We consider a magnetic impurity deposited on the surface of a strong topological insulator and interacting with the surface modes by a Kondo exchange interaction. Taking into account the warping of the Fermi line of the surface modes, we derive a mapping to an effective one-dimensional model and show that the impurity is fully screened by the surface electrons except when the Fermi level lies exactly at the Dirac point. Using an Abrikosov fermion mean-field theory, we calculate the shape of the electronic density Friedel oscillation resulting from the presence of the Kondo screening cloud. We analyze quantitatively the observability of a sixfold symmetry in the Friedel oscillations for two prototype compounds: Bi${}_2$Se${}_3$ and Bi${}_2$Te${}_3$.

We investigate theoretically the dynamics of a spatially symmetric shuttle system subjected to an ac gate voltage. We demonstrate that in such a system parametric excitation gives rise to mechanical vibrations when the frequency of the ac signal is close to the eigenfrequency of the mechanical subsystem. These mechanical oscillations result in a dc shuttle current in a certain direction due to spontaneous symmetry breaking. The direction of the current is determined by the phase shift between the ac gate voltage and the parametrically excited mechanical oscillations. The dependence of the shuttle current on the dc gate voltage is also analyzed.

The electronic and magnetic properties of varying width, oxygen-functionalized armchair graphene nanoribbons (AGNRs) are investigated using first-principles density functional theory (DFT). Our study shows that O-passivation results in a rich geometrical environment which in turn determines the electronic and magnetic properties of the AGNR. For planar systems, a degenerate magnetic ground state, arising from emptying of O lone-pair electrons, is reported. DFT predicts ribbons with ferromagnetic coupling to be metallic, whereas antiferromagnetically coupled ribbons present three band gap families: one metallic and two semiconducting. Unlike hydrogen-functionalized AGNRs, the oxygen-functionalized ribbons can attain a lower energy configuration by adopting a nonplanar geometry. The nonplanar structures are nonmagnetic and show three semiconducting families of band gap behavior. Quasiparticle corrections to the DFT results predict a widening of the band gaps for all planar and nonplanar semiconducting systems. This suggests that oxygen functionalization could be used to manipulate the electronic structures of AGNRs.

We have examined the self-diffusion of small 2D Ni islands (consisting of up to 10 atoms) on the Ni(111) surface using a self-learning kinetic Monte Carlo (SLKMC-II) method with an improved pattern-recognition scheme that allows inclusion of both fcc and hcp sites in the simulations. Activation energy barriers for the identified diffusion processes were calculated on the fly using a semiempirical interaction potential based on the embedded-atom method. Although a variety of concerted, multiatom, and single-atom processes were automatically revealed in our simulations, we found that, in the temperature range of 300 K–700 K, these small islands diffuse primarily via concerted motion. Single-atom processes play an important role in ensuring that diffusion is random for islands containing 5 or more atoms, while multiatom processes (shearing and reptation) come into play for noncompact islands. The effective activation energy barriers obtained from the Arrhenius plot of the diffusion coefficients showed an increase with the size of the island, although there were interesting deviations from linear dependence. Several other processes also contributing to diffusion of islands were identified.

The Fermi-liquid-like (FL) resistivity recently observed in clean Hg1201 below the pseudogap temperature was related to carriers at the nodal points on the Fermi surface (FS) (N. Barišić et al., arXiv:1207.1504, doi:10.1073/pnas.13019891109). We show that this has important implications for the electronic spectrum of underdoped (UD) cuprates as a whole. Photoemission experiments (angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy) in other cuprates picture the spectrum as “metallic arcs” separated from each other by regions with large energy gaps. We rigorously solve the kinetic equation in such a model. The Fermi arcs' carriers contribute to the FL resistivity, if scattering between the opposite nodal points admits the umklapp processes. The Hall coefficient defines the effective number of carriers on the arcs and at weak magnetic fields it has a positive sign. All parameters that determine the arcs' widths are measurable experimentally. We conclude that the $T^2$ resistivity gives support to the Fermi arcs' concept and argue that the idea of a reconstructed FS in UD cuprates is not consistent with the latter.

Using qualitative considerations based on a two-center approximation for tight-binding-model matrix elements, we demonstrate that Rashba interactions in complex-oxide two-dimensional electron gases are due primarily to changes in metal-oxygen-metal bond angles at surfaces and interfaces. We verify this conclusion by comparing our picture with illustrative ab initio electronic structure calculations.

The off-resonant and resonant Raman spectra of optical phonons in colloidal CdSe nanoplatelets (NPLs) with the thickness of 4, 5, and 6 CdSe monolayers are analyzed. These spectra are dominated by SO and LO phonon bands of CdSe whose frequencies are thickness independent in the off-resonant Raman but demonstrate evident thickness dependence similar to that observed for confined optical phonons in CdSe quantum dots in the resonant Raman. The results show that conventional optical phonons propagating along the NPL lateral planes contribute mainly to the off-resonant Raman while confined optical phonons propagating in the perpendicular direction dominate the Raman spectra excited in the resonance with confined exciton transitions of CdSe NPLs. An anisotropic electron-phonon interaction is proposed to be responsible for this effect in the CdSe NPLs. A formation of Cd-S monolayer on the surface of CdSe NPLs treated by thiol-containing ligands is also detected in Raman spectra.

In this paper we propose an exactly soluble model in a two-dimensional honeycomb lattice, from which two phases are found. One is the usual Chern/topological insulating state and the other is an interesting $Z_2$ fractionalized Chern/topological insulator. While their bulk properties are similar, the edge states of physical electrons are quite different. The single electron excitation of the former shows a free particle like behavior while the latter one is gapped, which provides a definite signature to identify the fractionalized states. The transition between these two phases is found to fall into the three-dimensional Ising universal class. Significantly, near the quantum transition point the physical electron in the edge states shows strong Luttinger liquid behavior. An extension to the interesting case of the square lattice is also made. In addition, we also discuss some relationship between our exactly soluble model and various Hubbard-like models existing in the literature. The essential difference between the proposed $Z_2$ fractionalized Chern insulator and the hotly pursued fractional Chern insulator is also pointed out. The present work may be helpful for further study on the fractionalized insulating phase and related novel correlated quantum phases.

We present exactly solvable examples showing that topological Mott insulators can emerge from topologically trivial states due to strong interactions between atoms for atomic mixtures trapped in one-dimensional optical superlattice systems. The topological Mott insulating state is characterized by a nonzero Chern number and appears in the strongly interacting limit as long as the total band filling factor is an integer that is not sensitive to the filling of each component. The topological nature of the Mott phase can be revealed by observing the density profile of the trapped system. Our results can be also generalized to multicomponent atomic systems.

Iridate thin films are a prerequisite for any application utilizing their cooperative effects resulting from the interplay of strong spin-orbit coupling and electronic correlations. Here, heteroepitaxial ${\mathrm{Na}}_2{\mathrm{IrO}}_3$ thin films with (001) out-of-plane crystalline orientation and well-defined in-plane epitaxial relationship are presented on various oxide substrates. Resistivity is dominated by a three-dimensional variable-range hopping mechanism in a large temperature range between 300 K and 40 K. Optical experiments show the onset of a small optical gap $E_{\mathrm{go}}$ $\approx$ 200 meV and a splitting of the Ir 5$d$-$t_{2\mathrm{g}}$ manifold. Positive magnetoresistance below 3 T and 25 K shows signatures of a weak antilocalization effect.

All models of interacting electrons and spins can be reformulated as theories of interacting Majorana fermions. We consider the Kondo lattice model that admits a symmetric representation in terms of Majorana fermions. In the first part of this paper we study two variational states, which are natural in the Majorana for-mulation. At weak coupling a state in which three Majorana fermions tend to propagate together as bound objects is favored, while for strong coupling a better description is obtained by having deconfined Majorana fermions. This way of looking at the Kondo lattice offers an alternative phenomenological description of this model. In the second part of the paper we provide a detailed derivation of the discretized path integral formulation of any Majorana fermion theory. This general formulation will be useful as a starting point for further studies, such as quantum Monte Carlo, perturbative expansions, and renormalization group analysis. As an example we use this path integral formalism to formulate a finite temperature variational calculation, which generalizes the ground state variational calculation of the first part. This calculation shows how the formation of three-body bound states of Majorana fermions can be handled in the path integral formalism.

The homogeneous and inhomogeneous linewidths of the heavy-hole exciton resonance in a (110)-oriented GaAs multiple-quantum-well sample are measured using optical two-dimensional Fourier transform spectroscopy. By probing the optical nonlinear response for polarization along the in-plane crystal axes [1$\overline{1}$0] and [001], we measure different homogeneous linewidths for the two orthogonal directions. This difference is found to be due to anisotropic excitation-induced dephasing, caused by a crystal-axis-dependent absorption coefficient. The extrapolated zero-excitation density homogeneous linewidth exhibits an activation-like temperature dependence. We find that the homogeneous linewidth extrapolated to zero excitation density and temperature is $\sim$34 $\mu$eV, while the inhomogeneous linewidth is $\sim$1.9 meV for both polarizations.

Using a tight-binding approach we study theoretically the nature of surface states in Pb${}_{0.4}$Sn${}_{0.6}$Te—the recently discovered topological crystalline insulator. Apart from the (001) surface states previously studied, two other surface families, $\left\{011\right\}$ and $\left\{111\right\}$, in which the mirror symmetry of the crystal's rocksalt structure plays the same role in topological protection, are considered. Our calculations show that while in (111) surface states of (Pb,Sn)Te four single, topologically protected Dirac cones should appear, for the (110) surface states the protection is lifted for two $L$ points. In this case, instead of the Dirac points energy gaps occur in the surface states, due to the interaction between the two $L$ valleys. In all studied cases a chiral spin texture is obtained.

We study experimentally the dependence of dynamic nuclear spin polarization on the power of nonresonant optical excitation in two types of individual neutral semiconductor quantum dots: InGaAs/GaAs and GaAs/AlGaAs. We show that the mechanism of nuclear spin pumping via second-order recombination of optically forbidden (“dark”) exciton states recently reported in InP/GaInP quantum dots [E. A. Chekhovich et al., Phys. Rev. B 83, 125318 (2011)] is relevant for material systems considered in this work. In the InGaAs/GaAs dots this nuclear spin polarization mechanism is particularly pronounced, resulting in Overhauser shifts up to $\sim$80 $\mu$eV achieved at ultralow optical excitation power, $\sim$1000 times smaller than the power required to saturate ground state excitons. The Overhauser shifts observed at ultralow power pumping in the interface GaAs/AlGaAs dots are generally found to be smaller (up to $\sim$40 $\mu$eV). Furthermore in GaAs/AlGaAs we observe dot-to-dot variation and even sign reversal of the Overhauser shift which is attributed to the dark-bright exciton mixing originating from electron-hole exchange interaction in dots with reduced symmetry. Nuclear spin polarization degrees reported in this work under ultralow-power optical pumping are comparable to those achieved by techniques such as resonant optical pumping or above-gap pumping with high-power circularly polarized light. Dynamic nuclear polarization via second-order recombination of “dark” excitons may become a useful tool in single quantum dot applications, where manipulation of the nuclear spin environment or electron spin is required.

We study the effect of a static electric field on lithium donor spins in silicon. The anisotropy of the effective mass leads to the anisotropy of the quadratic Stark susceptibility, which we determined using the Dalgarno-Lewis exact summation method. The theory is asymptotically exact in the field domain below Li-donor ionization threshold, relevant to the Stark-tuning electron spin resonance experiments. To obtain the generalized Stark susceptibilities at arbitrary fields, we propose a new variational wave function, which reproduces the exact results in the low-field limit. With the calculated susceptibilities at hand, we are able to predict and analyze several important physical effects. First, we observe that the energy level shifts due to the quadratic Stark effect for Li donors in Si are equivalent to, and can be mapped onto, those produced by an external stress. Second, we demonstrate that the Stark effect anisotropy, combined with the unique valley-orbit splitting of a Li donor in Si, spin-orbit interaction, and specially tuned external stress may lead to a very strong modulation of the donor spin $g$ factor by the electric field. Third, we investigate the influence of random strains on the $g$ factor shifts and quantify the random strain limits and requirements to Si material purity necessary to observe the $g$-factor Stark shifts experimentally. Finally, we discuss possible implications of our results for quantum information processing with Li spin qubits in Si.

We study electronic properties of AA-stacked graphene bilayers. In the single-particle approximation such a system has one electron band and one hole band crossing the Fermi level. If the bilayer is undoped, the Fermi surfaces of these bands coincide. Such a band structure is unstable with respect to a set of spontaneous symmetry violations. Specifically, strong on-site Coulomb repulsion stabilizes antiferromagnetic order. At small doping and low temperatures, the homogeneous phase is unstable and experiences phase separation into an undoped antiferromagnetic insulator and a metal. The metallic phase can be either antiferromagnetic (commensurate or incommensurate) or paramagnetic depending on the system parameters. We derive the phase diagram of the system on the doping-temperature plane and find that, under certain conditions, the transition from the paramagnetic to the antiferromagnetic phase may demonstrate reentrance. When disorder is present, phase separation could manifest itself as a percolative insulator-metal transition driven by doping.

Based on the four-band continuum model, we study the ordered-current state (OCS) for electrons in bilayer graphene at the charge neutrality point. The present work resolves the puzzles that (a) the energy gap increases significantly with increasing the magnetic field $B$, (b) the energy gap can be closed by the external electric field of either polarization, and (c) the particle-hole spectrum is asymmetric in the presence of $B$, all these as observed by the experiment. We also present the prediction of the hysteresis energy gap behavior with varying $B$, which explains the existing experimental observation on the electric conductance at weak $B$. The large energy gap of the OCS is shown to originate from the disappearance of Landau levels of $n$ = 0 and 1 states in conduction/valence band. By comparing with the existing models and the experiments, we conclude that the OCS is a possible ground state of electrons in bilayer graphene.

Lattice Monte Carlo simulations are often used to describe molecular nucleation growth on surfaces. In this paper a probabilistic approach is introduced which expresses the course of a lattice Monte Carlo simulation as the time evolution of a field describing the occupation probability. The establishment of the averaged method without loss of accuracy enables a faster evaluation of the underlying growth mechanism. Regarding the occupation probability of a site by a particle as the key observable, the numerical complexity is independent of the number of adsorbed particles. The information about the actual system is reflected by four parameters, taken from short-time lattice Monte Carlo simulations: the diffusion constant, the critical nucleus size, the nucleation coefficient, and the cluster binding probability. By means of the time-dependent cluster density and the radial distribution of the nuclei, we compare the results of both methods and find very good agreement.

We present converged ab initio calculations of the optical absorption spectra of single-layer, double-layer, and bulk MoS${}_2$. Both the quasiparticle-energy calculations (on the level of the GW approximation ) and the calculation of the absorption spectra (on the level of the Bethe-Salpeter equation) explicitly include spin-orbit coupling, using the full spinorial Kohn-Sham wave functions as input. Without excitonic effects, the absorption spectra would have the form of a step function, corresponding to the joint density of states of a parabolic band dispersion in two dimensions. This profile is deformed by a pronounced bound excitonic peak below the continuum onset. The peak is split by spin-orbit interaction in the case of single-layer and (mostly) by interlayer interaction in the case of double-layer and bulk MoS${}_2$. The resulting absorption spectra are thus very similar in the three cases, but the interpretation of the spectra is different. Differences in the spectra can be seen in the shape of the absorption spectra at 3 eV where the spectra of the single and double layers are dominated by a strongly bound exciton.