386 research outputs found
Influence of structural disorder and large-scale geometric fluctuations on the Coherent Transport of Metallic Junctions and Molecular Wires
Structural disorder is present in almost all experimental measurements of
electronic transport through single molecules or molecular wires. To assess its
influence on the conductance is computationally demanding, because a large
number of conformations must be considered. Here we analyze an approximate
recursive layer Green function approach for the ballistic transport through
quasi one-dimensional nano-junctions. We find a rapid convergence of the method
with its control parameter, the layer thickness, and good agreement with
existing experimental and theoretical data. Because the computational effort
rises only linearly with system size, this method permits treatment of very
large systems. We investigate the conductance of gold- and silver wires of
different sizes and conformations. For weak electrode disorder and imperfect
coupling between electrode and wire we find conductance variations of
approximately 20%. Overall we find the conductance of silver junctions well
described by the immediate vicinity of narrowest point in the junction, a
result that may explain the observation of well-conserved conductance plateaus
in recent experiments on silver junctions. In an application to flexible
oligophene wires, we find that strongly distorted conformations that are
sterically forbidden at zero temperature, contribute significantly to the
observed average zero-bias conductance of the molecular wire
Electrical Nanoprobing of Semiconducting Carbon Nanotubes using an Atomic Force Microscope
We use an Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) tip to locally probe the electronic
properties of semiconducting carbon nanotube transistors. A gold-coated AFM tip
serves as a voltage or current probe in three-probe measurement setup. Using
the tip as a movable current probe, we investigate the scaling of the device
properties with channel length. Using the tip as a voltage probe, we study the
properties of the contacts. We find that Au makes an excellent contact in the
p-region, with no Schottky barrier. In the n-region large contact resistances
were found which dominate the transport properties.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure
Effects of Disorder and Momentum Relaxation on the Intertube Transport of Incommensurate Carbon Nanotube Ropes and Multiwall Nanotubes
We study theoretically the electrical transport between aligned carbon
nanotubes in nanotube ropes, and between shells in multiwall carbon nanotubes.
We focus on transport between two metallic nanotubes (or shells) of different
chiralities with mismatched Fermi momenta and incommensurate periodicities. We
perform numerical calculations of the transport properties of such systems
within a tight-binding formalism. For clean (disorder-free) nanotubes the
intertube transport is strongly suppressed as a result of momentum
conservation. For clean nanotubes, the intertube transport is typically
dominated by the loss of momentum conservation at the contacts. We discuss in
detail the effects of disorder, which also breaks momentum conservation, and
calculate the effects of localised scatterers of various types. We show that
physically relevant disorder potentials lead to very dramatic enhancements of
the intertube conductance. We show that recent experimental measurements of the
intershell transport in multiwall nanotubes are consistent with our theoretical
results for a model of short-ranged correlated disorder.Comment: References adde
Ferromagnetic semiconductor single wall carbon nanotube
Possibility of a ferromagnetic semiconductor single wall carbon nanotube
(SWCNT), where ferromagnetism is due to coupling between doped magnetic
impurity on a zigzag SWCNT and electrons spin, is investigate. We found, in the
weak impurity-spin couplings, at low impurity concentrations the spin up
electrons density of states remain semiconductor while the spin down electrons
density of states shows a metallic behavior. By increasing impurity
concentrations the semiconducting gap of spin up electrons in the density of
states is closed, hence a semiconductor to metallic phase transition is take
place. In contrast, for the case of strong coupling, spin up electrons density
of states remain semiconductor and spin down electron has metallic behavior.
Also by increasing impurity spin magnitude, the semiconducting gap of spin up
electrons is increased.Comment: 10 pages and 9 figure
Evolution of SU(4) Transport Regimes in Carbon Nanotube Quantum Dots
We study the evolution of conductance regimes in carbon nanotubes with doubly
degenerate orbitals (``shells'') by controlling the contact transparency within
the same sample. For sufficiently open contacts, Kondo behavior is observed for
1, 2, and 3 electrons in the topmost shell. As the contacts are opened more,
the sample enters the ``mixed valence'' regime, where different charge states
are strongly hybridized by electron tunneling. Here, the conductance as a
function of gate voltage shows pronounced modulations with a period of four
electrons, and all single-electron features are washed away at low temperature.
We successfully describe this behavior by a simple formula with no fitting
parameters. Finally, we find a surprisingly small energy scale that controls
the temperature evolution of conductance and the tunneling density of states in
the mixed valence regime.Comment: 4 pages + supplementary info. The second part of the original
submission is now split off as a separate paper (0709.1288
Double-gap superconducting proximity effect in nanotubes
We theoretically explore the possibility of a superconducting proximity
effect in single-walled metallic carbon nanotubes due to the presence of a
superconducting substrate. An unconventional double-gap situation can arise in
the two bands for nanotubes of large radius wherein the tunneling is (almost)
symmetric in the two sublattices. In such a case, a proximity effect can take
place in the symmetric band below a critical experimentally-accessible Coulomb
interaction strength in the nanotube. Furthermore, due to interactions in the
nanotube, the appearance of a BCS gap in this band stabilizes superconductivity
in the other band at lower temperatures. We also discuss the scenario of highly
asymmetric tunneling and show that this case too supports double-gap
superconductivity.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure
Observation and Spectroscopy of a Two-Electron Wigner Molecule in an Ultra-Clean Carbon Nanotube
Coulomb interactions can have a decisive effect on the ground state of
electronic systems. The simplest system in which interactions can play an
interesting role is that of two electrons on a string. In the presence of
strong interactions the two electrons are predicted to form a Wigner molecule,
separating to the ends of the string due to their mutual repulsion. This
spatial structure is believed to be clearly imprinted on the energy spectrum,
yet to date a direct measurement of such a spectrum in a controllable
one-dimensional setting is still missing. Here we use an ultra-clean suspended
carbon nanotube to realize this system in a tunable potential. Using tunneling
spectroscopy we measure the excitation spectra of two interacting carriers,
electrons or holes, and identify seven low-energy states characterized by their
spin and isospin quantum numbers. These states fall into two multiplets
according to their exchange symmetries. The formation of a strongly-interacting
Wigner molecule is evident from the small energy splitting measured between the
two multiplets, that is quenched by an order of magnitude compared to the
non-interacting value. Our ability to tune the two-electron state in space and
to study it for both electrons and holes provides an unambiguous demonstration
of the fundamental Wigner molecule state.Comment: SP and FK contributed equally to this wor
Dynamic nuclear polarization at the edge of a two-dimensional electron gas
We have used gated GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructures to explore nonlinear
transport between spin-resolved Landau level (LL) edge states over a submicron
region of two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG). The current I flowing from one
edge state to the other as a function of the voltage V between them shows
diode-like behavior---a rapid increase in I above a well-defined threshold V_t
under forward bias, and a slower increase in I under reverse bias. In these
measurements, a pronounced influence of a current-induced nuclear spin
polarization on the spin splitting is observed, and supported by a series of
NMR experiments. We conclude that the hyperfine interaction plays an important
role in determining the electronic properties at the edge of a 2DEG.Comment: 8 pages RevTeX, 7 figures (GIF); submitted to Phys. Rev.
Sharp and Smooth Boundaries of Quantum Hall Liquids
We study the transition between sharp and smooth density distributions at the
edges of Quantum Hall Liquids in the presence of interactions. We find that,
for strong confining potentials, the edge of a liquid is described by
the Fermi Liquid theory, even in the presence of interactions, a
consequence of the chiral nature of the system. When the edge confining
potential is decreased beyond a point, the edge undergoes a reconstruction and
electrons start to deposit a distance magnetic lengths away from the
initial QH Liquid. Within the Hartree-Fock approximation, a new pair of
branches of gapless edge excitations is generated after the transition. We show
that the transition is controlled by the balance between a long-ranged
repulsive Hartree term and a short-ranged attractive exchange term. Such
transition also occurs for Quantum Dots in the Quantum Hall Regime, and should
be observable in resonant tunneling experiments. Electron tunneling into the
reconstructed edge is also discussed.Comment: 28 pages, REVTeX 3.0, 18 figures available upon request,
cond-mat/yymmnn
- …