Yibin Hu

First principles modeling of tunnel magnetoresistance of Fe/MgO/Fe trilayers

We report ab initio calculations of nonequilibrium quantum transport properties of Fe/MgO/Fe trilayer structures. The zero bias tunnel magnetoresistance is found to be several thousand percent, and it is reduced to about 1000% when the Fe/MgO interface is oxidized. The tunnel magnetoresistance for devices without oxidization reduces monotonically to zero with a voltage scale of about 0.5-1 V, consistent with experimental observations. We present an understanding of the nonequilibrium transport by investigating microscopic details of the scattering states and the Bloch bands of the Fe leads.

Helical States of Topological Insulator Bi2Se3

We report density functional theory analysis of the electronic and quantum transport properties of Bi(2)Se(3) topological insulator, focusing on the helical surface states at the Fermi level E(F). The calculated Dirac point and the tilt angle of the electron spin in the helical states are compared quantitatively with the experimental data. The calculated conductance near E(F) shows a V-shaped spectrum, consistent with STM measurements. The spins in the helical states at E(F) not only tilts out of the two-dimensional plane, they also oscillate with a 3-fold symmetry going around the two-dimensional Brillouin zone. The helical states penetrate into the material bulk, where the first quintuple layer contributes 70% of the helical wave functions.

First-principles analysis of photocurrent in graphenePNjunctions

We report a first principles investigation of photocurrent generation by graphene PN junctions. The junctions are formed by either chemically doping with nitrogen and boron atoms, or by controlling gate voltages. Non-equilibrium Greens function (NEGF) formalism combined with density functional theory (DFT) is applied to calculate the photo-response function. The graphene PN junctions show a broad band photo-response including the terahertz range. The dependence of the response on the angle between the light polarization vector and the PN interface is determined. Its variation against photon energy

Orientation Dependence of Electromechanical Characteristics of Defect-free InAs Nanowires.

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Robustness of helical edge states in topological insulators

is calculated in the visible range. The essential properties of chemically doped and gate-controlled PN junctions are similar, but the former shows fingerprints of dopant distribution.

Raman enhancement on ultra-clean graphene quantum dots produced by quasi-equilibrium plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition.

Understanding the electrical properties of defect-free nanowires with different structures and their responses under deformation are essential for design and applications of nanodevices and strain engineering. In this study, defect-free zinc-blende- and wurtzite-structured InAs nanowires were grown using molecular beam epitaxy, and individual nanowires with different structures and orientations were carefully selected and their electrical properties and electromechanical responses were investigated using an electrical probing system inside a transmission electron microscope. Through our careful experimental design and detailed analyses, we uncovered several extraordinary physical phenomena, such as the electromechanical characteristics are dominated by the nanowire orientation, rather than its crystal structure. Our results provide critical insights into different responses induced by deformation of InAs with different structures, which is important for nanowire-based devices.

Quantum transport modeling of the symmetric Fe/FeO0.5/MgO magnetic tunnel junction: the effects of correlations in the buffer layer.

Topological insulators (TIs) are materials having an energy band gap in the bulk and conducting helical electronic states on the surface. The helical states are protected by time-reversal symmetry and thus are expected to be robust against static disorder scattering. In this work we report an atomistic first principles analysis of disorder scattering in two-probe transport junctions made of three-dimensional TI material Bi

Achievement of sensing single spin with the aid of Kondo resonance in quantum dot connected to ferromagnetic electrodes

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Characteristic Length Scale for Spin Polarized Tunneling in Langmuir-Blodgett Molecular Magnetic Tunnel Junction

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Site-Specific Kondo Effect at Ambient Temperatures in Iron-Based Molecules

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