Mou Yang

Majorana fermion realization and relevant transport processes in a triple-quantum dot system

Nonequilibrium electronic transports through a system hosting three quantum dots hybridized with superconductors are investigated. By tuning the relative positions of the dot levels, we illustrate the existence of Majorana fermions and show that the Majorana feimions will either survive separately on single dots or distribute themselves among different dots with tunable probabilities. As a result, different physical mechanisms appear, including local Andreev reflection (LAR), cross Andreev reflection (CAR), and cross resonant tunneling (CRT). The resulting characteristics may be used to reveal the unique properties of Majorana fermions. In addition, we discuss the spin-polarized transports and find a pure spin current and a spin filter effect due to the joint effect of CRT and CAR, which is important for designing spintronic devices.

Electronic scattering of pseudo-magnetic field induced by local bump in graphene

We investigated the electronic scattering properties of a local bump strain in graphene sheet in frame of Born approximation. The differential scattering cross section is a function of outgoing and incident angles and has the six-fold rotational symmetry with respect to both angles. The incident plane wave is scattered into two backward fan-waves in different directions in low energy limit and is split into two branches spanning the angle reversely proportional to the incident wavevector k in high energy limit. The total scattering cross section depends on incident wavevector by the form k5 in the former limit, while it is independent of k and sensitive to the incident orientation in the latter limit. We explained these features using the symmetry of the strain-induced pseudo-magnetic field.

Effect of impurity resonant states on optical and thermoelectric properties on the surface of a topological insulator

We investigate the thermoelectric effect on a topological insulator surface with particular interest in impurity-induced resonant states. To clarify the role of the resonant states, we calculate the dc and ac conductivities and the thermoelectric coefficients along the longitudinal direction within the full Born approximation. It is found that at low temperatures, the impurity resonant state with strong energy de-pendence can lead to a zero-energy peak in the dc conductivity, whose height is sensitively dependent on the strength of scattering potential, and even can reverse the sign of the thermopower, implying the switching from n- to p-type carriers. Also, we exhibit the thermoelectric signatures for the filling process of a magnetic band gap by the resonant state. We further study the impurity effect on the dynamic optical conductivity, and find that the resonant state also generates an optical conductivity peak at the absorption edge for the interband transition. These results provide new perspectives for understanding the doping effect on topological insulator materials.

A new self-filling mechanism of band gap in magnetically doped topological surface states: spin-flipping inelastic scattering

We investigate the influence of in-plane spin-exchange interactions on a topological insulator (TI) surface doped with nanomagnets under the second perturbation theory. We propose a novel self-filling mechanism of the surface-state band gap. It is found that when the out-of-plane exchange coupling favors an energy gap around the Dirac point, the in-plane component tends to suppress the induced gap, and even fill it completely. Our theory is based on the spin-flipping inelastic scattering, which creates a complex structure of self-energy, effectively modifying the band gap by renormalizing the magnetic moment and chemical potential. We explicitly analyze the filling effect in the electronic dispersion relation and density of states for different scenarios set by systemic parameters. This self-filling effect induced by spin-exchange coupling itself opens new perspectives for understanding of various magnetically doping phenomena on the TI materials and is expected to mediate the controversy concerning the magnetically doping induced gap.

Spin helical states and spin transport of the line defect in silicene lattice

Abstract We investigated the electronic structure of a silicene-like lattice with a line defect under the consideration of spin–orbit coupling. In the bulk energy gap, there are defect related bands corresponding to spin helical states localized beside the defect line: spin-up electrons flow forward on one side near the line defect and move backward on the other side, and vice versa for spin-down electrons. When the system is subjected to random distribution of spin-flipping scatterers, electrons suffer much less spin-flipped scattering when they transport along the line defect than in the bulk. An electric gate above the line defect can tune the spin-flipped transmission, which makes the line defect as a spin-controllable waveguide.

Valley detection using a graphene gradual pn junction with spin–orbit coupling: An analytical conductance calculation

Abstract Graphene pn junction is the brick to build up variety of graphene nano-structures. The analytical formula of the conductance of graphene gradual pn junctions in the whole bipolar region has been absent up to now. In this paper, we analytically calculated that pn conductance with the spin–orbit coupling and stagger potential taken into account. Our analytical expression indicates that the energy gap causes the conductance to drop a constant value with respect to that without gap in a certain parameter region, and manifests that the curve of the conductance versus the stagger potential consists of two Gaussian peaks – one valley contributes one peak. The latter feature allows one to detect the valley polarization without using double-interface resonant devices.

Conductance oscillation of graphene nanoribbon with tilted p-n junction

We investigate the transport properties of a graphene nanoribbon with a tilted p-n junction. The conductance versus the Fermi energy shows step structures when the tilt angle is small. For the large tilt angles, the conductance oscillates rapidly with the tilt angle increasing, and the conductance decays non-monotonically with the longitudinal length of the p-n junction area. Based on the subband analysis, we explain these effects by the mix and the interference between different subbands of the ribbon.

Quantum Hall-like effect in gated four-terminal graphene devices without magnetic field

We investigate the transport properties of a four-terminal graphene device of which two terminals are beneath a pair of reversal top gate voltages. We find there exists quantum Hall-like effect without magnetic field applied. The curve of Hall conductance versus the Fermi energy shows steps, and the disorder can make the steps clearer. The average length of Hall conductance plateaus is of the order meV for the devices with the terminal widths of the order μm, which is within the scope of the experimental observation. The influences of gate voltage, device dimensions, and dispersion gap are also discussed.

Thermally driven transverse transports and magnetic dynamics on a topological surface capped with a ferromagnet strip

We theoretically study thermally driven transport of the Dirac fermions on the surface of a topological insulator capped with a ferromagnet strip. The generation and manipulation of anomalous Hall and Nernst effects are analyzed, in which the in-plane magnetization of the ferromagnet film is found to take a decisive role. This scenario is distinct from that modulated by Berry phase where the in-plane magnetization is independent. We further discuss the thermal spin-transfer torque as a backaction of the thermoelectric transports on the magnetization and calculate the dynamics of the anomalous Hall and Nernst effects self-consistently. It is found that the magnitude of the long-time steady Hall and Nernst conductance is determined by competition between the magnetic anisotropy and current-induced effective anisotropy. These results open up a possibility of magnetically controlling the transverse thermoelectric transports or thermally manipulating the magnet switching.

Electrical manipulation of dynamic magnetic impurity and spin texture of helical Dirac fermions

We have theoretically investigated the spin inelastic scattering of helical electrons off a high-spin nanomagnet absorbed on a topological surface. The nanomagnet is treated as a dynamic quantum spin and driven by the spin transfer torque effect. We proposed a mechanism to electrically manipulate the spin texture of helical Dirac fermions rather than by an external magnetic field. By tuning the bias voltage and the direction of impurity magnetization, we present rich patterns of spin texture, from which important fingerprints exclusively associated with the spin helical feature are obtained. Furthermore, it is found that the nonmagnetic potential can create the resonance state in the spin density with different physics as the previously reported resonance of charge density.