Geometric Superconductivity in 3D Hofstadter Butterfly

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Geometric Superconductivity in 3D Hofstadter Butterfly Geometric Superconductivity in 3D Hofstadter Butterfly Moon Jip Park,1, ∗ Yong Baek Kim,2, 3, y and SungBin Lee1, z 1Department of Physics, KAIST, Daejeon 34141, Republic of Korea 2Department of Physics, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario M5S 1A7, Canada 3School of Physics, Korea Institute for Advanced Study, Seoul 02455, Korea Electrons on the lattice subject to a strong mag- 4:1; 6:0; 13:8 A˚)[21]. Hence, the theoretical description netic field exhibit the fractal spectrum of elec- of such re-entrant superconductivity would be insufficient trons, which is known as the Hofstadter but- without the full consideration of the Landau quantization terfly. In this work, we investigate unconven- as well as the lattice effect. In addition, there are other tional superconductivity in a three-dimensional superconductors where the quantum oscillation and the Hofstadter butterfly system. While it is gener- superconductivity coexist in the presence of the magnetic ally difficult to achieve the Hofstadter regime, fields. The examples include the organic superconduc- we show that the quasi-two-dimensional materi- tor, κ − (BEDT − TTF)2Cu(NCS)2[22{26] and high Tc als with a tilted magnetic field produce the large- superconductors [5, 27{29]. In order to understand these scale superlattices, which generate the Hofstadter experiments, it is important to unveil the generic nature butterfly even at the moderate magnetic field of the superconductivity in the Hofstadter regime. strength. We first show that the van-Hove sin- In the current work, we investigate the universal fea- gularities of the butterfly flat bands greatly el- tures of the Hofstadter superconductivity. First of all, evate the superconducting critical temperature, to illustrate the general applicability of our work, we offering a new mechanism of field-enhanced su- demonstrate that the tilted magnetic field applied to a perconductivity. Furthermore, we demonstrate three-dimensional system can generate the Hofstadter that the quantum geometry of the Landau mini- butterfly even with the moderate field strength. The bands plays a crucial role in the description of the van-Hove singularity of the flat bands in the Hofstadter superconductivity, which is shown to be clearly butterfly is shown to enhance the superconducting criti- distinct from the conventional superconductors. cal temperature. Furthermore, the superfluid density of Finally, we discuss the relevance of our results to the superconductors arising from the Hofstadter butterfly the recently discovered re-entrant superconduc- is described by the quantum geometry of the electronic tivity of UTe2 in strong magnetic fields. wave function. It turns out that the quantum geomet- The pairing instability of the conventional supercon- ric properties also determine the superconducting nodal ductivity is dictated by the Bloch electronic states near structures and the supercurrent. Our discovery of the the Fermi surface. These states are described by the quantum geometric superconductivity can be applied to semiclassical equations of the motion[1{6], since the wave generic quasi-two dimensional materials. Finally, based functions are well-extended over many lattice sites. In on our theory, we also discuss the case of the field-induced contrast, the wave packets of the electrons subject to re-entrant superconducting phase in UTe2. a magnetic field are localized with the length scale of 3D Butterfly Spectrum- Our discussion starts the magnetic length. Especially, if the magnetic field is with a generic tight-binding model of the quasi-two- strong enough such that the magnetic length becomes dimensional cubic lattice with the nearest neighbor hop- comparable to the lattice length scale, the fractal pat- pings Tx;y;z in each direction(Tx;y Tz). We only as- terns of the electron spectrum emerge, known as the Hof- sume that the system preserves the time-reversal and the stadter butterfly[7]. The electronic states associated with inversion symmetry, which is dictated by the relation, ∗ the Hofstadter butterfly have no classical analogs, thus Tx;y;z = Tx;y;z. Upon this model, we consider the ap- the conventional semiclassical theories are inapplicable. plication of the tilted magnetic field, B, parallel to the In this extreme quantum limit, what kinds of supercon- yz-plane. The corresponding vector potential can be gen- ductivity would arise? erally written as, A = xjBj(0; cos θ; − sin θ), where θ is arXiv:2007.16205v1 [cond-mat.supr-con] 31 Jul 2020 Recent experiments shed light on this issue and offer the tilt angle from thez ^-axis. Considering the Peierls the possible candidate materials for unconventional su- substitution on the lattice model, we derive the three- perconductivity in strong magnetic fields. A prominent dimensional version of the Harper's model with the tilted example is the discovery of the field-boosted supercon- field[30, 31], ductivity in UTe2[8{20]. The re-entrant superconducting X y X y phase occurs in the presence of the tilted field and sus- H(ky; kz)3D = Txcx0 cx + V0(ky; kz)cxcx; (1) tains the field strength up to 60T[11]. The correspond- hx;x0i x ing magnetic length roughly corresponds to ∼ 3:3nm that is comparable to the lattice length scales(a; b; c = where h; i represents the nearest neighbor hopping. The 2 Field-Enhanced Superconductivity- After estab- lishing the three-dimensional Hofstadter butterfly sys- tem, we now consider the generic form of the pairing interaction in the BCS channel, which can be written as, 1 X H = V (k; k0)cy (k)cy (−k)c (−k0)c (k0); pairing 2 αβγδ α β γ δ k;k0 (3) where the Greek letters represent the spin and the sites 0 in the magnetic unit cell. Vαβγδ(k; k ) describes the mi- croscopic interaction. The superconducting critical tem- perature, Tc, can be formally evaluated by solving the self-consistent gap equation[33, 34] with the supercon- ducting pairing kernel, K, FIG. 1. Superlattice in the presence of the tilted mag- X 0 0 netic field (a) the field direction is normal to xy-plane and ∆γδ(k) = Kγδ,λµ(k; k )∆λµ(k ); (4) (b) the field direction is tilted towardsy ^-axis. In the tilted k0,λµ field, the projected two-dimensional unit cell forms a super- lattice structure (bottom). The superlattice structure can where the order parameter is defined as, ∆γδ(k) ≡ greatly enhance the effective magnetic flux per plaquette, and P 0 y 0 y 0 k0,αβ Vαβγδ(k; k )hcα(k )cβ(−k )i. By diagonalizing it realizes the Hofstadter butterfly spectrum with the moder- the full tight-binding model in Eq. (1), one can solve the ate strength of the magnetic field. gap equation. Fig.2 (b) shows Tc of the singlet pairing with the on-site interaction as a function of the chemical potential. We find that the band flattening greatly en- effective potential, V0, is explicitly given as, hances Tc compared to the case without a magnetic field. V0(ky; kz) = 2Ty cos(2πΦzx + ky) + 2Tz cos(2πΦyx + kz): Especially, Tc diverges near the vHSs. We observe that (2) the enhancement of Tc near the vHS of the Landau mini- bands is a generic feature, independent of the specific where Φy(z) is the flux penetrating the xz (xy) planes of form of the interactions. Notice that, in the weak field the unit cell respectively. regime, the Chandrasekhar-Clogston limit[35, 36] would If the field direction is normal to the xy-plane, the restrain the superconducting Tc. Therefore, this field- Landau minibands overlap with each other through the induced superconductivity would be most likely realized z-directional dispersion. In this case, the Hofstadter but- as a re-entrant phase, which arises when the Fermi level terfly cannot exist unless the field strength is huge. On crosses the vHSs of the Landau bands. We dub this form the other hand, if the field direction is tilted from the of the superconductivity as the three-dimensional Hofs- plane, the projected lattice normal to the field direction tadter butterfly superconductor(3D HBSC). In the fol- forms a superlattice structure, which enlarges the effec- lowing sections, we study the quantum geometrical char- tive flux(See Fig.1). The effect of the tilted field can be acters of the 3D HBSC. more intuitively understood by analyzing V0(ky; kz) of Geometric Supercurrent- The superfluid weight, Eq. (2)[31, 32]. To do so, we only consider the potential which measures the change of the free energy, F (q), due Ty first. In the presence of the flux, Φz, the low en- to the spatially modulating order parameter, ∆(r; q) = ergy Landau bands form well-localized eigenstates along j∆je2iq·r, characterizes the superfluid behavior of 3D thex ^-direction at the minima of Ty cos(2πΦzx + ky). HBSC. The superfluid weight, Ds, can be formally eval- The effectivex ^-directional lattice length is enhanced by uated as, Φ . Then, we consider the perturbation of the poten- z 1 @2F (q) tial, Tz. The flux, Φy, introduces the additional effec- [Ds]i;j = (5) tive potential to the localized Landau bands, which is V @qi@qj given by, Veff = 2Tz cos(2πΦeffnx − Φeffky + kz), where where V is the volume of the system and the subscripts Φeff = Φy=Φz is the effective flux, and nx indicates the i; j indicate the x; y directions. The superfluid weight, enlarged superlattice sites. We find, owing to the super- Ds = Dconv + Dgeo, can be decomposed into the two 2 lattice structure, the effective flux is modified and given independent contributions: Dconv / @k(k), which is by the relative ratio between the two fluxes. As a re- proportional to the curvature of the normal bands, (k), sult, the Hofstadter butterfly spectrum can be achieved and Dgeo, which is the anomalous contribution from the by tuning the tilt angle θ even at the moderate strength quantum geometry of the wave functions[37{44].
Recommended publications
  • Magnetism, Free Electrons and Interactions
    Magnetism Magnets Zero external field Finite external field • Types of magnetic systems • Pauli paramagnetism in metals Paramagnets • Landau diamagnetism in metals • Larmor diamagnetism in insulators Diamagnets • Ferromagnetism of electron gas • Spin Hamiltonian Ferromagnets • Mean field approach • Curie transition Antiferromagnets Ferrimagnets …… … Pauli paramagnetism Pauli paramagnetism Let us first look at magnetic properties of a free electron gas. ε =−p2 /2meBmc= /2 ε =+p2 /2meBmc= /2 ↑ ↓G Electron are spin-1/2 particles #of majority spins: dp3 NV= f()ε In external magnetic field B – Zeeman splitting #of minority spins: ↑,,↓ ∫ (2π= )3 ↑ ↓ 2 = 2 = ε↑ =−p /2meBmc /2 ε↓ =+p /2meBmc /2 Magnetization (magnetic moment per unit volume): - minority spins e= M =−()NN : aligned along the field and proportional Fermi level ↑ ↓ 2Vmc to B in low fields χ - magnetic succeptibility - majority spins M = χB χ > 0 - paramagnetism Pauli succeptibility Landau quantization G 2 2 A free electron in magnetic field: B & zˆ ε↑ =−p /2meBmc= /2 ε↓ =+p /2meBmc= /2 G 2 µ+eB= /2 mc 2 G VgeB= Schrödinger equation: = ⎛⎞ieA ABxAA===;0 NN−= gd()εε ≈ V −∇+=⎜⎟ψ εψ yxz ↑↓ ∫ 2mc= 22µ−eB= /2 mc mc ⎝⎠ B=1T corresponds toeBmc= /1=× K k provided m is free electrons’s mass Solutions: labeled by two indices nk, B G z For any fields, eBmc=/ µ ψ nk(r )= exp( ik y y+− ik z z )ϕ n ( x= ck y / eB ) Magnetic succeptibility: ϕn - wave functions of a harmonic oscillator 22 2 Energies: ε =+==kmeBmcn/2 ( / )( + 1/2) - strongly degenerate!! ⎛⎞e= nk z χP = ⎜⎟g ⎝⎠2mc We “quantized” momenta transverse to the field (Landau levels) 1 Landau diamagnetism Electrons in metals A free electron in magnetic field: moves along spiral trajectories We know that there are diamagnetic metals.
    [Show full text]
  • Rich Magnetic Quantization Phenomena in AA Bilayer Silicene
    www.nature.com/scientificreports OPEN Rich Magnetic Quantization Phenomena in AA Bilayer Silicene Po-Hsin Shih1, Thi-Nga Do2,3, Godfrey Gumbs4,5, Danhong Huang6, Hai Duong Pham1 & Ming-Fa Lin1,7,8 Received: 13 June 2019 The rich magneto-electronic properties of AA-bottom-top (bt) bilayer silicene are investigated using Accepted: 27 August 2019 a generalized tight-binding model. The electronic structure exhibits two pairs of oscillatory energy Published: xx xx xxxx bands for which the lowest conduction and highest valence states of the low-lying pair are shifted away from the K point. The quantized Landau levels (LLs) are classifed into various separated groups by the localization behaviors of their spatial distributions. The LLs in the vicinity of the Fermi energy do not present simple wave function modes. This behavior is quite diferent from other two-dimensional systems. The geometry symmetry, intralayer and interlayer atomic interactions, and the efect of a perpendicular magnetic feld are responsible for the peculiar LL energy spectra in AA-bt bilayer silicene. This work provides a better understanding of the diverse magnetic quantization phenomena in 2D condensed-matter materials. Silicene, an isostructure to graphene, is purely made of silicon atoms through both the sp2 and sp3 bondings. So far, silicene systems have been successfully synthesized by the epitaxial growth on various substrate surfaces. Monolayer silicene with diferent sizes of unit cells has been produced on several substrates, such as Si(111) 1,2 3,4 5 6 33× -Ag template , Ag(111) (4 × 4) , Ir(111) ( 33× ) and ZrB2(0001) (2 × 2) .
    [Show full text]
  • Topological Classification of Correlations in 2D Electron
    materials Article Topological Classification of Correlations in 2D Electron Systems in Magnetic or Berry Fields Janusz E. Jacak Department of Quantum Technologies, Wrocław University of Science and Technology, Wyb. Wyspia´nskiego27, 50-370 Wrocław, Poland; [email protected] Abstract: Recent topology classification of 2D electron states induced by different homotopy classes of mappings of the planar Brillouin zone into Bloch space can be supplemented by a homotopy classification of various phases of multi-electron homotopy patterns induced by Coulomb interaction between electrons. The general classification of such type is presented. It explains the topologically protected correlations responsible for integer and fractional Hall effects in 2D multi-electron systems in the presence of perpendicular quantizing magnetic field or Berry field, the latter in topological Chern insulators. The long-range quantum entanglement is essential for homotopy correlated phases in contrast to local binary entanglement for conventional phases with local order parameters. The classification of homotopy long-range correlated phases induced by the Coulomb interaction of electrons has been derived in terms of homotopy invariants and illustrated by experimental observations in GaAs 2DES, graphene monolayer, and bilayer and in Chern topological insulators. The homotopy phases are demonstrated to be topologically protected and immune to the local crystal field, local disorder, and variation of the electron interaction strength. The nonzero interaction between electrons is shown, however, to be essential for the definition of the homotopy invariants, which disappear in gaseous systems. Citation: Jacak, J.E. Topological Keywords: homotopy phases; long-range quantum entanglement; FQHE; Hall systems; Chern Classification of Correlations in 2D topological insulators Electron Systems in Magnetic or Berry Field.
    [Show full text]
  • 25 Years of Quantum Hall Effect
    S´eminaire Poincar´e2 (2004) 1 – 16 S´eminaire Poincar´e 25 Years of Quantum Hall Effect (QHE) A Personal View on the Discovery, Physics and Applications of this Quantum Effect Klaus von Klitzing Max-Planck-Institut f¨ur Festk¨orperforschung Heisenbergstr. 1 D-70569 Stuttgart Germany 1 Historical Aspects The birthday of the quantum Hall effect (QHE) can be fixed very accurately. It was the night of the 4th to the 5th of February 1980 at around 2 a.m. during an experiment at the High Magnetic Field Laboratory in Grenoble. The research topic included the characterization of the electronic transport of silicon field effect transistors. How can one improve the mobility of these devices? Which scattering processes (surface roughness, interface charges, impurities etc.) dominate the motion of the electrons in the very thin layer of only a few nanometers at the interface between silicon and silicon dioxide? For this research, Dr. Dorda (Siemens AG) and Dr. Pepper (Plessey Company) provided specially designed devices (Hall devices) as shown in Fig.1, which allow direct measurements of the resistivity tensor. Figure 1: Typical silicon MOSFET device used for measurements of the xx- and xy-components of the resistivity tensor. For a fixed source-drain current between the contacts S and D, the potential drops between the probes P − P and H − H are directly proportional to the resistivities ρxx and ρxy. A positive gate voltage increases the carrier density below the gate. For the experiments, low temperatures (typically 4.2 K) were used in order to suppress dis- turbing scattering processes originating from electron-phonon interactions.
    [Show full text]
  • Path-Memory Induced Quantization of Classical Orbits SEE COMMENTARY
    Path-memory induced quantization of classical orbits SEE COMMENTARY Emmanuel Forta,1, Antonin Eddib, Arezki Boudaoudc, Julien Moukhtarb, and Yves Couderb aInstitut Langevin, Ecole Supérieure de Physique et de Chimie Industrielles ParisTech and Université Paris Diderot, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique Unité Mixte de Recherche 7587, 10 Rue Vauquelin, 75 231 Paris Cedex 05, France; bMatières et Systèmes Complexes, Université Paris Diderot, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique Unité Mixte de Recherche 7057, Bâtiment Condorcet, 10 Rue Alice Domon et Léonie Duquet, 75013 Paris, France; and cLaboratoire de Physique Statistique, Ecole Normale Supérieure, 24 Rue Lhomond, 75231 Paris Cedex 05, France Edited* by Pierre C. Hohenberg, New York University, New York, NY, and approved August 4, 2010 (received for review May 26, 2010) A droplet bouncing on a liquid bath can self-propel due to its inter- a magnetic field. However, for technical reasons we chose a action with the waves it generates. The resulting “walker” is a variant that relies on the analogy first introduced by Berry et al. dynamical association where, at a macroscopic scale, a particle (5) between electromagnetic fields and surface waves. ~ ~ ~ (the droplet) is driven by a pilot-wave field. A specificity of this Its starting point is the similarity of relation B ¼ ∇ × A in elec- ~ system is that the wave field itself results from the superposition tromagnetism with 2Ω~¼ ∇~× U in fluid mechanics. In these re- ~ of the waves generated at the points of space recently visited by lations, the vorticity 2Ω~is the equivalent of the magnetic field B ~ ~ the particle. It thus contains a memory of the past trajectory of the and the velocity U that of the vector potential A.
    [Show full text]
  • Effect of Landau Quantization on the Equations of State in Dense Plasmas with Strong Magnetic Fields
    High Power Laser Programme – Theory and Computation Effect of Landau quantization on the equations of state in dense plasmas with strong magnetic fields S Eliezera, P A Norreys, J T Mendonçab, K L Lancaster Central Laser Facility, CCLRC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Chilton, Didcot, Oxon., OX11 0QX, UK a on leave from Soreq NRC, Yavne 81800, Israel bon leave from Instituto Superior Técnico, Av. Rovisco Pais 1, 1049-001 Lisboa, Portugal Main contact email address: [email protected] Introduction where Γ is phenomenological coefficient and TD is the Debye The equations of state (EOS) are the fundamental relation temperature. A very useful phenomenological EOS for a solid 2) between the macroscopically quantities describing a physical is given by the Gruneisen EOS , 1) system in equilibrium . The EOS relates all thermodynamic γ VE P = i quantities, such as density, pressure, energy, entropy, etc. i (3) Knowledge of the EOS is required in order to solve V 3 α V hydrodynamic equations in specific physical situations, such as γ = plasma physics associated with laser interaction with matter, κ c V shock wave physics, astrophysical objects etc. The properties of matter are summarised in the EOS. where the quantities on the right hand side of the second equation can be measured experimentally: α = linear expansion The concept of Landau quantization in the presence of strong coefficient, κ = isothermal compressibility, cV = specific heat at magnetic fields is presented in the rest of this section and, in the constant volume. There are more sophisticated EOS for next section, the electron EOS in the presence of strong ions3),4), however in this report we do not consider further the magnetic fields is calculated and presented for non-relativistic ion contributions.
    [Show full text]
  • Chiral Landau Levels in Weyl Semimetal Nbas with Multiple Topological Carriers
    ARTICLE DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-04080-4 OPEN Chiral Landau levels in Weyl semimetal NbAs with multiple topological carriers Xiang Yuan1,2, Zhongbo Yan3, Chaoyu Song1,2, Mengyao Zhang4,5, Zhilin Li5,6, Cheng Zhang 1,2, Yanwen Liu1,2, Weiyi Wang1,2, Minhao Zhao1,2, Zehao Lin1,2, Tian Xie1,2, Jonathan Ludwig7, Yuxuan Jiang7, Xiaoxing Zhang8, Cui Shang8, Zefang Ye1,2, Jiaxiang Wang1,2, Feng Chen1,2, Zhengcai Xia8, Dmitry Smirnov7, Xiaolong Chen5,6, Zhong Wang 3,6, Hugen Yan1,2 & Faxian Xiu1,2,9 1234567890():,; Recently, Weyl semimetals have been experimentally discovered in both inversion- symmetry-breaking and time-reversal-symmetry-breaking crystals. The non-trivial topology in Weyl semimetals can manifest itself with exotic phenomena, which have been extensively investigated by photoemission and transport measurements. Despite the numerous experi- mental efforts on Fermi arcs and chiral anomaly, the existence of unconventional zeroth Landau levels, as a unique hallmark of Weyl fermions, which is highly related to chiral anomaly, remains elusive owing to the stringent experimental requirements. Here, we report the magneto-optical study of Landau quantization in Weyl semimetal NbAs. High magnetic fields drive the system toward the quantum limit, which leads to the observation of zeroth chiral Landau levels in two inequivalent Weyl nodes. As compared to other Landau levels, the fi zeroth chiral Landau level exhibits a distinct linear dispersion in magnetic peldffiffiffi direction and allows the optical transitions without the limitation of zero z momentum or B magnetic field evolution. The magnetic field dependence of the zeroth Landau levels further verifies the predicted particle-hole asymmetry of the Weyl cones.
    [Show full text]
  • Landau Quantization of Dirac Fermions in Graphene and Its Multilayers
    Front. Phys. 12(4), 127208 (2017) DOI 10.1007/s11467-016-0655-5 REVIEW ARTICLE Landau quantization of Dirac fermions in graphene and its multilayers Long-jing Yin (殷隆晶), Ke-ke Bai (白珂珂), Wen-xiao Wang (王文晓), Si-Yu Li (李思宇), Yu Zhang (张钰), Lin He (何林)ǂ The Center for Advanced Quantum Studies, Department of Physics, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China Corresponding author. E-mail: ǂ[email protected] Received December 28, 2016; accepted January 26, 2017 When electrons are confined in a two-dimensional (2D) system, typical quantum–mechanical phenomena such as Landau quantization can be detected. Graphene systems, including the single atomic layer and few-layer stacked crystals, are ideal 2D materials for studying a variety of quantum–mechanical problems. In this article, we review the experimental progress in the unusual Landau quantized behaviors of Dirac fermions in monolayer and multilayer graphene by using scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) and scanning tunneling spectroscopy (STS). Through STS measurement of the strong magnetic fields, distinct Landau-level spectra and rich level-splitting phenomena are observed in different graphene layers. These unique properties provide an effective method for identifying the number of layers, as well as the stacking orders, and investigating the fundamentally physical phenomena of graphene. Moreover, in the presence of a strain and charged defects, the Landau quantization of graphene can be significantly modified, leading to unusual spectroscopic and electronic properties. Keywords Landau quantization, graphene, STM/STS, stacking order, strain and defect PACS numbers Contents 1 Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 2 2 Landau quantization in graphene monolayer, Bernal bilayer, and Bernal trilayer ...........
    [Show full text]
  • Carrier Multiplication in Graphene Under Landau Quantization
    ARTICLE Received 17 Sep 2013 | Accepted 21 Mar 2014 | Published 16 Apr 2014 DOI: 10.1038/ncomms4703 Carrier multiplication in graphene under Landau quantization Florian Wendler1, Andreas Knorr1 & Ermin Malic1 Carrier multiplication is a many-particle process giving rise to the generation of multiple electron-hole pairs. This process holds the potential to increase the power conversion efficiency of photovoltaic devices. In graphene, carrier multiplication has been theoretically predicted and recently experimentally observed. However, due to the absence of a bandgap and competing phonon-induced electron-hole recombination, the extraction of charge carriers remains a substantial challenge. Here we present a new strategy to benefit from the gained charge carriers by introducing a Landau quantization that offers a tunable bandgap. Based on microscopic calculations within the framework of the density matrix formalism, we report a significant carrier multiplication in graphene under Landau quantization. Our calculations reveal a high tunability of the effect via externally accessible pump fluence, temperature and the strength of the magnetic field. 1 Institute of Theoretical Physics, Nonlinear Optics and Quantum Electronics, Technical University Berlin, Hardenbergstrasse 36, Berlin 10623, Germany. Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to F.W. (email: fl[email protected]). NATURE COMMUNICATIONS | 5:3703 | DOI: 10.1038/ncomms4703 | www.nature.com/naturecommunications 1 & 2014 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved. ARTICLE NATURE COMMUNICATIONS | DOI: 10.1038/ncomms4703 n 1961 Schockley and Queisser1 predicted a fundamental limit n of B30% for the power conversion efficiency of single- +4 Ijunction solar cells. Their calculation is based on a simple +3 model, in which the excess energy of absorbed photons is +2 assumed to dissipate as heat.
    [Show full text]
  • Lecture Notes, 2006
    1 Introduction to the Quantum Hall Effects Lecture notes, 2006 Pascal LEDERER Mark Oliver GOERBIG Laboratoire de Physique des Solides, CNRS-UMR 8502 Universit´ede Paris Sud, Bˆat. 510 F-91405 Orsay cedex 2 Contents 1 Introduction 7 1.1 Motivation............................. 7 1.2 HistoryoftheQuantumHallEffect . 9 1.3 Samples .............................. 14 2 Charged particles in a magnetic field 19 2.1 Classicaltreatment . 19 2.1.1 Lagrangian approach . 20 2.1.2 Hamiltonian formalism . 22 2.2 Quantumtreatment. 23 2.2.1 Wave functions in the symmetric gauge . 25 2.2.2 Coherent states and semi-classical motion . 29 3 Transport properties– Integer Quantum Hall Effect (IQHE) 33 3.1 Resistance and resistivity in 2D . 33 3.2 Conductance of a completely filled Landau Level . 34 3.3 Localisation in a strong magnetic field . 37 3.4 Transitions between plateaus – The percolation picture . 42 4 The Fractional Quantum Hall Effect (FQHE)– From Laugh- lin’s theory to Composite Fermions. 45 4.1 Model for electron dynamics restricted to a single LL . 46 4.1.1 Matrixelements. 48 4.1.2 Projected densities algebra . 50 4.2 The Laughlin wave function . 51 4.2.1 The many-body wave function for ν =1 ........ 52 4.2.2 The many-body function for ν = 1/(2s +1) ...... 55 4.2.3 Incompressiblefluid. 58 3 4 CONTENTS 4.2.4 Fractional charge quasi-particles . 59 4.2.5 Groundstateenergy . 62 4.2.6 Neutral Collective Modes . 67 4.3 Jain’s generalisation – Composite Fermions . 69 4.3.1 The effective potential . 70 5 Chern-Simons Theories and Anyon Physics 75 5.1 Chern-Simonstransformations .
    [Show full text]
  • Relativistic Landau Quantization for a Neutral Particle with a Permanent Magnetic Dipole Moment Coupled to an External Electric field
    Relativistic Landau quantization for a neutral particle K. Bakke and C. Furtado∗ Departamento de F´ısica, Universidade Federal da Para´ıba, Caixa Postal 5008, 58051-970, Jo˜ao Pessoa, PB, Brazil Abstract In this contribution we study the Landau levels arising within the relativistic quantum dynamics of a neutral particle which possesses a permanent magnetic dipole moment interacting with an external electric field. We consider the Aharonov-Casher coupling of magnetic dipole to the electric field to investigate an an analog of Landau quantization in this system and solve the Dirac equation for two different field configurations. The eigenfunctions and eigenvalues of Hamiltonian in both cases are obtained. PACS numbers: 03.75.Fi, 03.65.Vf,73.43.-f Keywords: Relativistic Landau Quantization, Magnetic dipoles, Aharonov-Casher interaction arXiv:0902.1474v1 [quant-ph] 9 Feb 2009 ∗Electronic address: kbakke@fisica.ufpb.br,furtado@fisica.ufpb.br; phone number +558332167534 1 I. INTRODUCTION The Landau quantization [1] is known in the literature as the quantization of cyclotron orbits for a charged particle motion when this particle interacts with an external magnetic field in the non-relativistic regime. The Landau quantization in non-relativistic regime is also discussed in the cases of other physical systems such as Bose-Einstein condensate [2, 3], different two-dimensional surfaces [4, 5, 6] and quantum Hall effect [7]. For the relativistic dynamics of a charged particle, the Landau quantization was first discussed by Jackiw [8] and by Balatsky et al [9]. Other studies of the relativistic Landau quantization were carried out in the cases of a quantum Hall effect [10], a spin nematic state [11] and a finite temperature [12].
    [Show full text]
  • Landau Quantization of Topological Surface States in Bi2se3
    Selected for a Viewpoint in Physics week ending PRL 105, 076801 (2010) PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS 13 AUGUST 2010 Landau Quantization of Topological Surface States in Bi2Se3 Peng Cheng,1 Canli Song,1 Tong Zhang,1,2 Yanyi Zhang,1 Yilin Wang,2 Jin-Feng Jia,1 Jing Wang,1 Yayu Wang,1 Bang-Fen Zhu,1 Xi Chen,1,* Xucun Ma,2,† Ke He,2 Lili Wang,2 Xi Dai,2 Zhong Fang,2 Xincheng Xie,2 Xiao-Liang Qi,3,4 Chao-Xing Liu,4,5 Shou-Cheng Zhang,4 and Qi-Kun Xue1,2 1Department of Physics, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China 2Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China 3Microsoft Research, Station Q, University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106, USA 4Department of Physics, Stanford University, Stanford California 94305, USA 5Physikalisches Institut, Universita¨tWu¨rzburg, D-97074 Wu¨rzburg, Germany (Received 25 May 2010; published 9 August 2010) We report the direct observation of Landau quantization in Bi2Se3 thin films by using a low-temperature scanning tunneling microscope. In particular, we discovered the zeroth Landau level, which is predicted to give rise to the half-quantized Hall effect for the topological surface states. The existence of the discrete Landau levels (LLs) and the suppression of LLs by surface impurities strongly support the 2D nature of the topological states. These observations may eventually lead to the realization of quantum Hall effect in topological insulators. DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.105.076801 PACS numbers: 73.20.Àr, 68.37.Ef, 71.70.Di, 72.25.Dc The recent theoretical prediction and experimental real- 0:03 =cm and thickness of 0.1 mm.
    [Show full text]