65 research outputs found
Tunable Correlated Chern Insulator and Ferromagnetism in Trilayer Graphene/Boron Nitride Moir\'e Superlattice
Studies on two-dimensional electron systems in a strong magnetic field first
revealed the quantum Hall (QH) effect, a topological state of matter featuring
a finite Chern number (C) and chiral edge states. Haldane later theorized that
Chern insulators with integer QH effects could appear in lattice models with
complex hopping parameters even at zero magnetic field. The ABC-trilayer
graphene/hexagonal boron nitride (TLG/hBN) moir\'e superlattice provides an
attractive platform to explore Chern insulators because it features nearly flat
moir\'e minibands with a valley-dependent electrically tunable Chern number.
Here we report the experimental observation of a correlated Chern insulator in
a TLG/hBN moir\'e superlattice. We show that reversing the direction of the
applied vertical electric field switches TLG/hBN's moir\'e minibands between
zero and finite Chern numbers, as revealed by dramatic changes in
magneto-transport behavior. For topological hole minibands tuned to have a
finite Chern number, we focus on 1/4 filling, corresponding to one hole per
moir\'e unit cell. The Hall resistance is well quantized at h/2e2, i.e. C = 2,
for |B| > 0.4 T. The correlated Chern insulator is ferromagnetic, exhibiting
significant magnetic hysteresis and a large anomalous Hall signal at zero
magnetic field. Our discovery of a C = 2 Chern insulator at zero magnetic field
should open up exciting opportunities for discovering novel correlated
topological states, possibly with novel topological excitations, in nearly flat
and topologically nontrivial moir\'e minibands.Comment: 16 pages, 4 figures, and 2 extended figure
Unusual magnetotransport in twisted bilayer graphene from strain-induced open Fermi surfaces
Anisotropic hopping in a toy Hofstadter model was recently invoked to explain
a rich and surprising Landau spectrum measured in twisted bilayer graphene away
from the magic angle. Suspecting that such anisotropy could arise from
unintended uniaxial strain, we extend the Bistritzer-MacDonald model to include
uniaxial heterostrain. We find that such strain strongly influences band
structure, shifting the three otherwise-degenerate van Hove points to different
energies. Coupled to a Boltzmann magnetotransport calculation, this reproduces
previously-unexplained non-saturating magnetoresistance over broad ranges
of density near filling , and predicts subtler features that had not
been noticed in the experimental data. In contrast to these distinctive
signatures in longitudinal resistivity, the Hall coefficient is barely
influenced by strain, to the extent that it still shows a single sign change on
each side of the charge neutrality point -- surprisingly, this sign change no
longer occurs at a van Hove point. The theory also predicts a marked rotation
of the electrical transport principal axes as a function of filling even for
fixed strain and for rigid bands. More careful examination of
interaction-induced nematic order versus strain effects in twisted bilayer
graphene could thus be in order.Comment: 11 pages main text (4 figures) + 8 pages supplementary material (11
figures
Multi-Pion States in Lattice QCD and the Charged-Pion Condensate
The ground-state energies of systems containing up to twelve 's in a
spatial volume V ~ (2.5 fm)^3 are computed in dynamical, mixed-action lattice
QCD at a lattice spacing of ~ 0.125 fm for four different values of the light
quark masses. Clean signals are seen for each ground state, allowing for a
precise extraction of both the scattering length and
-interaction from a correlated analysis of systems containing
different numbers of 's. This extraction of the scattering
length is consistent with than that from the -system alone. The
large number of systems studied here significantly strengthens the arguments
presented in our earlier work and unambiguously demonstrates the presence of a
low energy -interaction. The equation of state of a
gas is investigated using our numerical results and the density dependence of
the isospin chemical potential for these systems agrees well with the
theoretical expectations of leading order chiral perturbation theory. The
chemical potential is found to receive a substantial contribution from the
-interaction at the lighter pion masses. An important
technical aspect of this work is the demonstration of the necessity of
performing propagator contractions in greater than double precision to extract
the correct results.Comment: 38 pages, 20 figure
(Correcting) misdiagnoses of asthma: A cost effectiveness analysis
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Background: The prevalence of physician-diagnosed-asthma has risen over the past three decades and misdiagnosis of asthma is potentially common. Objective: to determine whether a secondary-screening-program to establish a correct diagnosis of asthma in those who report a physician diagnosis of asthma is cost effective.Method: Randomly selected physician-diagnosed-asthmatic subjects from 8 Canadian cities were studied with an extensive diagnostic algorithm to rule-in, or rule-out, a correct diagnosis of asthma. Subjects in whom the diagnosis of asthma was excluded were followed up for 6-months and data on asthma medications and heath care utilization was obtained. Economic analysis was performed to estimate the incremental lifetime costs associated with secondary screening of previously diagnosed asthmatic subjects. Analysis was from the perspective of the Canadian healthcare system and is reported in Canadian dollars.Results: Of 540 randomly selected patients with physician diagnosed asthma 150 (28%; 95%CI 19-37%) did not have asthma when objectively studied. 71% of these misdiagnosed patients were on some asthma medications. Incorporating the incremental cost of secondary-screening for the diagnosis of asthma, we found that the average cost savings per 100 individuals screened was 4,588-$69,278).Conclusion: Cost savings primarily resulted from lifetime costs of medication use averted in those who had been misdiagnosed.This work was funded by the Canadian Institute of Health Research, Canada and the University Of Ottawa Division Of Respiratory Medicine
Directional ballistic transport in the two-dimensional metal PdCoO2
In an idealized infinite crystal, the material properties are constrained by
the symmetries of its unit cell. Naturally, the point-group symmetry is broken
by the sample shape of any finite crystal, yet this is commonly unobservable in
macroscopic metals. To sense the shape-induced symmetry lowering in such
metals, long-lived bulk states originating from anisotropic Fermi surfaces are
needed. Here we show how strongly facetted Fermi surfaces and long
quasiparticle mean free paths present in microstructures of PdCoO2 yield an
in-plane resistivity anisotropy that is forbidden by symmetry on an infinite
hexagonal lattice. Bar shaped transport devices narrower than the mean free
path are carved from single crystals using focused ion beam (FIB) milling, such
that the ballistic charge carriers at low temperatures frequently collide with
both sidewalls defining a channel. Two symmetry-forbidden transport signatures
appear: the in-plane resistivity anisotropy exceeds a factor of 2, and
transverse voltages appear in zero magnetic field. We robustly identify the
channel direction as the source of symmetry breaking via ballistic Monte- Carlo
simulations and numerical solution of the Boltzmann equation
Directional ballistic transport in the two-dimensional metal PdCoO2
This project was supported by the Max Planck Society and the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (MiTopMat, grant agreement no. 715730). M.D.B. and P.H.M. acknowledge EPSRC for PhD studentship support through grant number EP/L015110/1. Research in Dresden benefits from the environment of the Excellence Cluster ct.qmat. A.S. acknowledges support from an ARCS Foundation Fellowship, a Ford Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship and a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. A.S. would thanks Z. Gomez and E. Huang for helpful discussions and T. Devereaux for letting us use his group cluster. Computational work was performed on the Sherlock cluster at Stanford University and on resources of the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, supported by the DOE under contract DE_AC02-05CH11231. T.S. acknowledges support from the Emergent Phenomena in Quantum Systems initiative of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, and from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), in particular the Discovery Grant (RGPIN-2020-05842), Accelerator Supplement (RGPAS-2020-00060) and Discovery Launch Supplement (DGECR-2020-00222). T.S. contributed to this work prior to joining AWS. D.G.-G.’s and A.W.B.’s involvement in calculations was supported by the US Department of Energy, Office of Science, Basic Energy Sciences, Materials Sciences and Engineering Division under contract DE-AC02-76SF00515. E.Z. and M.M. thank the International Max Planck Research School for Chemistry and Physics of Quantum Materials (IMPRS-CPQM) for financial support. G.B. and D.A.B. acknowledge support from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC Discovery Grant RGPIN-2018-04280) and from the Canada First Research Excellence Fund.In an idealized infinite crystal, the material properties are constrained by the symmetries of the unit cell. The point-group symmetry is broken by the sample shape of any finite crystal, but this is commonly unobservable in macroscopic metals. To sense the shape-induced symmetry lowering in such metals, long-lived bulk states originating from an anisotropic Fermi surface are needed. Here we show how a strongly facetted Fermi surface and the long quasiparticle mean free path present in microstructures of PdCoO2 yield an in-plane resistivity anisotropy that is forbidden by symmetry on an infinite hexagonal lattice. We fabricate bar-shaped transport devices narrower than the mean free path from single crystals using focused ion beam milling, such that the ballistic charge carriers at low temperatures frequently collide with both of the side walls that define the channel. Two symmetry-forbidden transport signatures appear: the in-plane resistivity anisotropy exceeds a factor of 2, and a transverse voltage appears in zero magnetic field. Using ballistic Monte Carlo simulations and a numerical solution of the Boltzmann equation, we identify the orientation of the narrow channel as the source of symmetry breaking.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe
Super-geometric electron focusing on the hexagonal Fermi surface of PdCoO2
The project was supported by the Max-Planck Society and has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No. 715730). M.D.B. acknowledges studentship funding from EPSRC under grant no. EP/I007002/1. A.L.S. acknowledges support from a Ford Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship and a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. A.L.S. would like to thank Edwin Huang for helpful discussions and Tom Devereaux for letting us use his group cluster. Computational work was performed on the Sherlock cluster at Stanford University and on resources of the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, supported by DOE under contract DE_AC02-05CH11231. D.G.G.’s and A.W.B.’s work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Basic EnergySciences, Materials Sciences and Engineering Division, under Contract No. DE-AC02-76SF00515.Geometric electron optics may be implemented in solids when electron transport is ballistic on the length scale of a device. Currently, this is realized mainly in 2D materials characterized by circular Fermi surfaces. Here we demonstrate that the nearly perfectly hexagonal Fermi surface of PdCoO2 gives rise to highly directional ballistic transport. We probe this directional ballistic regime in a single crystal of PdCoO2 by use of focused ion beam (FIB) micro-machining, defining crystalline ballistic circuits with features as small as 250 nm. The peculiar hexagonal Fermi surface naturally leads to enhanced electron self-focusing effects in a magnetic field compared to circular Fermi surfaces. This super-geometric focusing can be quantitatively predicted for arbitrary device geometry, based on the hexagonal cyclotron orbits appearing in this material. These results suggest a novel class of ballistic electronic devices exploiting the unique transport characteristics of strongly faceted Fermi surfaces.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe
Torsional Force Microscopy of Van der Waals Moir\'es and Atomic Lattices
In a stack of atomically-thin Van der Waals layers, introducing interlayer
twist creates a moir\'e superlattice whose period is a function of twist angle.
Changes in that twist angle of even hundredths of a degree can dramatically
transform the system's electronic properties. Setting a precise and uniform
twist angle for a stack remains difficult, hence determining that twist angle
and mapping its spatial variation is very important. Techniques have emerged to
do this by imaging the moir\'e, but most of these require sophisticated
infrastructure, time-consuming sample preparation beyond stack synthesis, or
both. In this work, we show that Torsional Force Microscopy (TFM), a scanning
probe technique sensitive to dynamic friction, can reveal surface and shallow
subsurface structure of Van der Waals stacks on multiple length scales: the
moir\'es formed between bilayers of graphene and between graphene and hexagonal
boron nitride (hBN), and also the atomic crystal lattices of graphene and hBN.
In TFM, torsional motion of an AFM cantilever is monitored as the it is
actively driven at a torsional resonance while a feedback loop maintains
contact at a set force with the surface of a sample. TFM works at room
temperature in air, with no need for an electrical bias between the tip and the
sample, making it applicable to a wide array of samples. It should enable
determination of precise structural information including twist angles and
strain in moir\'e superlattices and crystallographic orientation of VdW flakes
to support predictable moir\'e heterostructure fabrication.Comment: 28 pages, 14 figures including supplementary material
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