Effect of lattice distortion on spin admixture and quantum transport in organic devices with spin–orbit coupling

With an extended Su–Schrieffer–Heeger model and Green's function method, the spin–orbit coupling(SOC) effects on spin admixture of electronic states and quantum transport in organic devices are investigated. The role of lattice distortion induced by the strong electron–lattice interaction in organics is clarified in contrast with a uniform chain. The results demonstrate an enhanced SOC effect on the spin admixture of frontier eigenstates by the lattice distortion at a larger SOC,which is explained by the perturbation theory. The quantum transport under the SOC is calculated for both nonmagnetic and ferromagnetic electrodes. A more notable SOC effect on total transmission and current is observed for ferromagnetic electrodes, where spin filtering induced by spin-flipped transmission and suppression of magnetoresistance are obtained.Unlike the spin admixture, a stronger SOC effect on transmission exists for the uniform chain rather than the organic lattices with distortion. The reason is attributed to the modified spin-polarized conducting states in the electrodes by lattice configuration, and hence the spin-flip transmission, instead of the spin admixture of eigenstates. This work is helpful to understand the SOC effect in organic spin valves in the presence of lattice distortion.

Electric modulation of the Fermi arc spin transport via three-terminal configuration in topological semimetal nanowires

Spin–momentum locking is a key feature of the topological surface state, which plays an important role in spintronics.The electrical detection of current-induced spin polarization protected by the spin–momentum locking in nonmagnetic systems provides a new platform for developing spintronics, while previous studies were mostly based on magnetic materials.In this study, the spin transport measurement of Dirac semimetal Cd_(3)As_(2) was studied by three-terminal geometry, and a hysteresis loop signal with high resistance and low resistance state was observed. The hysteresis was reversed by reversing the current direction, which illustrates the spin–momentum locking feature of Cd_(3)As_(2). Furthermore, we realized the on–off states of the spin signals through electric modulation of the Fermi arc via the three-terminal configuration, which enables the great potential of Cd_(3)As_(2) in spin field-effect transistors.

Valleytronic topological filters in silicene-like inner-edge systems

Inner edge state with spin and valley degrees of freedom is a promising candidate for designing a dissipationless device due to the topological protection. The central challenge for the application of the inner edge state is to generate and modulate the polarized currents. In this work, we discover a new mechanism to generate fully valley-and spin–valley-polarized current caused by the Bloch wavevector mismatch(BWM). Based on this mechanism, we design some serial-typed inner-edge filters. By using once of the BWM, the coincident states could be divided into transmitted and reflected modes, which can serve as a valley or spin–valley filter. In particular, while with twice of the BWM, the incident current is absolutely reflected to support an off state with a specified valley and spin, which is different from the gap effect.These findings give rise to a new platform for designing valleytronics and spin-valleytronics.

Single-photon scattering and quantum entanglement of two giant atoms with azimuthal angle differences in a waveguide system

We theoretically investigate coherent scattering of single photons and quantum entanglement of two giant atoms with azimuthal angle differences in a waveguide system.Using the real-space Hamiltonian,analytical expressions are derived for the transport spectra scattered by these two giant atoms with four azimuthal angles.Fano-like resonance can be exhibited in the scattering spectra by adjusting the azimuthal angle difference.High concurrence of the entangled state for two atoms can be implemented in a wide angle-difference range,and the entanglement of the atomic states can be switched on/off by modulating the additional azimuthal angle differences from the giant atoms.This suggests a novel handle to effectively control the single-photon scattering and quantum entanglement.

Fully spin-polarized, valley-polarized and spin-valley-polarized electron beam splitters utilizing zero-line modes in a three-terminal device

Topological zero-line modes(ZLMs) with spin and valley degrees of freedom give rise to spin, valley and spinvalley transport, which support a platform for exploring quantum transport physics and potential applications in spintronic/valleytronic devices. In this work, we investigate the beam-splitting behaviors of the charge current due to the ZLMs in a three-terminal system. We show that with certain combinations of ZLMs, the incident charge current along the interface between different topological phases can be divided into different polarized currents with unit transmittance in two outgoing terminals. As a result, fully spin-polarized, valley-polarized and spin-valley-polarized electron beam splitters are generated. The mechanism of these splitters is attributed to the cooperative effects of the distribution of the ZLMs and the intervalley and intravalley scatterings that are modulated by the wave-vector mismatch and group velocity mismatch. Interestingly, half-quantized transmittance of these scatterings is found in a fully spin-valley-polarized electron beam splitter.Furthermore, the results indicate that these splitters can be applicable to graphene, silicene, germanene and stanene due to their robustness against the spin–orbit coupling. Our findings offer a new way to understand the transport mechanism and investigate the promising applications of ZLMs.

Electrically controllable spin filtering in zigzag phosphorene nanoribbon based normal–antiferromagnet–normal junctions

We investigated the electric controllable spin-filtering effect in a zigzag phosphorene nanoribbon(ZPNR) based normal–antiferromagnet–normal junction. Two ferromagnets are closely coupled to the edges of the nanoribbon and form the edge-to-edge antiferromagnetism. Under an in-plane electric field, the two degenerate edge bands of the edge-to-edge antiferromagnet split into four spin-polarized sub-bands and a 100% spin-polarized current can be easily induced with the maximal conductance 2e~2/h. The spin polarization changes with the strength of the electric field and the exchange field,and changes sign at opposite electric fields. The spin-polarized current switches from one edge to the other by reversing the direction of the electric field. The edge current can also be controlled spatially by changing the electric potential of the scattering region. The manipulation of edge current is useful in spin-transfer-torque magnetic random-access memory and provides a practical way to develop controllable spintronic devices.

Mn doping effects on the gate-tunable transport properties of Cd3As2 films epitaxied on GaAs

The Mn doping effects on the gate-tunable transport properties of topological Dirac semimetal Cd3As2 films have been investigated.Mn-doped Cd3As2 films are directly grown on GaAs(111)B substrates by molecular-beam epitaxy,during which the single crystal phase can be obtained with Mn concentration less than 2%.Shubnikov-de Haas oscillation and quantum Hall effect are observed at low temperatures,and electrons are found to be the dominant carrier in the whole temperature range.Higher Mn content results in smaller lattice constant,lower electron mobility and larger effective band gap,while the carrier density seems to be unaffected by Mn-doping.Gating experiments show that Shubnikov-de Haas oscillation and quantum Hall effect are slightly modulated by electric field,which can be explained by the variation of electron density.Our results provide useful information for understanding the magnetic element doping effects on the transport properties of Cd3As2 films.

Influence of dopant concentration on electrical quantum transport behaviors in junctionless nanowire transistors

We discuss the random dopant effects in long channel junctionless transistor associated with quantum confinement effects. The electrical measurement reveals the threshold voltage variability induced by the random dopant fluctuation. Quantum transport features in Hubbard systems are observed in heavily phosphorus-doped channel. We investigate the single electron transfer via donor-induced quantum dots in junctionless nanowire transistors with heavily phosphorus- doped channel, due to the formation of impurity Hubbard bands. While in the lightly doped devices, one-dimensional quantum transport is only observed at low temperature. In this sense, phonon-assisted resonant-tunneling is suppressed due to misaligned levels formed in a few isolated quantum dots at cryogenic temperature. We observe the Anderson-Mott transition from isolate electron state to impurity bands as the doping concentration is increased.

Electronic transport properties of silicon junctionless nanowire transistors fabricated by femtosecond laser direct writing

Silicon junctionless nanowire transistor（JNT） is fabricated by femtosecond laser direct writing on a heavily n-doped SOI substrate.The performances of the transistor,i.e.,current drive,threshold voltage,subthreshold swing（SS）,and electron mobility are evaluated.The device shows good gate control ability and low-temperature instability in a temperature range from 10 K to 300 K.The drain currents increasing by steps with the gate voltage are clearly observed from 10 K to50 K,which is attributed to the electron transport through one-dimensional（1D） subbands formed in the nanowire.Besides,the device exhibits a better low-field electron mobility of 290 cm2·V-1·s-1,implying that the silicon nanowires fabricated by femtosecond laser have good electrical properties.This approach provides a potential application for nanoscale device patterning.

Quantum transport characteristics in single and multiple N-channel junctionless nanowire transistors at low temperatures

Single and multiple n-channel junctionless nanowire transistors （JNTs） are fabricated and experimentally investigated at variable temperatures. Clear current oscillations caused by the quantum-confinement effect are observed in the curve of drain current versus gate voltage acquired at low temperatures （10 K-100 K） and variable drain bias voltages （10 mV- 90 mV）. Transfer characteristics exhibit current oscillation peaks below flat-band voltage （VFB） at temperatures up to 75 K, which is possibly due to Coulomb-blocking from quantum dots, which are randomly formed by ionized dopants in the just opened n-type one-dimensional （1D） channel of silicon nanowires. However, at higher voltages than VFB, regular current steps are observed in single-channel JNTs, which corresponds to the fully populated subbands in the 1D channel. The subband energy spacing extracted from transconductance peaks accords well with theoretical predication. However, in multiple-channel JNT, only tiny oscillation peaks of the drain current are observed due to the combination of the drain current from multiple channels with quantum-confinement effects.

Carrier transport in III–V quantum-dot structures for solar cells or photodetectors

According to the well-established light-to-electricity conversion theory,resonant excited carriers in the quantum dots will relax to the ground states and cannot escape from the quantum dots to form photocurrent,which have been observed in quantum dots without a p–n junction at an external bias.Here,we experimentally observed more than 88% of the resonantly excited photo carriers escaping from In As quantum dots embedded in a short-circuited p–n junction to form photocurrent.The phenomenon cannot be explained by thermionic emission,tunneling process,and intermediate-band theories.A new mechanism is suggested that the photo carriers escape directly from the quantum dots to form photocurrent rather than relax to the ground state of quantum dots induced by a p–n junction.The finding is important for understanding the low-dimensional semiconductor physics and applications in solar cells and photodiode detectors.

Spin-valley-dependent transport and giant tunneling magnetoresistance in silicene with periodic electromagnetic modulations

The transport property of electrons tunneling through arrays of magnetic and electric barriers is studied in silicene. In the tunneling transmission spectrum, the spin-valley-dependent filtered states can be achieved in an incident energy range which can be controlled by the electric gate voltage. For the parallel magnetization configuration, the transmission is asymmetric with respect to the incident angle θ, and electrons with a very large negative incident angle can always transmit in propagating modes for one of the spin-valley filtered states under a certain electromagnetic condition. But for the antiparallel configuration, the transmission is symmetric about θ and there is no such transmission channel. The difference of the transmission between the two configurations leads to a giant tunneling magnetoresistance （TMR） effect. The TMR can reach to 100% in a certain Fermi energy interval around the electrostatic potential. This energy interval can be adjusted significantly by the magnetic field and/or electric gate voltage. The results obtained may be useful for future valleytronic and spintronic applications, as well as magnetoresistance device based on silicene.

Superexchange interaction enhancement of the quantum transport in a DNA-type molecule

We use the transfer matrix method and the Green function technique to theoretically study the quantum tunnelling through a DNA-type molecule. Ferromagnetic electrodes are used to produce the spin-polarized transmission probability and therefore the spin current. The distance-dependent crossover comes from the topological variation from the one- dimensional to the two-dimensional model transform as we switch on the interstrand coupling; a new base pair will present N - 1 extrachannels for the charge and spin as N being the total base pairs. This will restrain the decay of the transmission and improve the stability of the quantum transport. The spin and charge transfer through the DNA-type molecule is consistent with the quantum tunneling barrier.

Quantum transport simulation of the two-dimensional GaSb transistors

Owing to the high carrier mobility,two-dimensional(2D)gallium antimonite(GaSb)is a promising channel material for field-effect transistors(FETs)in the post-silicon era.We investigated the ballistic performance of the 2D GaSb metal-oxide-semiconductor FETs with a 10 nm-gate-length by the ab initio quantum transport simulation.Because of the wider bandgap and better gate-control ability,the performance of the 10-nm monolayer(ML)GaSb FETs is generally superior to the bilayer counterparts,including the three-to-four orders of magnitude larger on-current.Via hydrogenation,the delaytime and power consumption can be further enhanced with magnitude up to 35%and 57%,respectively,thanks to the expanded bandgap.The 10-nm ML GaSb FETs can almost meet the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors(ITRS)for high-performance demands in terms of the on-state current,intrinsic delay time,and power-delay product.

Observation of source/drain bias-controlled quantum transport spectrum in junctionless silicon nanowire transistor

We investigate the influence of source and drain bias voltages(V_(DS))on the quantum sub-band transport spectrum in the 10-nm width N-typed junctionless nanowire transistor at the low temperature of 6 K.We demonstrate that the transverse electric field introduced from V_(DS) has a minor influence on the threshold voltage of the device.The transverse electric field plays the role of amplifying the gate restriction effect of the channel.The one-dimensional(1D)-band dominated transport is demonstrated to be modulated by V_(DS) in the saturation region and the linear region,with the sub-band energy levels in the channel(E_(channel))intersecting with Fermi levels of the source(E_(fS))and the drain(E_(fD))in turn as V_(g) increases.The turning points from the linear region to the saturation region shift to higher gate voltages with V_(DS) increase because the higher Fermi energy levels of the channel required to meet the situation of E_(fD)=E_(channel).We also find that the bias electric field has the effect to accelerate the thermally activated electrons in the channel,equivalent to the effect of thermal temperature on the increase of electron energy.Our work provides a detailed description of the bias-modulated quantum electronic properties,which will give a more comprehensive understanding of transport behavior in nanoscale devices.

Spin transport in a chain of polygonal quantum rings with Dresselhaus spin-orbit coupling

Using a transfer matrix method, we investigate spin transport through a chain of polygonal rings with Dresselhaus spin-orbit coupling（DSOC）. The spin conductance is dependent on the number of sides in the polygons. When DSOC is considered in a chain which also has Rashba spin-orbit coupling（RSOC） of the same magnitude, the total conductance is the same as that for the same chain with no SOC. However, when the two types of SOC have different values, there results a unique anisotropic conductance.

Kondo transport through a quantum dot coupled with side quantum-dot structures

This paper investigates Kondo transport properties in a quadruple quantum dot （QD） based on the slave-boson mean field theory and the non-equilibrium Green＇s function. In the quadruple QD structure one Kondo-type QD sandwiched between two leads is side coupled to two separate QD structures： a single-QD atom and a double-QD molecule. It shows that the conductance valleys and peaks always appear in pairs and by tuning the energy levels in three side QDs, the one-, two-, or three-valley conductance pattern can be obtained. Furthermore, it finds that whether the valley and the peak can appear is closely dependent on the specific values of the interdot couplings and the energy level difference between the two QDs in the molecule. More interestingly, an extra novel conductance peak can be produced by the coexistence of the two different kinds of side QD structures.

Interaction induced non-reciprocal three-level quantum transport

Besides its fundamental importance, non-reciprocity has also found many potential applications in quantum technology. Recently, many quantum systems have been proposed to realize non-reciprocity, but stable non-reciprocal process is still experimentally difficult in general, due to the needed cyclical interactions in artificial systems or operational difficulties in solid state materials. Here, we propose a new kind of interaction induced non-reciprocal operation, based on the conventional stimulated-Raman-adiabatic-passage (STIRAP) setup, which removes the experimental difficulty of requiring cyclical interaction, and thus it is directly implementable in various quantum systems. Furthermore, we also illustrate our proposal on a chain of three coupled superconducting transmons, which can lead to a non-reciprocal circulator with high fidelity without a ring coupling configuration as in the previous schemes or implementations. Therefore, our protocol provides a promising way to explore fundamental non-reciprocal quantum physics as well as realize non-reciprocal quantum device.

Electronic transport properties of Co cluster-decorated graphene

Interactions of magnetic elements with graphene may lead to various electronic states that have potential applications.We report an in-situ experiment in which the quantum transport properties of graphene are measured with increasing cobalt coverage in continuous ultra-high vacuum environment. The results show that e-beam deposited cobalt forms clusters on the surface of graphene, even at low sample temperatures. Scattering of charge carriers by the absorbed cobalt clusters results in the disappearance of the Shubnikov–de Haas（Sd H） oscillations and the appearance of negative magnetoresistance（MR）which shows no sign of saturation up to an applied magnetic field of 9 T. We propose that these observations could originate from quantum interference driven by cobalt disorder and can be explained by the weak localization theory.

Preface to the Special Issue on Quantum Transport in Mesoscopic Systems

Mesoscopic systems,including nanowires,quantum dots and two-dimensional electron gases,are excellent platforms for studying emerging quantum phenomena,especially in the field of electrical transport.Quantum transport covers vast scopes of condensed matter physics,such as superconductivity,quantum Hall effect,and many investigations in mesoscopic devices.