312 research outputs found
Dynamical study on polaron formation in a metal/polymer/metal structure
By considering a metal/polymer/metal structure within a tight-binding
one-dimensional model, we have investigated the polaron formation in the
presence of an electric field. When a sufficient voltage bias is applied to one
of the metal electrodes, an electron is injected into the polymer chain, then a
self-trapped polaron is formed at a few hundreds of femtoseconds while it moves
slowly under a weak electric field (not larger than V/cm).
At an electric field between V/cm and V/cm,
the polaron is still formed, since the injected electron is bounded between the
interface barriers for quite a long time. It is shown that the electric field
applied at the polymer chain reduces effectively the potential barrier in the
metal/polymer interface
Metal-insulator transition in the one-dimensional Holstein model at half filling
We study the one-dimensional Holstein model with spin-1/2 electrons at
half-filling. Ground state properties are calculated for long chains with great
accuracy using the density matrix renormalization group method and extrapolated
to the thermodynamic limit. We show that for small electron-phonon coupling or
large phonon frequency, the insulating Peierls ground state predicted by
mean-field theory is destroyed by quantum lattice fluctuations and that the
system remains in a metallic phase with a non-degenerate ground state and
power-law electronic and phononic correlations. When the electron-phonon
coupling becomes large or the phonon frequency small, the system undergoes a
transition to an insulating Peierls phase with a two-fold degenerate ground
state, long-range charge-density-wave order, a dimerized lattice structure, and
a gap in the electronic excitation spectrum.Comment: 6 pages (LaTex), 10 eps figure
Peierls transition in the presence of finite-frequency phonons in the one-dimensional extended Peierls-Hubbard model at half-filling
We report quantum Monte Carlo (stochastic series expansion) results for the
transition from a Mott insulator to a dimerized Peierls insulating state in a
half-filled, 1D extended Hubbard model coupled to optical bond phonons. Using
electron-electron (e-e) interaction parameters corresponding approximately to
polyacetylene, we show that the Mott-Peierls transition occurs at a finite
value of the electron-phonon (e-ph) coupling. We discuss several different
criteria for detecting the transition and show that they give consistent
results. We calculate the critical e-ph coupling as a function of the bare
phonon frequency and also investigate the sensitivity of the critical coupling
to the strength of the e-e interaction. In the limit of strong e-e couplings,
we map the model to a spin-Peierls chain and compare the phase boundary with
previous results for the spin-Peierls transition. We point out effects of a
nonlinear spin-phonon coupling neglected in the mapping to the spin-Peierls
model.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figure
Nonadiabatic approach to dimerization gap and optical absorption coefficient of the Su-Schrieffer-Heeger model
An analytical nonadiabatic approach has been developed to study the
dimerization gap and the optical absorption coefficient of the
Su-Schrieffer-Heeger model where the electrons interact with dispersive quantum
phonons. By investigating quantitatively the effects of quantum phonon
fluctuations on the gap order and the optical responses in this system, we show
that the dimerization gap is much more reduced by the quantum lattice
fluctuations than the optical absorption coefficient is. The calculated optical
absorption coefficient and the density of states do not have the
inverse-square-root singularity, but have a peak above the gap edge and there
exist a significant tail below the peak. The peak of optical absorption
spectrum is not directly corresponding to the dimerized gap. Our results of the
optical absorption coefficient agree well with those of the experiments in both
the shape and the peak position of the optical absorption spectrum.Comment: 14 pages, 7 figures. to be published in PR
Transition from band insulator to Mott insulator in one dimension: Critical behavior and phase diagram
We report a systematic study of the transition from a band insulator (BI) to
a Mott insulator (MI) in a one-dimensional Hubbard model at half-filling with
an on-site Coulomb interaction U and an alternating periodic site potential V.
We employ both the zero-temperature density matrix renormalization group (DMRG)
method to determine the gap and critical behavior of the system and the
finite-temperature transfer matrix renormalization group method to evaluate the
thermodynamic properties. We find two critical points at U = and U =
that separate the BI and MI phases for a given V. A charge-neutral
spin-singlet exciton band develops in the BI phase (U<) and drops below
the band gap when U exceeds a special point Ue. The exciton gap closes at the
first critical point while the charge and spin gaps persist and coincide
between <U< where the system is dimerized. Both the charge and spin
gaps collapse at U = when the transition to the MI phase occurs. In the
MI phase (U>) the charge gap increases almost linearly with U while the
spin gap remains zero. These findings clarify earlier published results on the
same model, and offer insights into several important issues regarding an
appropriate scaling analysis of DMRG data and a full physical picture of the
delicate nature of the phase transitions driven by electron correlation. The
present work provides a comprehensive understanding for the critical behavior
and phase diagram for the transition from BI to MI in one-dimensional
correlated electron systems with a periodic alternating site potential.Comment: long version, 10 figure
Characterization of halogen-bridged binuclear metal complexes as hybridized two-band materials
We study the electronic structure of halogen-bridged binuclear metal (MMX)
complexes with a two-band Peierls-Hubbard model. Based on a symmetry argument,
various density-wave states are derived and characterized. The ground-state
phase diagram is drawn within the Hartree-Fock approximation, while the thermal
behavior is investigated using a quantum Monte Carlo method. All the
calculations conclude that a typical MMX compound Pt_2(CH_3CS_2)_4I should
indeed be regarded as a d-p-hybridized two-band material, where the oxidation
of the halogen ions must be observed even in the ground state, whereas another
MMX family (NH_4)_4[Pt_2(P_2O_5H_2)_4X] may be treated as single-band
materials.Comment: 16 pages, 11 figures embedded, to be published in Phys. Rev.
Mean field approach to antiferromagnetic domains in the doped Hubbard model
We present a restricted path integral approach to the 2D and 3D repulsive
Hubbard model. In this approach the partition function is approximated by
restricting the summation over all states to a (small) subclass which is chosen
such as to well represent the important states. This procedure generalizes mean
field theory and can be systematically improved by including more states or
fluctuations. We analyze in detail the simplest of these approximations which
corresponds to summing over states with local antiferromagnetic (AF) order. If
in the states considered the AF order changes sufficiently little in space and
time, the path integral becomes a finite dimensional integral for which the
saddle point evaluation is exact. This leads to generalized mean field
equations allowing for the possibility of more than one relevant saddle points.
In a big parameter regime (both in temperature and filling), we find that this
integral has {\em two} relevant saddle points, one corresponding to finite AF
order and the other without. These degenerate saddle points describe a phase of
AF ordered fermions coexisting with free, metallic fermions. We argue that this
mixed phase is a simple mean field description of a variety of possible
inhomogeneous states, appropriate on length scales where these states appear
homogeneous. We sketch systematic refinements of this approximation which can
give more detailed descriptions of the system.Comment: 14 pages RevTex, 6 postscript figures included using eps
Landauer Theory, Inelastic Scattering and Electron Transport in Molecular Wires
In this paper we address the topic of inelastic electron scattering in
mesoscopic quantum transport. For systems where only elastic scattering is
present, Landauer theory provides an adequate description of transport that
relates the electronic current to single-particle transmission and reflection
probabilities. A formalism proposed recently by Bonca and Trugman facilitates
the calculation of the one-electron transmission and reflection probabilities
for inelastic processes in mesoscopic conductors connected to one-dimensional
ideal leads. Building on their work, we have developed a self-consistent
procedure for the evaluation of the non-equilibrium electron distributions in
ideal leads connecting such mesoscopic conductors to electron reservoirs at
finite temperatures and voltages. We evaluate the net electronic current
flowing through the mesoscopic device by utilizing these non-equilibrium
distributions. Our approach is a generalization of Landauer theory that takes
account of the Pauli exclusion principle for the various competing elastic and
inelastic processes while satisfying the requirement of particle conservation.
As an application we examine the influence of elastic and inelastic scattering
on conduction through a two site molecular wire with longitudinal phonons using
the Su-Schrieffer-Heeger model of electron-phonon coupling.Comment: 25 pages, 8 figure
Polaron formation for a non-local electron-phonon coupling: A variational wave-function study
We introduce a variational wave-function to study the polaron formation when
the electronic transfer integral depends on the relative displacement between
nearest-neighbor sites giving rise to a non-local electron-phonon coupling with
optical phonon modes. We analyze the ground state properties such as the
energy, the electron-lattice correlation function, the phonon number and the
spectral weight. Variational results are found in good agreement with analytic
weak-coupling perturbative calculations and exact numerical diagonalization of
small clusters. We determine the polaronic phase diagram and we find that the
tendency towards strong localization is hindered from the pathological sign
change of the effective next-nearest-neighbor hopping.Comment: 11 page
The low-lying excitations of polydiacetylene
The Pariser-Parr-Pople Hamiltonian is used to calculate and identify the
nature of the low-lying vertical transition energies of polydiacetylene. The
model is solved using the density matrix renormalisation group method for a
fixed acetylenic geometry for chains of up to 102 atoms. The non-linear optical
properties of polydiacetylene are considered, which are determined by the
third-order susceptibility. The experimental 1Bu data of Giesa and Schultz are
used as the geometric model for the calculation. For short chains, the
calculated E(1Bu) agrees with the experimental value, within solvation effects
(ca. 0.3 eV). The charge gap is used to characterise bound and unbound states.
The nBu is above the charge gap and hence a continuum state; the 1Bu, 2Ag and
mAg are not and hence are bound excitons. For large chain lengths, the nBu
tends towards the charge gap as expected, strongly suggesting that the nBu is
the conduction band edge. The conduction band edge for PDA is agreed in the
literature to be ca. 3.0 eV. Accounting for the strong polarisation effects of
the medium and polaron formation gives our calculated E(nBu) ca. 3.6 eV, with
an exciton binding energy of ca. 1.0 eV. The 2Ag state is found to be above the
1Bu, which does not agree with relaxed transition experimental data. However,
this could be resolved by including explicit lattice relaxation in the Pariser-
Parr-Pople-Peierls model. Particle-hole separation data further suggest that
the 1Bu, 2Ag and mAg are bound excitons, and that the nBu is an unbound
exciton.Comment: LaTeX, 23 pages, 4 postscript tables and 8 postscript figure
- …