16 research outputs found
Surface collective excitations in ultrafast pump-probe spectroscopy of metal nanoparticles
The role of surface collective excitations in the electron relaxation in
small metal particles is studied. It is shown that the dynamically screened
electron-electron interaction in a nanoparticle contains a size-dependent
correction induced by the surface. This leads to new channels of quasiparticle
scattering accompanied by the emission of surface collective excitations. In
noble-metal particles, the dipole collective excitations (surface plasmons)
mediate a resonant scattering of d-holes to the conduction band. The role of
this effect in the ultrafast optical dynamics of small nanoparticles is
studied. With decreasing nanoparticle size, it leads to a strong change in the
differential absorption lineshape and a strong frequency dependence of the
relaxation near the surface plasmon resonance. The experimental implications of
these results in ultrafast pump-probe spectroscopy are addressed. The
size-dependence of conduction electron scattering rates is also discussed.Comment: 26 pages including 10 figures. Invited paper for Special Issue of
Chemical Physics on "Electron Dynamics in Metals
Impurity-enhanced Aharonov-Bohm effect in neutral quantum-ring magnetoexcitons
We study the role of impurity scattering on the photoluminescence (PL)
emission of polarized magnetoexcitons. We consider systems where both the
electron and hole are confined on a ring structure (quantum rings) as well as
on a type-II quantum dot. Despite their neutral character, excitons exhibit
strong modulation of energy and oscillator strength in the presence of magnetic
fields. Scattering impurities enhance the PL intensity on otherwise "dark"
magnetic field windows and non-zero PL emission appears for a wide magnetic
field range even at zero temperature. For higher temperatures, impurity-induced
anticrossings on the excitonic spectrum lead to unexpected peaks and valleys on
the PL intensity as function of magnetic field. Such behavior is absent on
ideal systems and can account for prominent features in recent experimental
results.Comment: 7 pages, 7 figures, RevTe
Spectroscopy of vibrational modes in metal nanoshells
We study the spectrum of vibrational modes in metal nanoparticles with a
dielectric core. Vibrational modes are excited by the rapid heating of the
particle lattice that takes place after laser excitation, and can be monitored
by means of pump-probe spectroscopy as coherent oscillations of transient
optical spectra. In nanoshells, the presence of two metal surfaces results in a
substantially different energy spectrum of acoustic vibrations than for solid
particles. We calculated the energy spectrum as well as the damping of
nanoshell vibrational modes. The oscillator strength of fundamental breathing
mode is larger than that in solid nanoparticles. At the same time, in very thin
nanoshells, the fundamental mode is overdamped due to instantaneous energy
transfer to the surrounding medium
Size-dependent Correlation Effects in Ultrafast Optical Dynamics of Metal Nanoparticles
We study the role of collective surface excitations in the electron
relaxation in small metal particles. We show that the dynamically screened
electron-electron interaction in a nanoparticle contains a size-dependent
correction induced by the surface. This leads to new channels of quasiparticle
scattering accompanied by the emission of surface collective excitations. We
calculate the energy and temperature dependence of the corresponding rates,
which depend strongly on the nanoparticle size. We show that the
surface-plasmon-mediated scattering rate of a conduction electron increases
with energy, in contrast to that mediated by a bulk plasmon. In noble-metal
particles, we find that the dipole collective excitations (surface plasmons)
mediate a resonant scattering of d-holes to the conduction band. We study the
role of the latter effect in the ultrafast optical dynamics of small
nanoparticles and show that, with decreasing nanoparticle size, it leads to a
drastic change in the differential absorption lineshape and a strong frequency
dependence of the relaxation near the surface plasmon resonance. The
experimental implications of our results in ultrafast pump-probe spectroscopy
are also discussed.Comment: 29 pages including 6 figure
Resonance scattering and singularities of the scattering function
Recent studies of transport phenomena with complex potentials are explained
by generic square root singularities of spectrum and eigenfunctions of
non-Hermitian Hamiltonians. Using a two channel problem we demonstrate that
such singularities produce a significant effect upon the pole behaviour of the
scattering matrix, and more significantly upon the associated residues. This
mechanism explains why by proper choice of the system parameters the resonance
cross section is increased drastically in one channel and suppressed in the
other channel.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure
Nondissipative Drag Conductance as a Topological Quantum Number
We show in this paper that the boundary condition averaged nondissipative
drag conductance of two coupled mesoscopic rings with no tunneling, evaluated
in a particular many-particle eigenstate, is a topological invariant
characterized by a Chern integer. Physical implications of this observation are
discussed.Comment: 4 pages, no figure. Title modified and significant revision made to
the text. Final version appeared in PR
Aharonov-Bohm interferometry with quantum dots: scattering approach versus tunneling picture
We address the question of how to model electron transport through closed
Aharonov-Bohm interferometers which contain quantum dots. By explicitly
studying interferometers with one and two quantum dots, we establish the
connection between a tunneling-Hamiltonian formulation on the one hand and a
scattering-matrix approach on the other hand. We prove that, under certain
circumstances, both approaches are equivalent, i.e., both types of models can
describe the same experimental setups. Furthermore, we analyze how the
interplay of the Aharonov-Bohm phase and the orbital phase associated with the
lengths of the interferometers' arms affect transport properties.Comment: 8 pages, 8 figures, published versio
Spin Transport in Two Dimensional Hopping Systems
A two dimensional hopping system with Rashba spin-orbit interaction is
considered. Our main interest is concerned with the evolution of the spin
degree of freedom of the electrons. We derive the rate equations governing the
evolution of the charge density and spin polarization of this system in the
Markovian limit in one-particle approximation. If only two-site hopping events
are taken into account, the evolution of the charge density and of the spin
polarization is found to be decoupled. A critical electric field is found,
above which oscillations are superimposed on the temporal decay of the total
polarization. A coupling between charge density and spin polarization occurs on
the level of three-site hopping events. The coupling terms are identified as
the anomalous Hall effect and the recently proposed spin Hall effect. Thus, an
unpolarized charge current through a sheet of finite width leads to a
transversal spin accumulation in our model system.Comment: 15 pages, 3 figure
Dephasing in sequential tunneling through a double-dot interferometer
We analyze dephasing in a model system where electrons tunnel sequentially
through a symmetric interference setup consisting of two single-level quantum
dots. Depending on the phase difference between the two tunneling paths, this
may result in perfect destructive interference. However, if the dots are
coupled to a bath, it may act as a which-way detector, leading to partial
suppression of the phase-coherence and the reappearance of a finite tunneling
current. In our approach, the tunneling is treated in leading order whereas
coupling to the bath is kept to all orders (using P(E) theory). We discuss the
influence of different bath spectra on the visibility of the interference
pattern, including the distinction between "mere renormalization effects" and
"true dephasing".Comment: 18 pages, 8 figures; For a tutorial introduction to dephasing see
http://iff.physik.unibas.ch/~florian/dephasing/dephasing.htm
Quantifying the levitation picture of extended states in lattice models
The behavior of extended states is quantitatively analyzed for two
dimensional lattice models. A levitation picture is established for both
white-noise and correlated disorder potentials. In a continuum limit window of
the lattice models we find simple quantitative expressions for the extended
states levitation, suggesting an underlying universal behavior. On the other
hand, these results point out that the Quantum Hall phase diagrams may be
disorder dependent.Comment: 5 pages, submitted to PR