No Arabic abstract
We study the role of different orientations of an applied magnetic field as well as the interplay of structural asymmetries on the characteristics of eigenstates in a quantum ring system. We use a nearly analytical model description of the quantum ring, which allows for a thorough study of elliptical deformations and their influence on the spin content and Berry phase of different quantum states. The diamagnetic shift and Zeeman interaction compete with the Rashba spin-orbit interaction, induced by confinement asymmetries and external electric fields, to change spin textures of the different states. Smooth variations in the Berry phase are observed for symmetric quantum rings as function of applied magnetic fields. Interestingly, we find that asymmetries induce nontrivial Berry phases, suggesting that defects in realistic structures would facilitate the observation of geometric phases.
Transport properties of highly mobile 2D electrons are studied in symmetric GaAs quantum wells placed in titled magnetic fields. Quantum positive magnetoresistance (QPMR) is observed in magnetic fields perpendicular to the 2D layer. Application of in-plane magnetic field produces a dramatic decrease of the QPMR. This decrease correlates strongly with the reduction of the amplitude of Shubnikov de Haas resistance oscillations due to modification of the electron spectrum via enhanced Zeeman splitting. Surprisingly no quantization of the spectrum is detected when the Zeeman energy exceeds the half of the cyclotron energy suggesting an abrupt transformation of the electron dynamics. Observed angular evolution of QPMR implies strong mixing between spin subbands. Theoretical estimations indicate that in the presence of spin-orbital interaction the elastic impurity scattering provides significant contribution to the spin mixing in GaAs quantum wells at high filling factors.
We investigate the double-layer electron system in a parabolic quantum well at filling factor $ u=2$ in a tilted magnetic field using capacitance spectroscopy. The competition between two ground states is found at the Zeeman splitting appreciably smaller than the symmetric-antisymmetric splitting. Although at the transition point the system breaks up into domains of the two competing states, the activation energy turns out to be finite, signaling the occurrence of a new insulator-insulator quantum phase transition. We interpret the obtained results in terms of a predicted canted antiferromagnetic phase.
In materials lacking inversion symmetry, the spin-orbit coupling enables the direct connection between the electrons spin and its linear momentum, a phenomenon called inverse spin galvanic effect. In magnetic materials, this effect promotes current-driven torques that can be used to control the magnetization direction electrically. In this work, we investigate the current-driven inverse spin galvanic effect in a quantum well consisting in a magnetic material embedded between dissimilar insulators. Assuming the presence of Rashba spin-orbit coupling at the interfaces, we investigate the nature of the non-equilibrium spin density and the influence of the quantum well parameters. We find that the torque is governed by the interplay between the number of states participating to the transport and their spin chirality, the penetration of the wave function into the tunnel barriers, and the strength of the Rashba term.
We report on a strong transport anisotropy in a 2D hole gas in a Ge/SiGe quantum well, which emerges only when both perpendicular and in-plane magnetic fields are present. The ratio of resistances, measured along and perpendicular to the in-plane field, can exceed $3times 10^4$. The anisotropy occurs in a wide range of filling factors where it is determined {em primarily} by the tilt angle. The lack of significant anisotropy without an in-plane field, easy tunability, and persistence to higher temperatures and filling factors set this anisotropy apart from nematic phases in GaAs/AlGaAs.
We report on the study of the non-trivial Berry phase in superconducting multiterminal quantum dots biased at commensurate voltages. Starting with the time-periodic Bogoliubov-de Gennes equations, we obtain a tight binding model in the Floquet space, and we solve these equations in the semiclassical limit. We observe that the parameter space defined by the contact transparencies and quartet phase splits into two components with a non-trivial Berry phase. We use the Bohr-Sommerfeld quantization to calculate the Berry phase. We find that if the quantum dot level sits at zero energy, then the Berry phase takes the values $varphi_B=0$ or $varphi_B=pi$. We demonstrate that this non-trivial Berry phase can be observed by tunneling spectroscopy in the Floquet spectra. Consequently, the Floquet-Wannier-Stark ladder spectra of superconducting multiterminal quantum dots are shifted by half-a-period if $varphi_B=pi$. Our numerical calculations based on Keldysh Greens functions show that this Berry phase spectral shift can be observed from the quantum dot tunneling density of states.