Search results for "INSULATOR"
showing 10 items of 228 documents
Antiferromagnetic Topological Insulator with Nonsymmorphic Protection in Two Dimensions
2019
The recent demonstration of topological states in antiferromagnets (AFMs) provides an exciting platform for exploring prominent physical phenomena and applications of antiferromagnetic spintronics. A famous example is the AFM topological insulator (TI) state, which, however, was still not observed in two dimensions. Using a tight-binding model and first-principles calculations, we show that, in contrast to previously observed AFM topological insulators in three dimensions, an AFM TI can emerge in two dimensions as a result of a nonsymmorphic symmetry that combines the twofold rotation symmetry and half-lattice translation. Based on the spin Chern number, Wannier charge centers, and gapless …
Magnetism-mediated transition between crystalline and higher-order topological phases in NpSb
2021
Merging the fields of topology and magnetism expands the scope of fundamental quantum phenomena with novel functionalities for topological spintronics enormously. Here, we theoretically demonstrate that ferromagnetism provides an efficient means to achieve a topological switching between crystalline and higher-order topological insulator phases in two dimensions. Using a tight-binding model and first-principles calculations, we identify layered NpSb as a long-awaited two-dimensional topological crystalline insulator with intrinsic ferromagnetic order with a band gap which is as large as 220 meV. We show that when ${\mathcal{M}}_{z}$ symmetry is preserved for the out of plane magnetization o…
Defect states and excitations in a Mott insulator with orbital degrees of freedom: Mott-Hubbard gap versus optical and transport gaps in doped systems
2013
We address the role played by charged defects in doped Mott insulators with active orbital degrees of freedom. It is observed that defects feature a rather complex and rich physics, which is well captured by a degenerate Hubbard model extended by terms that describe crystal-field splittings and orbital-lattice coupling, as well as by terms generated by defects such as the Coulomb potential terms that act both on doped holes and on electrons within occupied orbitals at undoped sites. We show that the multiplet structure of the excited states generated in such systems by strong electron interactions is well described within the unrestricted Hartree-Fock approximation, once the symmetry breaki…
Performance of cryogenic microbolometers and calorimeters with on-chip coolers
2000
Astronomical observations of cosmic sources in the far-infrared and X-ray bands require extreme sensitivity. The most sensitive detectors are cryogenic bolometers and calorimeters operating typically at about 100 mK. The last stage of cooling (from 300 mK to 100 mK) often poses significant difficulties in space-borne experiments, both in system complexity and reliability. We address the possibility of using refrigeration based on normal metal/insulator/superconductor (NIS) tunnel junctions as the last stage cooler for cryogenic thermal detectors. We compare two possible schemes: the direct cooling of the electron gas of the detector with the aid of NIS tunnel junctions and the indirect cool…
Effect of a Locally Repulsive Interaction on s-wave Superconductors
2016
The thermodynamic impact of the Coulomb repulsion on s-wave superconductors is analyzed via a rigorous study of equilibrium and ground states of the strong coupling BCS-Hubbard Hamiltonian. We show that the one-site electron repulsion can favor superconductivity at fixed chemical potential by increasing the critical temperature and/or the Cooper pair condensate density. If the one-site repulsion is not too large, a first or a second order superconducting phase transition can appear at low temperatures. The Meißner effect is shown to be rather generic but coexistence of superconducting and ferromagnetic phases is also shown to be feasible, for instance, near half-filling and at strong repul…
Normal metal - insulator - superconductor interferometer
2003
Hybrid normal metal - insulator - superconductor microstructures suitable for studying an interference of electrons were fabricated. The structures consist of a superconducting loop connected to a normal metal electrode through a tunnel barrier . An optical interferometer with a beam splitter can be considered as a classical analogue for this system. All measurements were performed at temperatures well below 1 K. The interference can be observed as periodic oscillations of the tunnel current (voltage) through the junction at fixed bias voltage (current) as a function of a perpendicular magnetic field. The magnitude of the oscillations depends on the bias point. It reaches a maximum at energ…
Topological Hamiltonian as an exact tool for topological invariants
2012
We propose the concept of `topological Hamiltonian' for topological insulators and superconductors in interacting systems. The eigenvalues of topological Hamiltonian are significantly different from the physical energy spectra, but we show that topological Hamiltonian contains the information of gapless surface states, therefore it is an exact tool for topological invariants.
Spin current pumping in helical Luttinger liquids
2013
We study the DC spin current induced into an unbiased quantum spin Hall system through a two-point contacts setup with time dependent electron tunneling amplitudes. By means of two external gates, it is possible to drive a current with spin-preserving and spin-flipping contributions showing peculiar oscillations as a function of pumping frequency, electron-electron interaction and temperature. From its interference patterns as a function of the Fabry-Perot and Aharonov-Bohm phases, it is possible to extract information about the helical nature of the edge states and the intensity of the electron-electron interaction.
Introduction to Spintronics
2015
Spintronics was born in 1988 with the discovery of GMR provided simultaneously by A. Fert and P. Grunberg and rewarded in 2007 with the Nobel Prize in Physics. This field has since been largely exploited on the market, for example it has been at the base of every hard disk read head. Spintronics field is extremely active and interesting from both a fundamental point of view and for technological applications. Currently, with the aim at new functionalities, there is an increased activity from materials research perspective to understand and develop spintronics devices using materials with new properties like carbon nanotubes, graphene, topological insulators and molecules. This chapter will …
Topological protection of highly entangled non-Gaussian two-photon states
2021
Abstract We study theoretically the evolution of entangled non-Gaussian two-photon states in disordered topological lattices. Specifically, we consider spatially entangled two-photon states, modulated by Laguerre polynomials up to the 3rd order, which feature ring-shaped spatial and spectral correlation patterns. Such states are discrete analogs of photon-subtracted squeezed states, which are ubiquitous in optical quantum information processing or sensing applications. We find that, in general, a higher degree of entanglement coincides with a loss of topological protection against disorder, this is in line with previous results for Gaussian two-photon states. However, we identify a particul…