We study conductance fluctuations in disordered quantum wires with unitary symmetry focusing on the case in which the number of conducting channels in one propagating direction is not equal to that in the opposite direction. We consider disordered wires with $N+m$ left-moving channels and $N$ right-moving channels. In this case, $m$ left-moving channels become perfectly conducting, and the dimensionless conductance $g$ for the left-moving channels behaves as $g \to m$ in the long-wire limit. We obtain the variance of $g$ in the diffusive regime by using the Dorokhov-Mello-Pereyra-Kumar equation for transmission eigenvalues. It is shown that the universality of conductance fluctuations breaks down for $m \neq 0$ unless $N$ is very large.
We study the conductance of phase-coherent disordered quantum wires focusing on the case in which the number of conducting channels is imbalanced between two propagating directions. If the number of channels in one direction is by one greater than that in the opposite direction, one perfectly conducting channel without backscattering is stabilized regardless of wire length. Consequently, the dimensionless conductance does not vanish but converges to unity in the long-wire limit, indicating the absence of Anderson localization. To observe the influence of a perfectly conducting channel, we nume…
We theoretically investigate the electronic transport properties of curved graphene waveguides by employing non-equilibrium Green's function techniques. We systematically study the dependence of the confined waveguide modes on the potential difference, the width of waveguide and side barrier. Through two-terminal electronic transport calculations, we show that the conductance of confined waveguide modes is rather robust against the bending degree of waveguide, in consistent with the band insensitivity to the side barrier. This finding of the perfectly conducting channels strongly suggests the …
We show that hybrid structures of topological insulators and materials without topological protection can be employed to create perfectly conducting channels hosted in the non-topological part. These states inherit the topological protection from the proximity of the topological insulator but are more fragile to time-reversal symmetry breaking because of their extended character. We explore their formation in the band structure of model hybrid systems as well as realistic heterostructures involving HgTe/CdTe-based two-dimensional topological insulators. Using numerical quantum transport calcul…
A weak topological insulator (WTI) bears, generally, an even number of Dirac cones on its surface; they are susceptible of doubling, while on the surface of a certain orientation it shows no Dirac cone. On this "dark" surface of a WTI, we predict the existence of a single pair of isolated 1D perfectly conducting channels that forms either a closed loop or a segment of a line. The former is associated typically with a single atomic-layer-thick island formed on the dark surface, while the latter is shown to be the consequence of a pair of crystal (screw) dislocations terminating on the dark surf…
We study the conductance of disordered wires with unitary symmetry focusing on the case in which $m$ perfectly conducting channels are present due to the channel-number imbalance between two-propagating directions. Using the exact solution of the Dorokhov-Mello-Pereyra-Kumar (DMPK) equation for transmission eigenvalues, we obtain the average and second moment of the conductance in the long-wire regime. For comparison, we employ the three-edge Chalker-Coddington model as the simplest example of channel-number-imbalanced systems with $m = 1$, and obtain the average and second moment of the condu…
We report our recent numerical study on the effects of dephasing on a perfectly conducting channel (PCC), its presence believed to be dominant in the transport characteristics of a zigzag graphene nanoribbons (GNR) and of a metallic carbon nanotubes (CNT). Our data confirms an earlier prediction that a PCC in GNR exhibits a peculiar robustness against dephasing, in contrast to that of the CNT. By studying the behavior of the conductance as a function of the system's length we show that dephasing destroys the PCC in CNT, whereas it stabilizes the PCC in GNR. Such opposing responses of the PCC a…
We study the transport properties of disordered electron systems that contain perfectly conducting channels. Two quantum network models that belong to different universality classes, unitary and symplectic, are simulated numerically. The perfectly conducting channel in the unitary class can be realized in zigzag graphene nano-ribbons and that in the symplectic class is known to appear in metallic carbon nanotubes. The existence of a perfectly conducting channel leads to novel conductance distribution functions and a shortening of the conductance decay length.
Electron transport in a disordered graphene nanoribbon with zigzag edges is crucially affected by a perfectly conducting channel (PCC), which is stabilized if intervalley scattering is ignorable. In the presence of such a PCC, the dimensionless conductance g of the system decreases to the quantized value of g = 1 with increasing system length L. In the realistic case where intervalley scattering is weak but not ignorable, the PCC is gradually destabilized with increasing L, and g eventually decays to zero owing to the onset of Anderson localization. Here, we show that such destabilization of t…
Thermoelectric transport of two-dimensional quantum spin Hall systems are theoretically studied in narrow ribbon geometry. We find that at high temperature electrons in the bulk states dominate. By lowering temperature, the "perfectly conducting" edge channels becomes dominant, and a bulk-to-edge crossover occurs. Correspondingly, by lowering temperature, the figure of merit first decreases and then will increase again due to edge-state-dominated thermoelectric transport.
Topological insulators have gapless edge/surface states with novel transport properties. Among these, there are two classes of perfectly conducting channels which are free from backscattering: the edge states of two-dimensional topological insulators and the one-dimensional states localized on dislocations of certain three-dimensional topological insulators. We show how these novel states affect thermoelectric properties of the systems and discuss possibilities to improve the thermoelectric figure of merit using these materials with perfectly conducting channels.
The band structure of graphene ribbons with zigzag edges have two valleys well separated in momentum space, related to the two Dirac points of the graphene spectrum. The propagating modes in each valley contain a single chiral mode originating from a partially flat band at band center. This feature gives rise to a perfectly conducting channel in the disordered system, if the impurity scattering does not connect the two valleys, i.e. for long-range impurity potentials. Ribbons with short-range impurity potentials, however, through inter-valley scattering display ordinary localization behavior. …
The Dorokhov-Mello-Pereyra-Kumar (DMPK) equation for transmission eigenvalues is derived for metallic carbon nanotubes with several conducting channels when the potential range of scatterers is larger than the lattice constant. With increasing system length L, the system approaches a fixed point, where only one channel is perfectly conducting and other channels are completely closed. The asymptotic behavior of the conductance in the long-L regime is investigated on the basis of the DMPK equation. It is shown that the length scale for the exponential decay of the typical conductance is reduced …
Numerical calculations based on the recursive Green's functions method in the tight-binding approximation are performed to calculate the dimensionless conductance $g$ in disordered graphene nanoribbons with Gaussian scatterers. The influence of the transition from short- to long-ranged disorder on $g$ is studied as well as its effects on the formation of a perfectly conducting channel. We also investigate the dependence of electronic energy on the perfectly conducting channel. We propose and calculate a backscattering estimative in order to establish the connection between the perfectly conduc…
The extreme mechanical resilience of graphene and the peculiar coupling it hosts between lattice and electronic degrees of freedom have spawned a strong impetus towards strain-engineered graphene where, on the one hand, strain augments the richness of its phenomenology and makes possible new concepts for electronic devices and, on the other hand, new and extreme physics might take place. Here, we demonstrate that the shape of substrates supporting graphene sheets can be optimized for approachable experiments where strain-induced pseudomagnetic fields (PMF) can be tailored by pressure for direc…
In the present work the possibility of regulating local magnetic field in a quantum ring is investigated theoretically. The ring is coupled to a quantum wire and subjected to an in-plane electric field. Under a finite bias voltage across the wire a net circulating current is established in the ring which produces a strong magnetic field at its centre. This magnetic field can be tuned externally in a wide range by regulating the in-plane electric field, and thus, our present system can be utilized to control magnetic field at a specific region. The feasibility of this quantum system in designin…
Numerical calculations have been performed to elucidate unconventional electronic transport properties in disordered nanographene ribbons with zigzag edges (zigzag ribbons). The energy band structure of zigzag ribbons has two valleys that are well separated in momentum space, related to the two Dirac points of the graphene spectrum. The partial flat bands due to edge states make the imbalance between left- and right-going modes in each valley, {\it i.e.} appearance of a single chiral mode. This feature gives rise to a perfectly conducting channel in the disordered system, i.e. the average of c…
We study the conductivity of disordered zigzag graphene nanoribbons in the incoherent regime by using the Boltzmann equation approach. The band structure of zigzag nanoribbons contains two energy valleys, and each valley has an excess one-way channel. The crucial point is that the numbers of conducting channels for two propagating directions are imbalanced in each valley due to the presence of an excess one-way channel. It was pointed out that as a consequence of this imbalance, a perfectly conducting channel is stabilized in the coherent regime if intervalley scattering is absent. We show tha…
The conductance of disordered wires with symplectic symmetry is studied by a random-matrix approach. It has been believed that Anderson localization inevitably arises in ordinary disordered wires. A counterexample is recently found in the systems with symplectic symmetry, where one perfectly conducting channel is present even in the long-wire limit when the number of conducting channels is odd. This indicates that the odd-channel case is essentially different from the ordinary even-channel case. To study such differences, we derive the DMPK equation for transmission eigenvalues for both the ev…
We derive boundary conditions for electromagnetic fields on a $δ$-function plate. The optical properties of such a plate are shown to necessarily be anisotropic in that they only depend on the transverse properties of the plate. We unambiguously obtain the boundary conditions for a perfectly conducting $δ$-function plate in the limit of infinite dielectric response. We show that a material does not "optically vanish" in the thin-plate limit. The thin-plate limit of a plasma slab of thickness $d$ with plasma frequency $ω_p^2=ζ_p/d$ reduces to a $δ$-function plate for frequencies ($ω=iζ$) satisf…
Inhomogeneities and junctions in wires are natural sources of scattering, and hence resistance. A conducting fixed point usually requires an adiabatically smooth system. One notable exception is "healing", which has been predicted in systems with special symmetries, where the system is driven to the homogeneous fixed point. Here we present theoretical results for a different type of conducting fixed point which occurs in inhomogeneous wires with an abrupt jump in hopping and interaction strength. We show that it is always possible to tune the system to an unstable conducting fixed point which …
We present an exact solution of a supersymmetric nonlinear sigma model describing the crossover between a quantum dot and a disordered quantum wire with unitary symmetry. The system is coupled ideally to two electron reservoirs via perfectly conducting leads sustaining an arbitrary number of propagating channels. We obtain closed expressions for the first three moments of the conductance, the average shot-noise power and the average density of transmission eigenvalues. The results are complete in the sense that they are nonperturbative and are valid in all regimes and length scales. We recover…
We study the magnetoconductance of topological insulator nanowires in a longitudinal magnetic field, including Aharonov-Bohm, Altshuler-Aronov-Spivak, perfectly conducting channel, and universal conductance fluctuation effects. Our focus is on predicting experimental behavior in single wires in the quantum limit where temperature is reduced to zero. We show that changing the Fermi energy $E_F$ can tune a wire from from ballistic to diffusive conduction and to localization. In both ballistic and diffusive single wires we find both Aharonov-Bohm and Altshuler-Aronov-Spivak oscillations with simi…
We grow a tiled structure of insulating two dimensional LaAlO3/SrTiO3 interfaces composed of alternating one and three LaAlO3 unit cells. The boundary between two tiles is conducting. At low temperatures this conductance exhibits quantized steps as a function of gate voltage indicative of a one dimensional channel. The step size of half the quantum of conductance is an evidence for absence of spin degeneracy.
Using an innovative technique arising from the theory of symmetric spaces, we obtain an approximate analytic solution of the Dorokhov-Mello-Pereyra-Kumar (DMPK) equation in the insulating regime of a metallic carbon nanotube with symplectic symmetry and an odd number of conducting channels. This symmetry class is characterized by the presence of a perfectly conducting channel in the limit of infinite length of the nanotube. The derivation of the DMPK equation for this system has recently been performed by Takane, who also obtained the average conductance both analytically and numerically. Usin…
