No Arabic abstract
The ability to manipulate individual atoms and molecules using a scanning tunnelling microscope (STM) has been crucial for the development of a vast array of atomic scale devices and structures ranging from nanoscale motors and switches to quantum corrals. Molecular motors in particular have attracted considerable attention in view of their potential for assembly into complex nanoscale machines. Whereas the manipulated atoms or molecules are usually on top of a substrate, motors embedded in a lattice can be very beneficial for bottom-up construction, and may additionally be used to probe the in uence of the lattice on the electronic properties of the host material. Here, we present the discovery of controlled manipulation of a rotor in Fe doped Bi$_{2}$Se$_{3}$. We find that the current into the rotor, which can be finely tuned with the voltage, drives omni-directional switching between three equivalent orientations, each of which can be frozen in at small bias voltage. Using current fluctuation measurements at 1MHz and model simulations, we estimate that switching rates of hundreds of kHz for sub-nA currents are achieved.
We report the growth and magneto-transport studies of Pd$_{3}$Bi$_{2}$S$_{2}$ (PBS) thin films synthesized by pulsed laser deposition (PLD) technique. The magneto-transport study on pristine and post annealed films show the presence of more than one type of charge carrier with a carrier concentration in the range $0.6$ - $2.26~times$ 10$^{21}$ cm$^{-3}$ and mobility in the range 0.96 - 1.73 $times$ 10$^{2}$ cm$^{2}$/Vs. At low temperatures a logarithmic increase in conductivity is observed which indicates the presence of weak anti-localization (WAL). The magnetotransport data is analysed within the Hikami-Larkin-Nagaoka (HLN) theory. It is found that temperature dependence of the dephasing length cant be explained only by electron-electron scattering and that electron-phonon scattering also contributes to the phase relaxation mechanism in PBS films.
Temperature dependence of the electronic structure of SmB6 is studied by high-resolution ARPES down to 1 K. We demonstrate that there is no essential difference for the dispersions of the surface states below and above the resistivity saturating anomaly (~ 3.5 K). Quantitative analyses of the surface states indicate that the quasi-particle scattering rate increases linearly as a function of temperature and binding energy, which differs from Fermi-Liquid behavior. Most intriguingly, we observe that the hybridization between the d and f states builds gradually over a wide temperature region (30 K < T < 110 K). The surface states appear when the hybridization starts to develop. Our detailed temperature-dependence results give a complete interpretation of the exotic resistivity result of SmB6, as well as the discrepancies among experimental results concerning the temperature regions in which the topological surface states emerge and the Kondo gap opens, and give new insights into the exotic Kondo crossover and its relationship with the topological surface states in the topological Kondo insulator SmB6.
Topological insulators are frequently also one of the best known thermoelectric materials. It has been recently discovered that in 3D topological insulators each skew dislocation can host a pair of 1D topological states a helical TLL. We derive exact analytical formulas for thermoelectric Seebeck coefficient in TLL and investigate up to what extent one can ascribe the outstanding thermoelectric properties of Bi 2 Te 3 to these 1D topological states. To this end we take a model of a dense dislocation network and find an analytic formula for an overlap between 1D (the TLL) and 3D electronic states. Our study is applicable to a weakly n-doped Bi 2 Te 3 but also to a broader class of nano-structured materials with artificially created 1D systems. Furthermore, our results can be used at finite frequency settings e.g. to capture transport activated by photo-excitations.
The transmission of Cooper pairs between two weakly coupled superconductors produces a superfluid current and a phase difference; the celebrated Josephson effect. Because of time-reversal and parity symmetries, there is no Josephson current without a phase difference between two superconductors. Reciprocally, when those two symmetries are broken, an anomalous supercurrent can exist in the absence of phase bias or, equivalently, an anomalous phase shift $varphi_0$ can exist in the absence of a superfluid current. We report on the observation of an anomalous phase shift $varphi_0$ in hybrid Josephson junctions fabricated with the topological insulator Bi$_2$Se$_3$ submitted to an in-plane magnetic field. This anomalous phase shift $varphi_0$ is observed directly through measurements of the current-phase relationship in a Josephson interferometer. This result provides a direct measurement of the spin-orbit coupling strength and open new possibilities for phase-controlled Josephson devices made from materials with strong spin-orbit coupling.
Results from transport measurements in individual $W_{x}V_{1-x}O_{2}$ nanowires with varying extents of $W$ doping are presented. An abrupt thermally driven metal-insulator transition (MIT) is observed in these wires and the transition temperature decreases with increasing $W$ content at a pronounced rate of - (48-56) K/$at.%W$, suggesting a significant alteration of the phase diagram from the bulk. These nanowires can also be driven through a voltage-driven MIT and the temperature dependence of the insulator to metal and metal to insulator switchings are studied. While driving from an insulator to metal, the threshold voltage at which the MIT occurs follows an exponential temperature dependence ($V_{THuparrow}proptoexp( icefrac{-T}{T_{0}})) $whereas driving from a metal to insulator, the threshold voltage follows $V_{THdownarrow}proptosqrt{T_{c}-T}$ and the implications of these results are discussed.