5,775 research outputs found
Effects of electron scattering on the topological properties of nanowires: Majorana fermions from disorder and superlattices
We focus on inducing topological state from regular, or irregular scattering
in (i) p-wave superconducting wires and (ii) Rashba wires proximity coupled to
an s-wave superconductor. We find that contrary to common expectations the
topological properties of both systems are fundamentally different: In p-wave
wires, disorder generally has a detrimental effect on the topological order and
the topological state is destroyed beyond a critical disorder strength. In
contrast, in Rashba wires, which are relevant for recent experiments, disorder
can {\it induce} topological order, reducing the need for quasiballistic
samples to obtain Majorana fermions. Moreover, we find that the total phase
space area of the topological state is conserved for long disordered Rashba
wires, and can even be increased in an appropriately engineered superlattice
potential.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figs, RevTe
Robustness of edge states in graphene quantum dots
We analyze the single particle states at the edges of disordered graphene
quantum dots. We show that generic graphene quantum dots support a number of
edge states proportional to circumference of the dot over the lattice constant.
Our analytical theory agrees well with numerical simulations. Perturbations
breaking electron-hole symmetry like next-nearest neighbor hopping or edge
impurities shift the edge states away from zero energy but do not change their
total amount. We discuss the possibility of detecting the edge states in an
antidot array and provide an upper bound on the magnetic moment of a graphene
dot.Comment: Added figure 6, extended discussion (version as accepted by Physical
Review B
Interfaces Within Graphene Nanoribbons
We study the conductance through two types of graphene nanostructures:
nanoribbon junctions in which the width changes from wide to narrow, and curved
nanoribbons. In the wide-narrow structures, substantial reflection occurs from
the wide-narrow interface, in contrast to the behavior of the much studied
electron gas waveguides. In the curved nanoribbons, the conductance is very
sensitive to details such as whether regions of a semiconducting armchair
nanoribbon are included in the curved structure -- such regions strongly
suppress the conductance. Surprisingly, this suppression is not due to the band
gap of the semiconducting nanoribbon, but is linked to the valley degree of
freedom. Though we study these effects in the simplest contexts, they can be
expected to occur for more complicated structures, and we show results for
rings as well. We conclude that experience from electron gas waveguides does
not carry over to graphene nanostructures. The interior interfaces causing
extra scattering result from the extra effective degrees of freedom of the
graphene structure, namely the valley and sublattice pseudospins.Comment: 19 pages, published version, several references added, small changes
to conclusion
Emergence of massless Dirac fermions in graphene's Hofstadter butterfly at switches of the quantum Hall phase connectivity
The fractal spectrum of magnetic minibands (Hofstadter butterfly), induced by
the moir\'e super- lattice of graphene on an hexagonal crystal substrate, is
known to exhibit gapped Dirac cones. We show that the gap can be closed by
slightly misaligning the substrate, producing a hierarchy of conical
singularities (Dirac points) in the band structure at rational values Phi =
(p/q)(h/e) of the magnetic flux per supercell. Each Dirac point signals a
switch of the topological quantum number in the connected component of the
quantum Hall phase diagram. Model calculations reveal the scale invariant
conductivity sigma = 2qe^2 / pi h and Klein tunneling associated with massless
Dirac fermions at these connectivity switches.Comment: 4 pages, 6 figures + appendix (3 pages, 1 figure
Interfaces within graphene nanoribbons
We study the conductance through two types of graphene nanostructures: nanoribbon junctions in which the width changes from wide to narrow, and curved nanoribbons. In the wide-narrow structures, substantial reflection occurs from the wide-narrow interface, in contrast to the behavior of the much studied electron gas waveguides. In the curved nanoribbons, the conductance is very sensitive to details such as whether regions of a semiconducting armchair nanoribbon are included in the curved structure -- such regions strongly suppress the conductance. Surprisingly, this suppression is not due to the band gap of the semiconducting nanoribbon, but is linked to the valley degree of freedom. Though we study these effects in the simplest contexts, they can be expected to occur for more complicated structures, and we show results for rings as well. We conclude that experience from electron gas waveguides does not carry over to graphene nanostructures. The interior interfaces causing extra scattering result from the extra effective degrees of freedom of the graphene structure, namely the valley and sublattice pseudospins
Spin-orbit induced longitudinal spin-polarized currents in non-magnetic solids
For certain non-magnetic solids with low symmetry the occurrence of
spin-polarized longitudinal currents is predicted. These arise due to an
interplay of spin-orbit interaction and the particular crystal symmetry. This
result is derived using a group-theoretical scheme that allows investigating
the symmetry properties of any linear response tensor relevant to the field of
spintronics. For the spin conductivity tensor it is shown that only the
magnetic Laue group has to be considered in this context. Within the introduced
general scheme also the spin Hall- and additional related transverse effects
emerge without making reference to the two-current model. Numerical studies
confirm these findings and demonstrate for (AuPt)Sc that
the longitudinal spin conductivity may be in the same order of magnitude as the
conventional transverse one. The presented formalism only relies on the
magnetic space group and therefore is universally applicable to any type of
magnetic order.Comment: 5 pages, 1 table, 2 figures (3 & 2 subfigures
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