226 research outputs found
Electronic Highways in Bilayer Graphene
Bilayer graphene with an interlayer potential difference has an energy gap
and, when the potential difference varies spatially, topologically protected
one-dimensional states localized along the difference's zero-lines. When
disorder is absent, electronic travel directions along zero-line trajectories
are fixed by valley Hall properties. Using the Landauer-B\"uttiker formula and
the non-equilibrium Green's function technique we demonstrate numerically that
collisions between electrons traveling in opposite directions, due to either
disorder or changes in path direction, are strongly suppressed. We find that
extremely long mean free paths of the order of hundreds of microns can be
expected in relatively clean samples. This finding suggests the possibility of
designing low power nanoscale electronic devices in which transport paths are
controlled by gates which alter the inter-layer potential landscape.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figure
Microscopic theory of quantum anomalous Hall effect in graphene
We present a microscopic theory to give a physical picture of the formation
of quantum anomalous Hall (QAH) effect in graphene due to a joint effect of
Rashba spin-orbit coupling and exchange field . Based on a
continuum model at valley or , we show that there exist two distinct
physical origins of QAH effect at two different limits. For ,
the quantization of Hall conductance in the absence of Landau-level
quantization can be regarded as a summation of the topological charges carried
by Skyrmions from real spin textures and Merons from \emph{AB} sublattice
pseudo-spin textures; while for , the four-band low-energy
model Hamiltonian is reduced to a two-band extended Haldane's model, giving
rise to a nonzero Chern number at either or . In the
presence of staggered \emph{AB} sublattice potential , a topological phase
transition occurs at from a QAH phase to a quantum valley-Hall phase. We
further find that the band gap responses at and are different when
, , and are simultaneously considered. We also show that the
QAH phase is robust against weak intrinsic spin-orbit coupling ,
and it transitions a trivial phase when
. Moreover, we use a tight-binding
model to reproduce the ab-initio method obtained band structures through doping
magnetic atoms on and supercells of graphene, and explain
the physical mechanisms of opening a nontrivial bulk gap to realize the QAH
effect in different supercells of graphene.Comment: 10pages, ten figure
Stabilizing topological phases in graphene via random adsorption
We study the possibility of realizing topological phases in graphene with
randomly distributed adsorbates. When graphene is subjected to periodically
distributed adatoms, the enhanced spin-orbit couplings can result in various
topological phases. However, at certain adatom coverages, the intervalley
scattering renders the system a trivial insulator. By employing a finite-size
scaling approach and Landauer-B\"{u}ttiker formula, we show that the
randomization of adatom distribution greatly weakens the intervalley
scattering, but plays a negligible role in spin-orbit couplings. Consequently,
such a randomization turns graphene from a trivial insulator into a topological
state.Comment: 5 pages and 3 figure
Unbalanced edge modes and topological phase transition in gated trilayer graphene
Gapless edge modes hosted by chirally-stacked trilayer graphene display
unique features when a bulk gap is opened by applying an interlayer potential
difference. We show that trilayer graphene with half-integer valley Hall
conductivity leads to unbalanced edge modes at opposite zigzag boundaries,
resulting in a natural valley current polarizer. This unusual characteristic is
preserved in the presence of Rashba spin-orbit coupling that turns a gated
trilayer graphene into a topological insulator with an odd number of
helical edge mode pairs.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure
Two-Dimensional Topological Insulator State and Topological Phase Transition in Bilayer Graphene
We show that gated bilayer graphene hosts a strong topological insulator (TI)
phase in the presence of Rashba spin-orbit (SO) coupling. We find that gated
bilayer graphene under preserved time-reversal symmetry is a quantum valley
Hall insulator for small Rashba SO coupling , and
transitions to a strong TI when ,
where and are respectively the interlayer potential and tunneling
energy. Different from a conventional quantum spin Hall state, the edge modes
of our strong TI phase exhibit both spin and valley filtering, and thus share
the properties of both quantum spin Hall and quantum valley Hall insulators.
The strong TI phase remains robust in the presence of weak graphene intrinsic
SO coupling.Comment: 5 pages and 4 figure
Adaptive Backstepping-based H∞ Robust controller for Photovoltaic Grid-connected Inverter
To improve the robustness and stability of the photovoltaic grid-connected inverter system, a nonlinear backstepping-based H∞ controller is proposed. A generic dynamical model of grid-connected inverters is built with the consideration of uncertain parameters and external disturbances that cannot be accurately measured. According to this, the backstepping H∞ controller is designed by combining techniques of adaptive backstepping control and L2-gain robust control. The Lyapunov function is used to design the backstepping controller, and the dissipative inequality is recursively designed. The storage functions of the DC capacitor voltage and grid current are constructed, respectively, and the nonlinear H∞ controller and the parameter update law are obtained. Experimental results show that the proposed controller has the advantage of strong robustness to parameter variations and external disturbances. The proposed controller can also accurately track the references to meet the requirements of high-performance control of grid-connected inverters
Topological phases in gated bilayer graphene: Effects of Rashba spin-orbit coupling and exchange field
We present a systematic study on the influence of Rashba spin-orbit coupling,
interlayer potential difference and exchange field on the topological
properties of bilayer graphene. In the presence of only Rashba spin-orbit
coupling and interlayer potential difference, the band gap opening due to
broken out-of-plane inversion symmetry offers new possibilities of realizing
tunable topological phase transitions by varying an external gate voltage. We
find a two-dimensional topological insulator phase and a quantum valley
Hall phase in -stacked bilayer graphene and obtain their effective
low-energy Hamiltonians near the Dirac points. For stacking, we do not
find any topological insulator phase in the presence of large Rashba spin-orbit
coupling. When the exchange field is also turned on, the bilayer system
exhibits a rich variety of topological phases including a quantum anomalous
Hall phase, and we obtain the phase diagram as a function of the Rashba
spin-orbit coupling, interlayer potential difference, and exchange field.Comment: 15 pages, 17figures, and 1 tabl
Spin Polarized and Valley Helical Edge Modes in Graphene Nanoribbons
Inspired by recent progress in fabricating precisely zigzag-edged graphene
nanoribbons and the observation of edge magnetism, we find that spin polarized
edge modes with well-defined valley index can exist in a bulk energy gap opened
by a staggered sublattice potential such as that provided by a hexagonal
Boron-Nitride substrate. Our result is obtained by both tight-binding model and
first principles calculations. These edge modes are helical with respect to the
valley degree of freedom, and are robust against scattering, as long as the
disorder potential is smooth over atomic scale, resulting from the protection
of the large momentum separation of the valleys.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
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