820 research outputs found
Quantum spin Hall phase in multilayer graphene
The so called quantum spin Hall phase is a topologically non trivial
insulating phase that is predicted to appear in graphene and graphene-like
systems. In this work we address the question of whether this topological
property persists in multilayered systems. We consider two situations: purely
multilayer graphene and heterostructures where graphene is encapsulated by
trivial insulators with a strong spin-orbit coupling. We use a four orbital
tight-binding model that includes the full atomic spin-orbit coupling and we
calculate the topological invariant of the bulk states as well as the
edge states of semi-infinite crystals with armchair termination. For
homogeneous multilayers we find that even when the spin-orbit interaction opens
a gap for all the possible stackings, only those with odd number of layers host
gapless edge states while those with even number of layers are trivial
insulators. For the heterostructures where graphene is encapsulated by trivial
insulators, it turns out that the interlayer coupling is able to induce a
topological gap whose size is controlled by the spin-orbit coupling of the
encapsulating materials, indicating that the quantum spin Hall phase can be
induced by proximity to trivial insulators.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figure
Orbital Magnetization of Quantum Spin Hall Insulator Nanoparticles
Both spin and orbital degrees of freedom contribute to the magnetic moment of
isolated atoms. However, when inserted in crystals, atomic orbital moments are
quenched because of the lack of rotational symmetry that protects them when
isolated. Thus, the dominant contribution to the magnetization of magnetic
materials comes from electronic spin. Here we show that nanoislands of quantum
spin Hall insulators can host robust orbital edge magnetism whenever their
highest occupied Kramers doublet is singly occupied, upgrading the spin edge
current into a charge current. The resulting orbital magnetization scales
linearly with size, outweighing the spin contribution for islands of a few nm
in size. This linear scaling is specific of the Dirac edge states and very
different from Schrodinger electrons in quantum rings. Modelling Bi(111)
flakes, whose edge states have been recently observed, we show that orbital
magnetization is robust with respect to disorder, thermal agitation, shape of
the island and crystallographic direction of the edges, reflecting its
topological protection.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, + Supporting Informatio
Van der Waals spin valves
We propose spin valves where a 2D non-magnetic conductor is intercalated
between two ferromagnetic insulating layers. In this setup, the relative
orientation of the magnetizations of the insulating layers can have a strong
impact on the in-plane conductivity of the 2D conductor. We first show this for
a graphene bilayer, described with a tight-binding model, placed between two
ferromagnetic insulators. In the anti-parallel configuration, a band gap opens
at the Dirac point, whereas in the parallel configuration, the graphene bilayer
remains conducting. We then compute the electronic structure of graphene
bilayer placed between two monolayers of the ferromagnetic insulator CrI,
using density functional theory. Consistent with the model, we find that a gap
opens at the Dirac point only in the antiparallel configuration.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure
Real space mapping of topological invariants using artificial neural networks
Topological invariants allow to characterize Hamiltonians, predicting the
existence of topologically protected in-gap modes. Those invariants can be
computed by tracing the evolution of the occupied wavefunctions under twisted
boundary conditions. However, those procedures do not allow to calculate a
topological invariant by evaluating the system locally, and thus require
information about the wavefunctions in the whole system. Here we show that
artificial neural networks can be trained to identify the topological order by
evaluating a local projection of the density matrix. We demonstrate this for
two different models, a 1-D topological superconductor and a 2-D quantum
anomalous Hall state, both with spatially modulated parameters. Our neural
network correctly identifies the different topological domains in real space,
predicting the location of in-gap states. By combining a neural network with a
calculation of the electronic states that uses the Kernel Polynomial Method, we
show that the local evaluation of the invariant can be carried out by
evaluating a local quantity, in particular for systems without translational
symmetry consisting of tens of thousands of atoms. Our results show that
supervised learning is an efficient methodology to characterize the local
topology of a system.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figure
Spin splitting in a polarized quasi-two-dimensional exciton gas
We have observed a large spin splitting between "spin" and
heavy-hole excitons, having unbalanced populations, in undoped GaAs/AlAs
quantum wells in the absence of any external magnetic field. Time-resolved
photoluminescence spectroscopy, under excitation with circularly polarized
light, reveals that, for high excitonic density and short times after the
pulsed excitation, the emission from majority excitons lies above that of
minority ones. The amount of the splitting, which can be as large as 50% of the
binding energy, increases with excitonic density and presents a time evolution
closely connected with the degree of polarization of the luminescence. Our
results are interpreted on the light of a recently developed model, which shows
that, while intra-excitonic exchange interaction is responsible for the spin
relaxation processes, exciton-exciton interaction produces a breaking of the
spin degeneracy in two-dimensional semiconductors.Comment: Revtex, four pages; four figures, postscript file Accepted for
publication in Physical Review B (Rapid Commun.
Magneto-optical Kerr effect in spin split two-dimensional massive Dirac materials
Two-dimensional (2D) massive Dirac electrons possess a finite Berry curvature, with Chern number 1/2, that entails both a quantized dc Hall response and a subgap full-quarter Kerr rotation. The observation of these effects in 2D massive Dirac materials such as gapped graphene, hexagonal boron nitride or transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) is obscured by the fact that Dirac cones come in pairs with opposite sign Berry curvatures, leading to a vanishing Chern number. Here, we show that the presence of spin-orbit interactions, combined with an exchange spin splitting induced either by diluted magnetic impurities or by proximity to a ferromagnetic insulator, gives origin to a net magneto-optical Kerr effect in such systems. We focus on the case of TMD monolayers and study the dependence of Kerr rotation on frequency and exchange spin splitting. The role of the substrate is included in the theory and found to critically affect the results. Our calculations indicate that state-of-the-art magneto-optical Kerr spectroscopy can detect a single magnetic impurity in diluted magnetic TMDs.We thank Allan H MacDonald, Elaine Li, Alejandro Molina-Sanchez and Joao C G Henriques for fruitful discussions. GC acknowledges Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia (FCT) for Grant No. SFRH/BD/138806/2018. GC and JF-R acknowledge financial support from FCT through Grant No. P2020-PTDC/FIS-NAN/4662/2014. NMRP acknowledges financial support from European Commission through project 'Graphene-Driven Revolutions in ICT and Beyond' (Ref. No. 785219), FCT in the framework of Strategic Financing (Ref. No. UID/FIS/04650/2019), and COMPETE2020, PORTUGAL2020, FEDER and FCT for Grants No. PTDC/FIS-NAN/3668/2013, No. POCI-01-0145-FEDER-028114, No. POCI-01-0145-FEDER-029265 and No. PTDC/NANOPT/29265/2017. JF-R acknowledges FCT for Grant No. UTAP-EXPL/NTec/0046/2017, as well as Generalitat Valenciana funding Prometeo2017/139 and MINECO-Spain (Grant No. MAT201678625-C2)
Evaluation of prenatal diagnosis of congenital heart disease in a regional controlled case study.
AIMS: This study evaluated the evolution of the prenatal diagnosis of congenital heart disease (CHD) between 2003 and 2008 and its repercussion for the CHD prevalence rate at birth in a well-defined population (Canton of Vaud, Switzerland).
METHODS AND RESULTS: All 572 cases of CHD reported in the Eurocat Registry of Vaud-Switzerland between 1.5.2003 and 31.12.2008 were analysed and compared with the cases in our clinical database. CHD cases were divided into five different groups according to heart disease severity. The prenatal detection rates increased significantly between 2003 and 2008, with a mean detection rate of 25.2%. There was a significantly higher rate of prenatal diagnosis in the first four groups of CHD severity, with the highest detection rate (87.5%) found in the group with the most severe CHD (group 1). In this group, 85.7% of cases resulted in a termination of pregnancy, and there was a consequent 75% reduction in the prevalence of severe major cardiac malformation at birth. Detection rates were 66% in group 2, 68.6% in group 3, and the lowest in groups 4 and 5, with rates of 25.9% and 12.9%, respectively.
CONCLUSION: This study shows that the prenatal detection rate for CHD increased in a well-defined population over the study period. Prenatal diagnosis thus has had a major impact on patients with the most severe types of CHD and has resulted in a significant reduction in severe CHD at birth
Non-reciprocal magnons in a two dimensional crystal with off-plane magnetization
Nonreciprocal spin waves have a chiral asymmetry so that their energy is different for two opposite wave vectors. They are found in atomically thin ferromagnetic overlayers with in-plane magnetization and are linked to the antisymmetric Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya surface exchange. We use an itinerant fermion theory based on first-principles calculations to predict that nonreciprocal magnons can occur in Fe3GeTe2, the first stand-alone metallic two-dimensional crystal with out-of-plane magnetization. We find that both the energy and lifetime of magnons are nonreciprocal, and we predict that acoustic magnons can have lifetimes up to hundreds of picoseconds, orders of magnitude larger than in other conducting magnets.- N.M.R.P. acknowledges support from the European Commission through the project Graphene-Driven Revolutions in ICT and Beyond (Ref. No. 881603 -Core 3), and the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) in the framework of the Strategic Financing UID/FIS/04650/2013, COMPETE2020, PORTUGAL2020, FEDER, and the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) through Projects No. PTDC/FISNAN/3668/2013 and No. POCI-01-0145-FEDER-028114. J.F.-R. acknowledges financial support from FCT for Project No. UTAP-EXPL/NTec/0046/2017, as well as Generalitat Valenciana funding Prometeo2017/139 and MINECO-Spain (Grant No. MAT2016-78625-C2). A.T.C. acknowledges the use of computer resources at MareNostrum and technical support provided by the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (RES-FI-2019-2-0034, RES-FI-2019-3-0019)
Strongly coupled magnon-plasmon polaritons in graphene- 2D ferromagnet heterostructures
Magnons and plasmons are two very different types of collective modes, acting
on the spin and charge degrees of freedom, respectively. At first sight, the
formation of hybrid plasmon-magnon polaritons in heterostructures of plasmonic
and magnetic systems would face two challenges, the small mutual interaction,
via Zeeman coupling of the electromagnetic field of the plasmon with the spins,
and the energy mismatch, as in most systems plasmons have energies in the eV
range, orders of magnitude larger than magnons. Here we show that graphene
plasmons form polaritons with the magnons of two-dimensional ferrromagnetic
insulators, placed up to to half a micron apart, with Rabi couplings in the
range of 100 GHz (dramatically larger than cavity QED magnonics). This strong
coupling is facilitated both by the small energy of graphene plasmons and the
cooperative super-radiant nature of the plasmon-magnon coupling afforded by
phase matching. We show that the Rabi coupling can be modulated both
electrically and mechanically and we propose a attenuated total internal
reflection experiment to implement ferromagnetic resonance experiments on 2D
ferromagnets driven by plasmon excitation.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures, appendi
Electronic States of Magnetic Quantum Dots
We study quantum states of electrons in magnetically doped quantum dots as a
function of exchange coupling between electron and impurity spins, the strength
of Coulomb interaction, confining potential, and the number of electrons. The
magnetic phase diagram of quantum dots, doped with a large number of magnetic
Mn impurities, can be described by the energy gap in the spectrum of electrons
and the mean field electron-Mn exchange coupling. A competition between these
two parameters leads to a transition between spin-unpolarized and
spin-polarized states, in the absence of applied magnetic field. Tuning the
energy gap by electrostatic control of nonparabolicity of the confining
potential can enable control of magnetization even at the fixed number of
electrons. We illustrate our findings by directly comparing Mn-doped quantum
dots with parabolic and Gaussian confining potential.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures, Part of Focus on Spintronics in Reduced
Dimension
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