Search results for "insulator"

Formation of spatial shell structures in the superfluid to Mott insulator transition

2006

International audience; We report on the direct observation of the transition from a compressible superfluid to an incompressible Mott insulator by recording the in-trap density distribution of a Bosonic quantum gas in an optical lattice. Using spatially selective microwave transitions and spin changing collisions, we are able to locally modify the spin state of the trapped quantum gas and record the spatial distribution of lattice sites with different filling factors. As the system evolves from a superfluid to a Mott insulator, we observe the formation of a distinct shell structure, in good agreement with theory.

Observation of a charge delocalization from Se vacancies inBi2Se3: A positron annihilation study of native defects

2016

By means of positron annihilation lifetime spectroscopy, we have investigated the native defects present in ${\mathrm{Bi}}_{2}{\mathrm{Se}}_{3}$, which belongs to the family of topological insulators. We experimentally demonstrate that selenium vacancy defects $({\text{V}}_{\text{Se1}})$ are present in ${\mathrm{Bi}}_{2}{\mathrm{Se}}_{3}$ as-grown samples, and that their charge is delocalized as temperature increases. At least from 100 K up to room temperature both ${\text{V}}_{\text{Se1}}^{0}$ and ${\text{V}}_{\text{Se1}}^{+}$ charge states coexist. The observed charge delocalization determines the contribution of ${\text{V}}_{\text{Se1}}$ defects to the $n$-type conductivity of ${\mathrm{…

Transport in topological insulators with bulk-surface coupling: Interference corrections and conductance fluctuations

2018

Motivated by the experimental difficulty to produce topological insulators (TIs) of the ${\text{Bi}}_{2}{\text{Se}}_{3}$ family with pure surface-state conduction, we study the effect that the bulk can have on the low-temperature transport properties of gated thin TI films. In particular, we focus on interference corrections, namely weak localization (WL) or weak antilocalization (WAL), and conductance fluctuations (CFs) based on an effective low-energy Hamiltonian. Utilizing diagrammatic perturbation theory, we first analyze the bulk and the surface separately and subsequently discuss WL/WAL and CFs when a tunneling-coupling is introduced. We identify the relevant soft diffusion modes of t…

Robust hybridization gap in the Kondo insulator YbB12 probed by femtosecond optical spectroscopy

2021

In heavy fermions the relaxation dynamics of photoexcited carriers has been found to be governed by the low energy indirect gap ${\mathrm{E}}_{g}$ resulting from hybridization between localized moments and conduction band electrons. Here, carrier relaxation dynamics in a prototype Kondo insulator $\mathrm{Yb}{\mathrm{B}}_{12}$ is studied over a large range of temperatures and over three orders of magnitude. We utilize the intrinsic nonlinearity of dynamics to quantitatively determine microscopic parameters, such as electron-hole recombination rate. The extracted value reveals that hybridization is accompanied by a strong charge transfer from localized $4f$ levels. The results imply the pres…

Understanding the Giant Enhancement of Exchange Interaction in Bi2Se3−EuS Heterostructures

2017

A recent experiment indicated that a ferromagnetic EuS film in contact with a topological insulator ${\mathrm{Bi}}_{2}{\mathrm{Se}}_{3}$ might show a largely enhanced Curie temperature and perpendicular magnetic anisotropy [F. Katmis et al., Nature (London) 533, 513 (2016).]. Through systematic density functional calculations, we demonstrate that in addition to the factor that ${\mathrm{Bi}}_{2}{\mathrm{Se}}_{3}$ has a strong spin orbit coupling, the topological surface states are crucial to make these unusual behaviors robust as they hybridize with EuS states and extend rather far into the magnetic layers. The magnetic moments of Eu atoms are nevertheless not much enhanced, unlike what was…

Interference pattern and visibility of a Mott insulator

2005

We analyze theoretically the experiment reported in [F. Gerbier et al, cond-mat/0503452], where the interference pattern produced by an expanding atomic cloud in the Mott insulator regime was observed. This interference pattern, indicative of short-range coherence in the system, could be traced back to the presence of a small amount of particle/hole pairs in the insulating phase for finite lattice depths. In this paper, we analyze the influence of these pairs on the interference pattern using a random phase approximation, and derive the corresponding visibility. We also account for the inhomogeneity inherent to atom traps in a local density approximation. The calculations reproduce the expe…

Theory of Kondo suppression of spin polarization in nonlocal spin valves

2016

We theoretically analyze contributions from the Kondo effect to the spin polarization and spin diffusion length in all-metal nonlocal spin valves. Interdiffusion of ferromagnetic atoms into the normal metal layer creates a region in which Kondo physics plays a significant role, giving discrepancies between experiment and existing theory. We start from a simple model and construct a modified spin drift-diffusion equation which clearly demonstrates how the Kondo physics not only suppresses the electrical conductivity but even more strongly reduces the spin diffusion length. We also present an explicit expression for the suppression of spin polarization due to Kondo physics in an illustrative …

2013

The spin texture of a Dirac-type surface state in W(110) lends itself to study spin-dependent effects in electron spectroscopies that show up very clearly. Firstly, we report on spin-resolved photoemission calculations and separate the spin polarization that is attributed to the initial state from that induced by the photoemission process itself. This disentanglement allows one to map spin textures of spin-polarized initial states using circular dichroism, for example from Dirac surface states in topological insulators. Secondly, we demonstrate the mapping of spin-polarized states by spin-dependent two-electron emission. Selecting highly polarized initial states, this spectroscopy can furth…

Tracking local magnetic dynamics via high-energy charge excitations in a relativistic Mott insulator

2016

We use time- and energy-resolved optical spectroscopy to investigate the coupling of electron-hole excitations to the magnetic environment in the relativistic Mott insulator Na$_2$IrO$_3$. We show that, on the picosecond timescale, the photoinjected electron-hole pairs delocalize on the hexagons of the Ir lattice via the formation of quasi-molecular orbital (QMO) excitations and the exchange of energy with the short-range-ordered zig-zag magnetic background. The possibility of mapping the magnetic dynamics, which is characterized by typical frequencies in the THz range, onto high-energy (1-2 eV) charge excitations provides a new platform to investigate, and possibly control, the dynamics of…

Resonant control of spin dynamics in ultracold quantum gases by microwave dressing

2006

We study experimentally interaction-driven spin oscillations in optical lattices in the presence of an off-resonant microwave field. We show that the energy shift induced by this microwave field can be used to control the spin oscillations by tuning the system either into resonance to achieve near-unity contrast or far away from resonance to suppress the oscillations. Finally, we propose a scheme based on this technique to create a flat sample with either singly- or doubly-occupied sites, starting from an inhomogeneous Mott insulator, where singly- and doubly-occupied sites coexist.