spin-orbit coupling and Zeeman field in these wires
triggers the transition from ABSs into MBSs. We show theoretical progress
beyond minimal models in understanding experiments, including the possibility
of different types of robust zero modes that may emerge without a
band-topological transition. We examine the role of spatial non-locality, a
special property of MBS wavefunctions that, together with non-Abelian braiding,
is the key to realizing topological quantum computation.Comment: Review. 23 pages, 8 figures, 1 table. Shareable published version by
Springer Nature at https://rdcu.be/b7DWT (free to read but not to download
Recommended from our members
Zero-Bias Anomaly in a Nanowire Quantum Dot Coupled to Superconductors
We studied the low-energy states of spin-1/2 quantum dots defined in InAs/InP nanowires and coupled to aluminum superconducting leads. By varying the superconducting gap with a magnetic field B we investigated the transition from strong coupling to weak-coupling , where is the Kondo temperature. Below the critical field, we observe a persisting zero-bias Kondo resonance that vanishes only for low B or higher temperatures, leaving the room to more robust subgap structures at bias voltages between and . For strong and approximately symmetric tunnel couplings, a Josephson supercurrent is observed in addition to the Kondo peak. We ascribe the coexistence of a Kondo resonance and a superconducting gap to a significant density of intragap quasiparticle states, and the finite-bias subgap structures to tunneling through Shiba states. Our results, supported by numerical calculations, own relevance also in relation to tunnel-spectroscopy experiments aiming at the observation of Majorana fermions in hybrid nanostructures.Chemistry and Chemical Biolog
Dephasing time of composite fermions
We study the dephasing of fermions interacting with a fluctuating transverse
gauge field. The divergence of the imaginary part of the fermion self energy at
finite temperatures is shown to result from a breakdown of Fermi's golden rule
due to a faster than exponential decay in time. The strong dephasing affects
experiments where phase coherence is probed. This result is used to describe
the suppression of Shubnikov-de Haas (SdH) oscillations of composite fermions
(oscillations in the conductivity near the half-filled Landau level). We find
that it is important to take into account both the effect of dephasing and the
mass renormalization. We conclude that while it is possible to use the
conventional theory to extract an effective mass from the temperature
dependence of the SdH oscillations, the resulting effective mass differs from
the of the quasiparticle in Fermi liquid theory.Comment: 14 pages, RevTeX 3.0, epsf, 1 EPS figur
Heat dissipation mechanisms in hybrid superconductor-semiconductor devices revealed by Joule spectroscopy
Understanding heating and cooling mechanisms in mesoscopic
superconductor-semiconductor hybrid devices is crucial for their application in
quantum technologies. Owing to the poor thermal conductivity of typical
devices, heating effects can drive superconducting-to-normal phase transitions
even at low applied bias, observed as sharp conductance dips through the loss
of Andreev excess currents. Tracking such dips across magnetic field, cryostat
temperature, and applied microwave power, which constitutes Joule spectroscopy,
allows to uncover the underlying cooling bottlenecks in different parts of a
device. By applying this technique, we analyze heat dissipation in devices
based on full-shell InAs-Al nanowires and reveal that superconducting islands
are strongly susceptible to heating as their cooling is limited by the rather
inefficient electron-phonon coupling, as opposed to grounded superconductors
that primarily cool by quasiparticle diffusion. Our measurements indicate that
powers as low as 50-150 pW are able to fully suprpress the superconductivity of
an island. Finally, we show that applied microwaves lead to similar heating
effects as DC signals, and explore the interplay of the microwave frequency and
the effective electron-phonon relaxation time.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figure
Picosecond absorption dynamics of photoexcited InGaP epitaxial films
Includes bibliographical references (page 92).The absorption recovery of a photoexcited InGaP epitaxial film 0.4 µm thick was investigated using the pump-probe laser technique and found to have a time constant of 55 ps at room temperature. Measurements done in the temperature range of 300-50 K show the decay of the photoexcited carrier distribution to be dominated by ambipolar diffusion and surface recombination. The measured absorption recovery time constant corresponds to an ambipolar diffusion coefficient D > 2.8 cm2/s and a surface recombination velocity of S > 4 × 105 cm/s at room temperature.This work was supported by the National Science Foundation grant (USA/Argentina) INT 8802563, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (contract 89-0513), and the Center for Optoelectronic Computing Systems, sponsored by the National Science Foundation/Engineering Research Center grant ECD 9015128 and by the Colorado Advanced Technology Institute, an agency of the State of Colorado. C. S. Menoni acknowledges the support of the National Science Foundation grant ECS 9008899 and the CSU Faculty Research Grant
Criteria for the diagnosis of corticobasal degeneration
Current criteria for the clinical diagnosis of pathologically confirmed corticobasal degeneration (CBD) no longer reflect the expanding understanding of this disease and its clinicopathologic correlations. An international consortium of behavioral neurology, neuropsychology, and movement disorders specialists developed new criteria based on consensus and a systematic literature review. Clinical diagnoses (early or late) were identified for 267 nonoverlapping pathologically confirmed CBD cases from published reports and brain banks. Combined with consensus, 4 CBD phenotypes emerged: corticobasal syndrome (CBS), frontal behavioral-spatial syndrome (FBS), nonfluent/agrammatic variant of primary progressive aphasia (naPPA), and progressive supranuclear palsy syndrome (PSPS). Clinical features of CBD cases were extracted from descriptions of 209 brain bank and published patients, providing a comprehensive description of CBD and correcting common misconceptions. Clinical CBD phenotypes and features were combined to create 2 sets of criteria: more specific clinical research criteria for probable CBD and broader criteria for possible CBD that are more inclusive but have a higher chance to detect other tau-based pathologies. Probable CBD criteria require insidious onset and gradual progression for at least 1 year, age at onset ≥50 years, no similar family history or known tau mutations, and a clinical phenotype of probable CBS or either FBS or naPPA with at least 1 CBS feature. The possible CBD category uses similar criteria but has no restrictions on age or family history, allows tau mutations, permits less rigorous phenotype fulfillment, and includes a PSPS phenotype. Future validation and refinement of the proposed criteria are needed
Overscreening of magnetic impurities in wave superconductors
We consider the screening of a magnetic impurity in a wave
superconductor. The properties of the state lead to an unusual
behavior in the impurity magnetic susceptibility, the impurity specific heat
and in the quasiparticle phase shift which can be used to diagnose the nature
of the condensed state. We construct an effective theory for this problem and
show that it is equivalent to a multichannel (one per node) non-marginal Kondo
problem with linear density of states and coupling constant J. There is a
quantum phase transition from an unscreened impurity state to an overscreened
Kondo state at a critical value J_c which varies with , the
superconducting gap away from the nodes. In the overscreened phase, the
impurity Fermi level and the amplitude of the ground
state singlet vanish at J_c like and J-J_c
respectively. We derive the scaling laws for the susceptibility and specific
heat in the overscreened phase at low fields and temperatures.Comment: 43 pages; shortened version; a number of typos have been correcte
Directed paths on hierarchical lattices with random sign weights
We study sums of directed paths on a hierarchical lattice where each bond has
either a positive or negative sign with a probability . Such path sums
have been used to model interference effects by hopping electrons in the
strongly localized regime. The advantage of hierarchical lattices is that they
include path crossings, ignored by mean field approaches, while still
permitting analytical treatment. Here, we perform a scaling analysis of the
controversial ``sign transition'' using Monte Carlo sampling, and conclude that
the transition exists and is second order. Furthermore, we make use of exact
moment recursion relations to find that the moments always determine,
uniquely, the probability distribution $P(J)$. We also derive, exactly, the
moment behavior as a function of $p$ in the thermodynamic limit. Extrapolations
($n\to 0$) to obtain for odd and even moments yield a new signal for
the transition that coincides with Monte Carlo simulations. Analysis of high
moments yield interesting ``solitonic'' structures that propagate as a function
of . Finally, we derive the exact probability distribution for path sums
up to length L=64 for all sign probabilities.Comment: 20 pages, 12 figure
Separation of Spin and Charge Quantum Numbers in Strongly Correlated Systems
In this paper we reexamine the problem of the separation of spin and charge
degrees of freedom in two dimensional strongly correlated systems. We establish
a set of sufficient conditions for the occurence of spin and charge separation.
Specifically, we discuss this issue in the context of the Heisenberg model for
spin-1/2 on a square lattice with nearest () and next-nearest ()
neighbor antiferromagnetic couplings. Our formulation makes explicit the
existence of a local SU(2) gauge symmetry once the spin-1/2 operators are
replaced by bound states of spinons. The mean-field theory for the spinons is
solved numerically as a function of the ratio for the so-called s-RVB
Ansatz. A second order phase transition exists into a novel flux state for
. We identify the range as the s-RVB phase. It is characterized by the existence of a finite gap
to the elementary excitations (spinons) and the breakdown of all the continuous
gauge symmetries. An effective continuum theory for the spinons and the gauge
degrees of freedom is constructed just below the onset of the flux phase. We
argue that this effective theory is consistent with the deconfinement of the
spinons carrying the fundamental charge of the gauge group. We contrast this
result with the study of the one dimensional quantum antiferromagnet within the
same approach. We show that in the one dimensional model, the spinons of the
gauge picture are always confined and thus cannot be identified with the
gapless spin-1/2 excitations of the quantum antiferromagnet Heisenberg model.Comment: 56 pages, RevteX 3.
- …