Motivated by the recent experimental observations on the skyrmion creation by cutting chiral stripe domains under a current drive [Jiang et al., Science 349, 283 (2015)], we study the mechanism of skyrmion generation by simulating the dynamics of stripe domains. Our theory for skyrmion generation is based on the fact that there are two half skyrmions attached to the ends of a stripe domain. These half skyrmions move due to the coupling between the skyrmion topological charge and current. As a consequence, the stripe domain is bent or stretched depending on the direction of motion of the half skyrmions. For a large current, skyrmions are created by chopping the stripe domains via strong bending or stretching. Our theory provides an explanation to the experiments and is supported by the new experiments. Furthermore, we predict that skyrmions can also be generated using a Bloch stripe domain under a spin transfer torque which can be realized in B20 compounds.

Upon the injection of a pure spin current, a ferromagnet, similar to a nonmagnetic metal, also exhibits inverse spin Hall effect (ISHE). We show in Co/Cu/YIG, where the thin Cu layer allows transmission of spin current from YIG into Co but decouples the two ferromagnets, that the interaction between ISHE and ferromagnetic ordering in Co can be unambiguously investigated. By switching on and off the pure spin current contribution, we demonstrate that the ISHE in Co is independent of the direction of the Co magnetization, which clearly suggests that the ISHE in Co is dominated not by the extrinsic impurity scatterings, but from the intrinsic origin.

The ability to induce a sizable gap in the excitation spectrum of a normal layer placed in contact with a conventional superconductor has become increasingly important in recent years in the context of engineering a topological superconductor. The quasiclassical theory of the proximity effect shows that Andreev reflection at the superconductor/normal interface induces a nonzero pairing amplitude in the metal but does not endow it with a gap. Conversely, when the normal layer is atomically thin, the tunneling of Cooper pairs induces an excitation gap that can be as large as the bulk gap of the superconductor. We study how these two seemingly different views of the proximity effect evolve into one another as the thickness of the normal layer is changed. We show that a fully quantum-mechanical treatment of the problem predicts that the induced gap is always finite but falls off with the thickness of the normal layer $d$. If $d$ is less than a certain crossover scale, which is much larger than the Fermi wavelength, the induced gap is comparable to the bulk gap. As a result, a sizable excitation gap can be induced in normal layers that are much thicker than the Fermi wavelength.

The photophysics and charge state dynamics of the nitrogen vacancy (NV) center in diamond has been extensively investigated, but is still not fully understood. In contrast to previous work, we find that ${\mathrm{NV}}^0$ converts to ${\mathrm{NV}}^{-}$ under excitation with low power near-infrared (1064-nm) light, resulting in increased photoluminescence from the ${\mathrm{NV}}^{-}$ state. We used a combination of spectral and time-resolved photoluminescence experiments and rate-equation modeling to conclude that ${\mathrm{NV}}^0$ converts to ${\mathrm{NV}}^{-}$ via absorption of 1064-nm photons from the valence band of diamond. We report fast quenching and recovery of the photoluminescence from both charge states of the NV center under low power 1064-nm laser excitation, which has not been previously observed. We also find, using optically detected magnetic resonance experiments, that the charge transfer process mediated by the 1064-nm laser is spin dependent.

We studied the two-step martensitic transition of a Cu-Al-Ni shape-memory alloy by calorimetry, acoustic emission (AE), and resonant ultrasound spectroscopy (RUS) measurements. The transition occurs under cooling from the cubic $(\beta , Fm3m)$ parent phase near 242 K to a mixture of orthorhombic $2H$ and monoclinic $18R$ phases. Heating leads first to the back transformation of small $18R$ domains to $\beta$ and/or $2H$ near 255 K, and then to the transformation $2H$ to $\beta$ near 280 K. The total transformation enthalpy is $\mathrm{\Delta }{H}_T=328\pm 10$ J/mol and is observed as one large latent heat peak under cooling. The back-transformation entropy under heating breaks down into a large component $18R$ to $\beta$ at 255 K and a smaller, smeared component of the transformation $2H$ to $\beta$ near 280 K. The proportions inside the phase mixture depend on the thermal history of the sample. The elastic response of the sample is dominated by large elastic softening during cooling. The weakening of the elastic shear modulus shows a peak at 242 K, which is typical for the formation of complex microstructures. Cooling the sample further leads to additional changes of the microstructure and domain wall freezing, which is seen by gradual elastic hardening and increasing damping of the RUS signal. Heating from 220 K to room temperature leads to elastic anomalies due to the initial transformation, which is now shifted to high temperatures. The transition is smeared over a wider temperature interval and shows strong elastic damping. The shear modulus of the cubic phase is recovered at 280 K. The phase transformation leads to avalanches, which were recorded by AE and by time-resolved calorimetry. The cooling transition shows very extended avalanche signals in calorimetry with power-law distributions. Cooling and heating runs show AE signals over a large temperature interval above 260 K. Splitting the transformation into two martensite phases leads to power-law exponents $\varepsilon \sim 2$ $(\beta \leftrightarrow 18R)$ and $\varepsilon \sim 1.5$ $(\beta \leftrightarrow 2H)$ while the phase mixture shows an effective AE exponent of 1.7.

We examine the ultrafast optical response of the crystalline and amorphous phases of the phase change material ${\mathrm{Ge}}_2{\mathrm{Sb}}_2{\mathrm{Te}}_5$ (GST) below the phase transformation threshold. Simultaneous measurement of the transmissivity and reflectivity of thin film samples yields the time-dependent evolution of the dielectric function for both phases. We then identify how lattice motion and electronic excitation manifest in the dielectric response. The dielectric response of both phases is large but markedly different. At 800 nm, the changes in amorphous GST are well described by the Drude response of the generated photocarriers, whereas the crystalline phase is better described by the depopulation of resonant bonds. We find that the generated coherent phonons have a greater influence in the amorphous phase than the crystalline phase. Furthermore, coherent phonons do not influence resonant bonding. For fluences up to 50% of the transformation threshold, the structure does not exhibit bond softening in either phase, enabling large changes of the optical properties without structural modification.

We investigate the evolution of string order in a spin-1 chain following a quantum quench. After initializing the chain in the Affleck-Kennedy-Lieb-Tasaki state, we analyze in detail how string order evolves as a function of time at different length scales. The Hamiltonian after the quench is chosen either to preserve or to suddenly break the symmetry which ensures the presence of string order. Depending on which of these two situations arises, string order is either preserved or lost even at infinitesimal times in the thermodynamic limit. The fact that nonlocal order may be abruptly destroyed, what we call string-order melting, makes it qualitatively different from typical order parameters in the manner of Landau. This situation is thoroughly characterized by means of numerical simulations based on matrix product states algorithms and analytical studies based on a short-time expansion for several simplified models.

We have investigated spin-electricity conversion on surface states of bulk-insulating topological insulator (TI) materials using a spin-pumping technique. The sample structure is Ni-$\mathrm{Fe}\mid \mathrm{Cu}\mid \mathrm{TI}$ trilayers, in which magnetic proximity effects on the TI surfaces are negligibly small owing to the inserted Cu layer. Voltage signals produced by the spin-electricity conversion are clearly observed and are enhanced with decreasing temperature, in line with the dominant surface transport at lower temperatures. The efficiency of the spin-electricity conversion is greater for TI samples with a higher resistivity of bulk states and longer mean free path of surface states, consistent with the surface spin-electricity conversion.

Yttrium iron garnet (YIG, ${\mathrm{Y}}_3\mathrm{F}{\mathrm{e}}_5{\mathrm{O}}_{12}$) is a magnetic insulator that has been widely used to generate spin-wave spin current via the longitudinal spin Seebeck effect. Spin current can be converted to charge current by the inverse spin Hall effect (ISHE) in an attached metal layer with a spin direction given by the magnetization of the YIG. However, both the ISHE voltage from the thermal transport measurement and the magnetoresistance (MR) from the electrical transport measurement of the metal/YIG structure show a clear plateau behavior in the low-field range, which is inconsistent with the magnetization reversal behavior of the YIG slab. In this work, we provide direct evidences by using the highly sensitive micro-magneto-optic Kerr effect (micro-MOKE) measurement to demonstrate that the plateau behavior in the thermal and electrical transport measurement of metal/YIG is due to the noncollinear magnetization configuration between the bulk and surface of YIG. In addition, keeping the measured surface of YIG unaltered, we show that its surface magnetization can be systematically controlled by varying the thickness. We further demonstrate that the magnetic coupling between the surface magnetization of YIG and an attached ferromagnetic layer exhibits long-range interaction due to the magnetic dipole-dipole interaction.

We study the effect of an elliptically polarized magnetic field on a system of noninteracting, single-domain ferromagnetic nanoparticles characterized by a uniform distribution of easy axis directions. Our main goal is to determine the average magnetization of this system and the power loss in it. In order to calculate these quantities analytically, we develop a general perturbation theory for the Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert (LLG) equation and find its steady-state solution for small magnetic field amplitudes. On this basis, we derive the second-order expressions for the average magnetization and power loss, investigate their dependence on the magnetic field frequency, and analyze the role of subharmonic resonances resulting from the nonlinear nature of the LLG equation. For arbitrary amplitudes, the frequency dependence of these quantities is obtained from the numerical solution of this equation. The impact of transitions between different regimes of regular and chaotic dynamics of magnetization, which can be induced in nanoparticles by changing the magnetic field frequency, is examined in detail.

The effects of strain on the stability, electron-phonon coupling, and superconductivity of doped monolayer ${\mathrm{MoS}}_2$ are investigated systematically using first-principles calculations. We find that most of the electron-phonon coupling in doped monolayer ${\mathrm{MoS}}_2$ is attributed to the in-plane vibrations of Mo atoms, which can be further tuned by strain. By applying biaxial compressive strain, we find a large enhancement in the superconducting transition temperature $\left(T_c\right)$ and we obtain a $T_c$ of $22\mathrm{K}$ at the optimal hole doping concentration, while the electron-phonon coupling of electron-doped structure is reduced due to the direct-indirect band-gap insulator transition. Our results reveal that the Fermi surface nesting-driven mechanism is mainly responsible for phonon softening and superconductivity in monolayer ${\mathrm{MoS}}_2$, suggesting that doping combined with strain is efficient at tuning electron-phonon coupling and superconductivity.

The coexistence of magnetic and nonmagnetic phases in the superconducting potassium iron selenide, ${\mathrm{K}}_x{\mathrm{Fe}}_{2-y}{\mathrm{Se}}_2$, has been intensely debated. With superconductivity proposed to appear in a stoichiometric, nonmagnetic phase with I4/mmm crystal symmetry, the proposed nonsuperconducting phase is magnetic and has a lower symmetry, I4/m. The latter consists of Fe vacancies that go through a disordered-to-ordered transition in which the partially filled Fe sites create a supercell upon ordering. We show, using neutron scattering on the optimally doped composition, ${\mathrm{K}}_{0.8}{\mathrm{Fe}}_{2-y}{\mathrm{Se}}_2$, that the absence of magnetism does not signal the presence of superconductivity. Moreover, the degree of vacancy order is coupled to the strength of the magnetic order. Superconductivity coincides with the presence of the magnetic order parameter, albeit the latter is significantly weaker than previously reported, contradicting the current understanding of this $\sim 30\mathrm{K}$ superconductor.

We introduce a numerical algorithm to stochastically sample the dual fermion perturbation series around the dynamical mean field theory, generating all topologies of two-particle interaction vertices. We show results in the weak and strong coupling regime of the half-filled Hubbard model in two dimensions, illustrating that the method converges quickly where dynamical mean field theory is a good approximation, and show that corrections are large in the strong correlation regime at intermediate interaction. The fast convergence of dual corrections to dynamical mean field results illustrates the power of the approach and opens a practical avenue towards the systematic inclusion of nonlocal correlations in correlated materials simulations. An analysis of the frequency scale shows that only low-frequency propagators contribute substantially to the diagrams, putting the inclusion of higher order vertices within reach.

Since the earliest implementations of the various GW approximations and cumulant expansion in the calculations of quasiparticle propagators and spectra, several attempts have been made to combine the advantageous properties and results of these two theoretical approaches. While the GW-plus-cumulant approach has proven successful in interpreting photoemission spectroscopy data in solids, the formal connection between the two methods has not been investigated in detail. By introducing a general bijective integral representation of the cumulants, we can rigorously identify at which point these two approximations can be connected for the paradigmatic model of quasiparticle interaction with the dielectric response of the system that has been extensively exploited in recent interpretations of the satellite structures in photoelectron spectra. We establish a protocol for consistent practical implementation of the thus established $\mathrm{GW}+\mathrm{cumulant}$ scheme and illustrate it by comprehensive state-of-the-art first-principles calculations of intrinsic angle-resolved photoemission spectra from Si valence bands.

We derive the single-particle eigenenergies and eigenfunctions for massless Dirac fermions confined to the surface of a sphere in the presence of a magnetic monopole, i.e., we solve the Landau level problem for electrons in graphene on the Haldane sphere. With the single-particle eigenfunctions and eigenenergies we calculate the Haldane pseudopotentials for the Coulomb interaction in the second Landau level and calculate the effective pseudopotentials characterizing an effective Landau level mixing Hamiltonian entirely in the spherical geometry to be used in theoretical studies of the fractional quantum Hall effect in graphene. Our treatment is analogous to the formalism in the planar geometry and reduces to the planar results in the thermodynamic limit.

Junctions of multiple one-dimensional quantum wires of interacting electrons have received considerable theoretical attention as a basic constituent of quantum circuits. While results have been obtained on these models using bosonization and density-matrix renormalization-group (DMRG) methods, another powerful technique is based on direct perturbation theory in the bulk interactions combined with the renormalization group. This technique has so far only been applied to the case in which finite-length interacting wires are attached to noninteracting Fermi liquid leads. We extend this method to cover the case of infinite-length interacting leads, obtaining results on two- and three-lead junctions in good agreement with previous bosonization and DMRG results.

Motivated by the recent experimental progress on the strong spin-orbit-coupled rare-earth triangular antiferromagnet, we analyze the highly anisotropic spin model that describes the interaction between the spin-orbit-entangled Kramers' doublet local moments on the triangular lattice. We apply the Luttinger-Tisza method, the classical Monte Carlo simulation, and the self-consistent spin wave theory to analyze the anisotropic spin Hamiltonian. The classical phase diagram includes the ${120}^{\circ }$ state and two distinct stripe-ordered phases. The frustration is very strong and significantly suppresses the ordering temperature in the regimes close to the phase boundary between two ordered phases. Going beyond the semiclassical analysis, we include the quantum fluctuations of the spin moments within a self-consistent Dyson-Maleev spin-wave treatment. We find that the strong quantum fluctuations melt the magnetic order in the frustrated regions. We explore the magnetic excitations in the three different ordered phases as well as in strong magnetic fields. Our results provide a guidance for the future theoretical study of the generic model and are broadly relevant for strong spin-orbit-coupled triangular antiferromagnets such as ${\mathrm{YbMgGaO}}_4, {\mathrm{RCd}}_3{\mathrm{P}}_3, {\mathrm{RZn}}_3{\mathrm{P}}_3, {\mathrm{RCd}}_3{\mathrm{As}}_3, {\mathrm{RZn}}_3{\mathrm{As}}_3$, and ${\mathrm{R}}_2{\mathrm{O}}_2{\mathrm{CO}}_3$.

Resolving the interplay between magnetic interactions and structural properties in strongly correlated materials through a quantitatively accurate approach has been a major challenge in condensed-matter physics. Here we apply highly accurate first-principles quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) techniques to obtain structural and magnetic properties of the iron selenide (FeSe) superconductor under pressure. Where comparable, the computed properties are very close to the experimental values. Of potential ordered magnetic configurations, collinear spin configurations are the most energetically favorable over the explored pressure range. They become nearly degenerate in energy with bicollinear spin orderings at around 7 GPa, when the experimental critical temperature $T_c$ is the highest. On the other hand, ferromagnetic, checkerboard, and staggered dimer configurations become relatively higher in energy as the pressure increases. The behavior under pressure is explained by an analysis of the local charge compressibility and the orbital occupation as described by the QMC many-body wave function, which reveals how spin, charge, and orbital degrees of freedom are strongly coupled in this compound. This remarkable pressure evolution suggests that stripelike magnetic fluctuations may be responsible for the enhanced $T_c$ in FeSe and that higher $T_c$ is associated with nearness to a crossover between collinear and bicollinear ordering.

We study the interplay of topological band structure and conventional magnetic long-range order in spinful Haldane model with on-site repulsive interaction. Using the dynamical cluster approximation with clusters of up to 24 sites we find evidence of a first-order phase transition from a Chern insulator at weak coupling to a topologically trivial antiferromagnetic insulator at strong coupling. These results call into question a previously found intermediate state with coexisting topological character and antiferromagnetic long-range order. Experimentally measurable signatures of the first-order transition include hysteretic behavior of the double occupancy, single-particle excitation gap, and nearest neighbor spin-spin correlations. This first-order transition is contrasted with a continuous phase transition from the conventional band insulator to the antiferromagnetic insulator in the ionic Hubbard model on the honeycomb lattice.