No Arabic abstract
Quantum Hall phases are gapped in the bulk but support chiral edge modes, both charged and neutral. Here we consider a circuit where the path from the source of electric current to the drain necessarily passes through a segment consisting solely of neutral modes. Surprisingly, we find that upon biasing the source, a dc electric current is detected at the drain. Thus, neutral modes carry information that can be used to nonlocally reconstruct a dc charge current. Our protocol can be used to detect neutral modes, not only the edge modes of a quantum Hall system, but also those that have a non-quantum Hall origin. We conclude with a possible experimental realization of this phenomenon.
We describe electrical detection of spin pumping in metallic nanostructures. In the spin pumping effect, a precessing ferromagnet attached to a normal-metal acts as a pump of spin-polarized current, giving rise to a spin accumulation. The resulting spin accumulation induces a backflow of spin current into the ferromagnet and generates a dc voltage due to the spin dependent conductivities of the ferromagnet. The magnitude of such voltage is proportional to the spin-relaxation properties of the normal-metal. By using platinum as a contact material we observe, in agreement with theory, that the voltage is significantly reduced as compared to the case when aluminum was used. Furtheremore, the effects of rectification between the circulating rf currents and the magnetization precession of the ferromagnet are examined. Most significantly, we show that using an improved layout device geometry these effects can be minimized.
Counter propagating (upstream) chiral neutral edge modes, which were predicted to be present in hole-conjugate states, were observed recently in a variety of fractional quantum Hall states (v=2/3,v=3/5,v=8/3 & v=5/2), by measuring charge noise that resulted after partitioning the neutral mode by a constriction (denoted, as NrightarrowC). Particularly noticeable was the observation of such modes in the v=5/2 fractional state - as it sheds light on the non-abelian nature of the states wavefunction. Yet, the nature of these unique, upstream, chargeless modes and the microscopic process in which they generate shot noise, are not understood. Here, we study the ubiquitous v=2/3 state and report of two main observations: First, the nature of the neutral modes was tested by colliding two modes, emanating from two opposing sources, in a narrow constriction. The resultant charge noise was consistent with local heating of the partitioned quasiparticles. Second, partitioning of a downstream charge mode by a constriction gave birth to a dual process, namely, the appearance of an upstream neutral mode (CrightarrowN). In other words, splitting hole conjugated type quasiparticles will lead to an energy loss and decoherence, with energy carried away by neutral modes.
The Josephson supercurrent through the hybrid Majorana--quantum dot--Majorana junction is investigated. We particularly analyze the effect of spin-selective coupling between the Majorana and quantum dot states, which emerges only in the topological phase and will influence the current through bent junctions and/or in the presence of magnetic fields in the quantum dot. We find that the characteristic behaviors of the supercurrent through this system are quite counterintuitive, remarkably differing from the resonant tunneling, e.g., through the similar (normal phase) superconductor--quantum dot--superconductor junction. Our analysis is carried out under the influence of full set-up parameters and for both the $2pi$ and $4pi$ periodic currents. The present study is expected to be relevant to future exploration of applications of the Majorana-nanowire circuits.
We report measurements demonstrating that when the Neel vector of the collinear antiferromagnet RuO2 is appropriately canted relative to the sample plane, the antiferromagnet generates a substantial out of plane damping-like torque. The measurements are in good accord with predictions that when an electric field, E is applied to the spin split band structure of RuO2 it can cause a strong transverse spin current even in the absence of spin-orbit coupling. This produces characteristic changes in all three components of the E induced torque vector as a function of the angle of E relative to the crystal axes, corresponding to a spin current with a well defined tilted spin orientation s approximately (but not exactly) parallel to the Neel vector, flowing perpendicular to both E and S. This angular dependence is the signature of an antiferromagnetic spin Hall effect with symmetries that are distinct from other mechanisms of spin-current generation reported in antiferromagnetic or ferromagnetic materials.
Helical modes, conducting opposite spins in opposite directions, are shown to exist in metallic armchair nanotubes in an all-electric setup. This is a consequence of the interplay between spin-orbit interaction and strong electric fields. The helical regime can also be obtained in chiral metallic nanotubes by applying an additional magnetic field. In particular, it is possible to obtain helical modes at one of the two Dirac points only, while the other one remains gapped. Starting from a tight-binding model we derive the effective low-energy Hamiltonian and the resulting spectrum.