We present measurements on gate-defined double quantum dots in Ge-Si core-shell nanowires, which we tune to a regime with visible shell filling in both dots. We observe a Pauli spin blockade and can assign the measured leakage current at low magnetic fields to spin-flip cotunneling, for which we measure a strong anisotropy related to an anisotropic $g$ factor. At higher magnetic fields we see signatures for leakage current caused by spin-orbit coupling between (1,1) singlet and (2,0) triplet states. Taking into account these anisotropic spin-flip mechanisms, we can choose the magnetic field direction with the longest spin lifetime for improved spin-orbit qubits.

Connections between the electronic eigenstates and conductivity of one-dimensional (1D) disordered systems is studied in the framework of the tight-binding model. We show that for weak disorder only part of the states exhibit resonant transmission and contribute to the conductivity. The rest of the eigenvalues are not associated with peaks in transmission and the amplitudes of their wave functions do not exhibit a significant maxima within the sample. Moreover, unlike ordinary states, the lifetimes of these “hidden” modes either remain constant or even decrease (depending on the coupling with the leads) as the disorder becomes stronger. In a wide range of the disorder strengths, the averaged ratio of the number of transmission peaks to the total number of the eigenstates is independent of the degree of disorder and is close to the value $\sqrt{2/5}$, which was derived analytically in the weak-scattering approximation. These results are in perfect analogy to the spectral and transport properties of light in one-dimensional randomly inhomogeneous media [Y. P. Bliokh et al., New J. Phys. 17, 113009 (2015)], which provides strong grounds to believe that the existence of hidden, nonconducting modes is a general phenomenon inherent to 1D open random systems, and their fraction of the total density of states is the same for quantum particles and classical waves.

Frustration is often a key ingredient for reentrance mechanisms. Here we study the frustrated anisotropic shuriken Ising model, where it is possible to extend the notion of reentrance between disordered phases, i.e., in absence of phase transitions. By tuning the anisotropy of the lattice, we open a window in the phase diagram where magnetic disorder prevails down to zero temperature, in a classical analogy with a quantum critical point. In this region, the competition between multiple disordered ground states gives rise to a double crossover where both the low- and high-temperature regimes are less correlated than the intervening classical spin liquid. This reentrance of disorder is characterized by an entropy plateau and a multistep Curie law crossover. Our theory is developed based on Monte Carlo simulations, analytical Husimi-tree calculations and an exact decoration-iteration transformation. Its relevance to experiments, in particular, artificial lattices, is discussed.

Ballistic Josephson junctions are studied in the presence of a spin-splitting field and spin-orbit coupling. A generic expression for the quasiclassical Green's function is obtained and with its help we analyze several aspects of the proximity effect between a spin-textured normal metal (N) and singlet superconductors (S). In particular, we show that the density of states may show a zero-energy peak which is a generic consequence of the spin dependent couplings in heterostructures. In addition, we also obtain the spin current and the induced magnetic moment in a SNS structure and discuss possible coherent manipulation of the magnetization which results from the coupling between the superconducting phase and the spin degree of freedom. Our theory predicts a spin accumulation at the S/N interfaces, and transverse spin currents flowing perpendicular to the junction interfaces. Some of these findings can be understood in the light of a non-Abelian electrostatics.

Amorphous (a)-${\mathrm{HfO}}_2$ is a prototype high dielectric constant insulator with wide technological applications. Using ab initio calculations we show that excess electrons and holes can trap in a-${\mathrm{HfO}}_2$ in energetically much deeper polaron states than in the crystalline monoclinic phase. The electrons and holes localize at precursor sites, such as elongated Hf-O bonds or undercoordinated Hf and O atoms, and the polaronic relaxation is amplified by the local disorder of amorphous network. Single electron polarons produce states in the gap at $\sim 2$ eV below the bottom of the conduction band with average trapping energies of 1.0 eV. Two electrons can form even deeper bipolaron states on the same site. Holes are typically localized on undercoordinated O ions with average trapping energies of 1.4 eV. These results advance our general understanding of charge trapping in amorphous oxides by demonstrating that deep polaron states are inherent and do not require any bond rupture to form precursor sites.

Magnetism is a key driving force controlling several thermodynamic and kinetic properties of Fe-Cr systems. We present a tight-binding model for Fe-Cr, where magnetism is treated beyond the usual collinear approximation. A major advantage of this model consists in a rather simple fitting procedure. In particular, no specific property of the binary system is explicitly required in the fitting database. The present model is proved to be accurate and highly transferable for electronic, magnetic, and energetic properties of a large variety of structural and chemical environments: surfaces, interfaces, embedded clusters, and the whole compositional range of the binary alloy. The occurrence of noncollinear magnetic configurations caused by magnetic frustrations is successfully predicted. The present tight-binding approach can apply to other binary magnetic transition-metal alloys. It is expected to be particularly promising if the size difference between the alloying elements is rather small and the electronic properties prevail.

Oxygen is known to play an important role in the multiferroicity of rare earth manganites; however, how this role changes with rare earth elements is still not fully understood. To address this question, we have used resonant soft x-ray scattering spectroscopy to study the $F$-type $(0,\tau ,0)$ diffraction peak from the antiferromagnetic order in ${\mathrm{DyMnO}}_3$ and ${\mathrm{TbMnO}}_3$. We focus on the measurements at O $K$ edge of these two manganites, supplemented by the results at Mn $L_2$ and Dy $M_5$ edge of ${\mathrm{DyMnO}}_3$. We show that the electronic states of different elements are coupled more strongly in ${\mathrm{DyMnO}}_3$ than in ${\mathrm{TbMnO}}_3$, presumably due to the stronger lattice distortion and the tendency to develop E-type antiferromagnetism in the ferroelectric state that promote the orbital hybridization. We also show that the anomaly in the correlation length of $(0,\tau ,0)$ peak in ${\mathrm{DyMnO}}_3$ signifies the exchange interaction between Mn and rare earth spins. Our findings reveal the prominent role of oxygen orbitals in the multiferroicity of rare earth manganites and the distinct energetics between them.

We consider a class of quantum Hall topological insulators: topologically nontrivial states with zero Chern number at finite magnetic field, in which the counterpropagating edge states are protected by a symmetry (spatial or spin) other than time-reversal. HgTe-type heterostructures and graphene are among the relevant systems. We study the effect of electron interactions on the topological properties of the system. We particularly focus on the vicinity of the topological phase transition, marked by the crossing of two Landau levels, where the system is a strongly interacting quantum Hall ferromagnet. We analyze the edge properties using the formalism of the nonlinear $\sigma$-model. We establish the symmetry requirement for the topological protection in this interacting system: effective continuous U(1) symmetry with respect to uniaxial isospin rotations must be preserved. If U(1) symmetry is preserved, the topologically nontrivial phase persists; its edge is a helical Luttinger liquid with highly tunable effective interactions. We obtain explicit analytical expressions for the parameters of the Luttinger liquid in the quantum-Hall-ferromagnet regime. However, U(1) symmetry may be broken, either spontaneously or by U(1)-asymmetric interactions. In either case, interaction-induced transitions occur to the respective topologically trivial phases with gapped edge charge excitations.

The Dirac electrons of graphene, an intrinsic zero gap semiconductor, uniquely carry spin and pseudospin that give rise to many fascinating electronic and transport properties. While isolated zigzag graphene nanoribbons are antiferromagnetic semiconductors, we show by means of first-principles and tight-binding calculations that zigzag graphene nanoribbons supported on graphene are half metallic as a result of spin- and pseudospin-symmetry breaking. In particular, half-metallic Dirac cones are formed at $K \left(K^{\prime }\right)$ near the Fermi level. The present results demonstrate that the unique combination of spin and pseudospin in zigzag graphene nanoribbons may be used to manipulate the electronic properties of graphene, and may have practical implications for potential graphene-based nanoelectronic applications.

We investigate gain in microwave photonic cavities coupled to voltage-biased double quantum dot systems with an arbitrarily strong dot-lead coupling and with a Holstein-like light-matter interaction, by employing the diagrammatic Keldysh nonequilibrium Green's function approach. We compute out-of-equilibrium properties of the cavity: its transmission, phase response, mean photon number, power spectrum, and spectral function. We show that by the careful engineering of these hybrid light-matter systems, one can achieve a significant amplification of the optical signal with the voltage-biased electronic system serving as a gain medium. We also study the steady-state current across the device, identifying elastic and inelastic tunneling processes which involve the cavity mode. Our results show how recent advances in quantum electronics can be exploited to build hybrid light-matter systems that behave as microwave amplifiers and photon source devices. The diagrammatic Keldysh approach is primarily discussed for a cavity-coupled double quantum dot architecture, but it is generalizable to other hybrid light-matter systems.

Remarkable optical and electrical properties of two-dimensional (2D) materials, such as graphene and transition-metal dichalcogenide (TMDC) monolayers, offer vast technological potential for novel and improved optoelectronic nanodevices, many of which rely on nonlinear optical effects in these 2D materials. This paper introduces a highly effective numerical method for efficient and accurate description of linear and nonlinear optical effects in nanostructured 2D materials embedded in periodic photonic structures containing regular three-dimensional (3D) optical materials, such as diffraction gratings and periodic metamaterials. The proposed method builds upon the rigorous coupled-wave analysis and incorporates the nonlinear optical response of 2D materials by means of modified electromagnetic boundary conditions. This allows one to reduce the mathematical framework of the numerical method to an inhomogeneous scattering matrix formalism, which makes it more accurate and efficient than previously used approaches. An overview of linear and nonlinear optical properties of graphene and TMDC monolayers is given and the various features of the corresponding optical spectra are explored numerically and discussed. To illustrate the versatility of our numerical method, we use it to investigate the linear and nonlinear multiresonant optical response of 2D-3D heteromaterials for enhanced and tunable second- and third-harmonic generation. In particular, by employing a structured 2D material optically coupled to a patterned slab waveguide, we study the interplay between geometric resonances associated to guiding modes of periodically patterned slab waveguides and plasmon or exciton resonances of 2D materials.

We analyze the time-resolved energy transport and the entropy production in ac-driven quantum coherent electron systems coupled to multiple reservoirs at finite temperature. At slow driving, we formulate the first and second laws of thermodynamics valid at each instant of time. We identify heat fluxes flowing through the different pieces of the device and emphasize the importance of the energy stored in the contact and central regions for the second law of thermodynamics to be instantaneously satisfied. In addition, we discuss conservative and dissipative contributions to the heat flux and to the entropy production as a function of time. We illustrate these ideas with a simple model corresponding to a driven level coupled to two reservoirs with different chemical potentials.

We design a Stern-Gerlach apparatus that separates quasispin components on the lattice, without the use of external fields. The effect is engineered using intrinsic parameters, such as hopping amplitudes and on-site potentials. A theoretical description of the apparatus relying on a generalized Foldy-Wouthuysen transformation beyond Dirac points is given. Our results are verified numerically by means of wave-packet evolution, including an analysis of Zitterbewegung on the lattice. The necessary tools for microwave realizations, such as complex hopping amplitudes and chiral effects, are simulated.

In this paper we investigate the two manganese pnictides ${\mathrm{BaMn}}_2{\mathrm{As}}_2$ and LaMnAsO, using fully charge self-consistent density functional plus dynamical mean-field theory calculations. These systems have a nominally half-filled $d$ shell, and as a consequence, electronic correlations are strong, placing these compounds at the verge of a metal-insulator transition. Although their crystal structure is composed of similar building blocks, our analysis shows that the two materials exhibit a very different effective dimensionality, LaMnAsO being a quasi-two-dimensional material in contrast to the much more three-dimensional ${\mathrm{BaMn}}_2{\mathrm{As}}_2$. We demonstrate that the experimentally observed differences in the Néel temperature, the band gap, and the optical properties of the manganese compounds under consideration can be traced back to exactly this effective dimensionality. Our calculations show excellent agreement with measured optical spectra.

Transition-metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) $M{X}_2$ $(M=\text{Ti},\text{Nb},\text{Ta};X=\text{S},\text{Se},\text{Te})$ exhibit a rich set of charge density wave (CDW) orders, which usually coexist and/or compete with superconductivity. The mechanisms of CDWs and superconductivity in TMDs are still under debate. Here we perform an investigation on a typical TMD system, $1T\text{−}{\mathrm{TaSe}}_{2-x}{\mathrm{Te}}_x$ $\left(0\le x\le 2\right)$. Doping-induced disordered distribution of Se/Te suppresses CDWs in $1T\text{−}{\mathrm{TaSe}}_2$. A domelike superconducting phase with the maximum $T_{\mathrm{c}}^{\mathrm{onset}}$ of 2.5 K was observed near CDWs. The superconducting volume is very small inside the CDW phase and becomes very large instantly when the CDW phase is fully suppressed. The observations can be understood based on the strong $q$-dependent electron-phonon coupling-induced periodic-lattice-distortion (PLD) mechanism of CDWs. The volume variation of superconductivity implies the emergence of domain walls in the suppressing process of CDWs. Our concluded scenario makes a fundamental understanding about CDWs and related superconductivity in TMDs.

It is critical to capture the effect due to strain and material interface for device level transistor modeling. We introduce a transferable $s{p}^3{d}^5{s}^{*}$ tight-binding model with nearest-neighbor interactions for arbitrarily strained group IV and III-V materials. The tight-binding model is parametrized with respect to hybrid functional (HSE06) calculations for varieties of strained systems. The tight-binding calculations of ultrasmall superlattices formed by group IV and group III-V materials show good agreement with the corresponding HSE06 calculations. The application of the tight-binding model to superlattices demonstrates that the transferable tight-binding model with nearest-neighbor interactions can be obtained for group IV and III-V materials.

We introduce a technique to calculate thermal conductivity in disordered nanostructures: a finite-difference time-domain solution of the elastic-wave equation combined with the Green-Kubo formula. The technique captures phonon wave behavior and scales well to nanostructures that are too large or too surface disordered to simulate with many other techniques. We investigate the role of Rayleigh waves and surface disorder on thermal transport by studying graphenelike nanoribbons with free edges (allowing Rayleigh waves) and fixed edges (prohibiting Rayleigh waves). We find that free edges result in a significantly lower thermal conductivity than fixed ones. Free edges both introduce Rayleigh waves and cause all low-frequency modes (bulk and surface) to become more localized. Increasing surface disorder on free edges draws energy away from the center of the ribbon and toward the disordered edges, where it gets trapped in localized surface modes. These effects are not seen in ribbons with fixed boundary conditions and illustrate the importance of phonon-surface modes in nanostructures.

To study the influence of microwave irradiation on two-dimensional electrons, we apply a method based on capacitance measurements in GaAs quantum well samples where the gate covers a central part of the layer. We find that the capacitance oscillations at high magnetic fields, caused by the oscillations of thermodynamic density of states, are not essentially modified by microwaves. However, in the region of fields below 1 T, we observe another set of oscillations, with the period and the phase identical to those of microwave-induced resistance oscillations. The phenomenon of microwave-induced capacitance oscillations is explained in terms of violation of the Einstein relation between conductivity and the diffusion coefficient in the presence of microwaves, which leads to a dependence of the capacitor charging on the anomalous conductivity. We also observe microwave-induced oscillations in the capacitive response to periodic variations of external heating. These oscillations appear due to the thermoelectric effect and are in antiphase with microwave-induced resistance oscillations because of the Corbino-like geometry of our experimental setup.