We present spontaneous symmetry breaking in a nanoscale version of a setup prolific in classical mechanics: two coupled nanomechanical pendulums. The two pendulums are electron shuttles fabricated as nanopillars and placed between two capacitor plates in a homogeneous electric field. Instead of being mechanically coupled through a spring they exchange electrons, i.e. they shuttle electrons from the source to the drain capacitor plate. Nonzero DC current through this system by external AC excitation is caused via dynamical symmetry breaking. This symmetry-broken current appears at sub- and superharmonics of the fundamental mode of the coupled system.
We investigate theoretically the non-linear dynamics of a coupled nanomechanical oscillator. Under a weak radio frequency excitation, the resonators can be parametrically tuned into a self-sustained oscillatory regime. The transfer of electrons from one contact to the other is then mechanically assisted, generating a rectified current. The direction of the rectified current is, in most unstable regions, determined by the phase shift between the mechanical oscillations and the signal. However, we locate intriguing parametrical regions of uni-directional rectified current, suggesting a practical scheme for the realization of a self-powered device in the nanoscale. In these regions, a dynamical symmetry breaking is induced by the non-linear coupling of the mechanical and electrical degrees of freedom. When operating within the Coulomb blockade limit, we locate bands of instability of enhanced gain.
We demonstrate single electron shuttling through two coupled nanomechanical pendula. The pendula are realized as nanopillars etched out of the semiconductor substrate. Coulomb blockade is found at room temperature, allowing metrological applications. By controlling the mechanical shuttling frequency we are able to validate the different regimes of electron shuttling.
We report on the simultaneous observation of spontaneous symmetry breaking and long-range spatial coherence both in the strong and the weak-coupling regime in a semiconductor microcavity. Under pulsed excitation, the formation of a stochastic order parameter is observed in polariton and photon lasing regimes. Single-shot measurements of the Stokes vector of the emission exhibit the buildup of stochastic polarization. Below threshold, the polarization noise does not exceed 10%, while above threshold we observe a total polarization of up to 50% after each excitation pulse, while the polarization averaged over the ensemble of pulses remains nearly zero. In both polariton and photon lasing regimes, the stochastic polarization buildup is accompanied by the buildup of spatial coherence. We find that the Landau criterion of spontaneous symmetry breaking and Penrose-Onsager criterion of long-range order for Bose-Einstein condensation are met in both polariton and photon lasing regimes.
Two elastically coupled nanomechanical resonators driven independently near their resonance frequencies show intricate nonlinear dynamics. The dynamics provide a scheme for realizing a nanomechanical system with tunable frequency and nonlinear properties. For large vibration amplitudes the system develops spontaneous oscillations of amplitude modulation that also show period doubling transitions and chaos. The complex nonlinear dynamics are quantitatively predicted by a simple theoretical model.
The (r3xr3)R30{deg} honeycomb of silicene monolayer on Ag(111) was found to undergo a phase transition to two types of mirror-symmetric boundary-separated rhombic phases at temperatures below 40 K by scanning tunneling microscopy. The first-principles calculations reveal that weak interactions between silicene and Ag(111) drive the spontaneous ultra buckling in the monolayer silicene, forming two energy-degenerate and mirror-symmetric (r3xr3)R30{deg} rhombic phases, in which the linear band dispersion near Dirac point (DP) and a significant gap opening (150 meV) at DP were induced. The low transition barrier between these two phases enables them interchangeable through dynamic flip-flop motion, resulting in the (r3xr3)R30{deg} honeycomb structure observed at high temperature.