We study the adiabatic quantum pumping characteristics in the graphene modulated by two oscillating gate potentials out of phase. The angular and energy dependence of the pumped current is presented. The direction of the pumped current can be reversed when a high barrier demonstrates stronger transparency than a low one, which results from the Klein paradox. The underlying physics of the pumping process is illuminated.
In this work, pumped currents of the adiabatically-driven double-barrier structure based on the pseudospin-1 Dirac-Weyl fermions are studied. As a result of the three-band dispersion and hence the unique properties of pseudospin-1 Dirac-Weyl quasiparticles, sharp current-direction reversal is found at certain parameter settings especially at the Dirac point of the band structure, where apexes of the two cones touches at the flat band. Such a behavior can be interpreted consistently by the Berry phase of the scattering matrix and the classical turnstile mechanism.
Quantum pumping processes are accompanied by considerable quantum noise. We investigated the pumped shot noise (PSN) properties in adiabatically modulated graphene-based double-barrier structures. General expressions for adiabatically PSN in phase-coherent mesoscopic conductors are derived based on the scattering approach. It is found that comparing with the Poisson processes, the PSN is dramatically enhanced where the dc pumped current changes flow direction, which demonstrates the effect of the Klein paradox.
We investigate current-current correlations of adiabatic charge pumping through interacting quantum dots weakly coupled to reservoirs. To calculate the zero-frequency noise for a time-dependently driven system, possibly in the presence of an additional dc bias, we perform within a real-time diagrammatic approach a perturbative expansion in the tunnel coupling to the reservoirs in leading and next-to-leading order. We apply this formalism to study the adiabatic correction to the zero-frequency noise, i.e., the pumping noise, in the case of a single-level quantum dot charge pump. If no stationar…
We derive a formula describing the adiabatically pumped charge through an interacting quantum dot within the scattering matrix and Green's function approach. We show that when the tunneling rates between the leads and the dot are varied adiabatically in time, both in modulus and phase, the current induced in the dot consists of two terms, the pumping current and a rectification-like term. The last contribution arises from the time-derivative of the tunneling phase and can have even or odd parity with respect to the pumping phase φ. The rectification-like term is also discussed in relation to s…
We utilize a time-periodic ratchet-like potential modulation imposed onto a two-dimensional electron system inside a GaAs/Al$_x$Ga$_{1-x}$As heterostructure to evoke a net dc pumping current. The modulation is induced by two sets of interdigitated gates, interlacing off center, which can be independently addressed. When the transducers are driven by two identical but phase-shifted ac signals, a lateral dc pumping current $I(ϕ)$ results, which strongly depends on both, the phase shift $ϕ$ and the waveform $V(t)$ of the imposed gate voltages. We find that for different periodic signals, the phas…
We study adiabatic quantum pumping in the resonant tunneling regime of a nearly-closed quantum dot, which is coupled to two leads via tunneling barriers. Using small cyclic variations of the tunneling rates of the barriers as the pumping mechanism, a current is obtained which depends sensitively on the system parameters and exhibits peaks due to Coulomb blockade. The distribution of the peak heights is found for temperatures $\Gam \ll k_{B} T \ll Δ$, with $\Gam$ the total decay width into the leads and $Δ$ the single-particle level spacing of the dot, and their average height is predicted to i…
We study the phenomenon of adiabatic quantum charge pumping in systems supporting fractionally charged fermionic bound states, in two different setups. The first quantum pump setup consists of a charge-density-modulated quantum wire, and the second one is based on a semiconducting nanowire with Rashba spin-orbit interaction, in the presence of a spatially oscillating magnetic field. In both these quantum pumps transport is investigated in a N-X-N geometry, with the system of interest (X) connected to two normal-metal leads (N), and the two pumping parameters are the strengths of the effective …
The charge current adiabatically pumped through a mesoscopic region coupled to a classical variable obeying a nonlinear dynamics is studied within the scattering matrix approach. Due to the nonlinearity in the dynamics of the variable, a hysteretic behavior of the pumping current can be observed for specific characteristics of the pumping cycle. The steps needed to build a quantum pump working as a memory device are discussed together with a possible experimental implementation.
Quantum pumping holds great potential for future applications in micro- and nanotechnology. Its main feature, dissipationless charge transport, is theoretically possible via several different mechanisms. However, since no unambiguous verification has been demonstrated experimentally, the question of finding a viable mechanism for pumping remains open. Here we study quantum pumping in an one dimensional electron waveguide with a single time-dependent barrier. The quantum pumping of electrons using a potential barrier whose height and position are harmonically varied is analyzed analytically and…
Pumping of charge in phase-coherent mesoscopic systems due to the out-of-phase modulation of two parameters has recently found considerable interest. We investigate the effect of inelastic processes on the adiabatically pumped current through a two terminal mesoscopic sample. We find that the loss of coherence does not suppress the pumped charge but rather an additional physical mechanism for an incoherent pump effect comes into play. In a fully phase incoherent system the pump effect is similar to a rectification effect.
The charge current pumped adiabatically through a deformable quantum dot is studied within the Green's function approach. Differently from the non-deformable case, the current shows an undefined parity with respect to the pumping phase ϕ. The unconventional current-phase relation, analyzed in the weak pumping regime, is due to a dynamical phase shift ϕ_D caused by the elastic deformations of the central region (classical phonons). The role of the quality factor Q of the oscillator, the effects induced by a mechanical resonance and the implications for current experiments on molecular systems a…
A quantum pump device involving magnetic barriers produced by the deposition of ferro magnetic stripes on hetero-structure's is investigated. The device for dc- transport does not provide spin-polarized currents, but in the adiabatic regime, when one modulates two independent parameters of this device, spin-up and spin-down electrons are driven in opposite directions, with the net result being that a finite net spin current is transported with negligible charge current. We also analyze our proposed device for inelastic-scattering and spin-orbit scattering. Strong spin-orbit scattering and more…
We have experimentally demonstrated pumping of Cooper pairs in a single-island mesoscopic structure. The island was connected to leads through SQUID (Superconducting Quantum Interference Device) loops. Synchronized flux and voltage signals were applied whereby the Josephson energies of the SQUIDs and the gate charge were tuned adiabatically. From the current-voltage characteristics one can see that the pumped current increases in 1e steps which is due to quasiparticle poisoning on the measurement time scale, but we argue that the transport of charge is due to Cooper pairs.
We study electron pumping through a system of barriers, whose heights are deformed adiabatically. We derive a simple formula for the pumped charge $Q$ in terms of the total reflection and transmission amplitudes and phases. The pumped charge increases with the number of barriers ($n_b$) and shows an interesting step-like behaviour, with the steps appearing at integer values of $Q$. The pumped charge also tends towards quantisation with the increase of the amplitude of the time-varying potential. The value of the quantised pumped charge is shown to be correlated to the discontinuity of the refl…
We numerically implement the concept of thermal radiation pumps in realistic photonic circuits and demonstrate their efficiency to control the radiation current, emitted between two reservoirs with equal temperature. The proposed pumping scheme involves a cyclic adiabatic modulation of two parameters that control the spectral characteristics of the photonic circuit. We show that the resulting pumping cycle exhibits maximum radiation current when a cyclic modulation of the system is properly engineered to be in the proximity of a resonance degeneracy in the parameter space of the photonic circu…
We investigate a graphene quantum pump, adiabatically driven by two thin potential barriers vibrating around their equilibrium positions. For the highly doped leads, the pumped current per mode diverges at the Dirac point due to the more efficient contribution of the evanescent modes in the pumping process. The pumped current shows an oscillatory behavior with an increasing amplitude as a function of the carrier concentration. This effect is in contrast to the decreasing oscillatory behavior of the similar normal pump. The graphene pump driven by two vibrating thin barriers operates more effic…
We consider pumping through a small quantum dot separated from the leads by two point contacts, whose conductances, $G_{1}$ and $G_{2}$, serve as pumping parameters. When the dot is pincched, we find that there is a "resonance line" in the parameter plane $\{G_{1}, G_{2}\}$ along which the Fermi energy in the leads aligns with the energy of the quasi-bound state in the quantum dot. When $G_{1}$ and $G_{2}$ are modulated periodically and adiabatically such that the pumping contour defined by $G_{1}=G_{1}(t)$ and $ G_{2}=G_{2}(t)$ encircles the resonance line, the current is quantized: the charg…
We investigate adiabatic quantum pumping of Dirac fermions on the surface of a strong 3D topological insulator. Two different geometries are studied in detail, a normal metal -- ferromagnetic -- normal metal (NFN) junction and a ferromagnetic -- normal metal -- ferromagnetic (FNF) junction. Using a scattering matrix approach, we first calculate the tunneling conductance and then the adiabatically pumped current using different pumping mechanisms for both types of junctions. We explain the oscillatory behavior of the conductance by studying the condition for resonant transmission in the junctio…
In a mesoscopic system, under zero bias voltage, a finite charge is transferred by quantum adiabatic pumping by adiabatically and periodically changing two or more control parameters. We obtained expressions for the pumped charge for a ring of three quantum dots (QDs) by choosing the magnetic flux penetrating the ring as one of the control parameters. We found that the pumped charge shows a steplike behavior with respect to the variance of the flux. The value of the step heights is not universal but depends on the trajectory of the control parameters. We discuss the physical origin of this beh…
A quantum pump in buckled graphene ribbon with armchair edges is discussed numerically. By solving the Su-Schrieffer-Heeger model and performing the computer simulation of quantum transport we find that a kink adiabatically moving along the metallic ribbon results in highly-efficient pumping, with a charge per kink transition close to the maximal value determined by the Fermi velocity in graphene. Remarkably, insulating nanoribbon show the quantized value of a charge per kink ($2e$) in relatively wide range of the system parameters, providing a candidate for the quantum standard ampere. We att…
We investigate two schemes for pumping spin adiabatically from a ferromagnet through an interacting quantum dot into a normal lead, which exploit the possibility to vary in time the ferromagnet's magnetization, either its amplitude or its direction. For this purpose, we extend a diagrammatic real-time technique for pumping to situations in which the leads' properties are time dependent. In the first scheme, the time-dependent magnetization amplitude is combined with a time-dependent level position of the quantum dot to establish both a charge and a spin current. The second scheme uses a unifor…
The spin orbit effect in graphene is too muted to have any observable significance with respect to its application in spintronics. However, graphene technology is too valuable to be rendered impotent to spin transport. In this communication we look at the effect of adiabatically twisting a single molecule magnet embedded in a graphene monolayer. Surprisingly, we see that pure spin currents (zero charge current) can be generated from the system via quantum pumping. In addition we also see spin selective current can also be pumped from the system. The pure spin current seen is quite resilient to…
We demonstrate that modulations of the stiffness properties of an elastic plate along a spatial dimension induce edge states spanning non-trivial gaps characterized by integer valued Chern numbers. We also show that topological pumping is induced by smooth variations of the phase of the modulation profile along one spatial dimension, which results in adiabatic edge-to-edge transitions of the edge states. The concept is first illustrated numerically for sinusoidal stiffness modulations, and then experimentally demonstrated in a plate with square-wave thickness profile. The presented numerical a…
Adiabatically pumped charge, carried by non-interacting electrons through a quantum dot in a turnstile geometry, is studied as function of the strength of the two modulating potentials (related to the conductances of the two point-contacts to the leads) and of the phase shift between them. It is shown that the magnitude and sign of the pumped charge are determined by the relative position and orientation of the closed contour traversed by the system in the parameter plane, and the transmission peaks (or resonances) in that plane. Integer values (in units of the electronic charge $e$) of the pu…
We investigate the dispersion topology of elastic lattices characterized by spatial stiffness modulation. The modulation is defined by the sampling of a two-dimensional surface, which provides the lattices with topological properties that are usually attributed to two-dimensional crystals. We show that the cyclic variation of the phase of the stiffness modulation leads to a Berry phase accumulation for the Bloch eigenmodes, which is characterized by integer valued Chern numbers for the bands and associated gap labels. The resulting non-trivial gaps are spanned by edge modes localized at one of…
We investigate adiabatic charge pumping in disordered system in one dimension with open and closed boundary conditions. In contrast to the Thouless charge pumping, the system has no gap even though all the states are localized, i.e., strong localization. Charge pumping can be achieved by making a loop adiabatically in the two-dimensional parameter space of the Hamiltonian. It is because there are many $δ$-function-like fluxes distributed over the parameter space with random strength, in sharp contrast to the single $δ$-function in the pure case. This provides a new and more efficient way of ch…
We theoretically propose a graphene-based adiabatic quantum pump with intrinsic spin-orbit coupling (SOC) subject to strain where two time-dependent extrinsic spin-orbit coupled barriers drive spin and charge currents. We study three differing operation modes where i) location, ii) chemical potential, and iii) SOC of the two barriers oscillate periodically and out of phase around their equilibrium states. Our results demonstrate that the amplitude of adiabatically pumped currents highly depends on the considered operation mode. We find that such a device operates with highest efficiency and in…
We use exact techniques to demonstrate theoretically the pumping of fractional charges in a single-level non-interacting quantum dot, when the dot-reservoir coupling is adiabatically driven from weak to strong coupling. The pumped charge averaged over many cycles is quantized at a fraction of an electron per cycle, determined by the ratio of Lamb shift to level-broadening; this ratio is imposed by the reservoir band-structure. For uniform density of states, half an electron is pumped per cycle. We call this "adiabatic almost-topological pumping", because the pumping's Berry curvature is sharpl…
We study charge and spin pumping in an interacting one-dimensional wire. We show that a spatially periodic potential modulated in space and time acts as a quantum pump inducing a dc-current component at zero bias. The current generated by the pump is strongly affected by the interactions. It has a power law dependence on the frequency or temperature with the exponent determined by the interaction in the wire, while the coupling to the pump affects the amplitudes only. We also show that pure spin-pumping can be achieved, without the presence of a magnetic field.
We propose a new type of quantum pump in buckled graphene nanoribbon, adiabatically driven by a kink moving along the ribbon. From a practical point of view, pumps with moving scatterers present advantages as compared to gate-driven pumps, like enhanced charge transfer per cycle per channel. The kink geometry is simplified by truncating the spatial arrangement of carbon atoms with the classical $ϕ^4$ model solution, including a width renormalization following from the Su-Schrieffer-Heeger model for carbon nanostructures. We demonstrate numerically, as a proof of concept, that for moderate defo…
Within the scattering approach, we develop a model for adiabatic quantum pumping in hybrid normal/superconductor systems where several superconducting leads are present. This is exploited to study Andreev-interference effects on adiabatically pumped charge in a 3-arm beam splitter attached to one normal and two superconducting leads with different phases of the order parameters. We derive expressions for the pumped charge through the normal lead for different parameters for the scattering region, and elucidate the effects due to Andreev interference. In contrast to what happens for voltage-dri…
A pure spin current injector is proposed based on adiabatic pumping and crossed normal/Andreev reflection. The device consists of a three-terminal ferromagnet-superconductor-semiconductor system in which the injection of a pure spin current is into the semiconductor which is coupled to the superconductor within a coherence length away from the ferromagnet enabling the phenomena of crossed normal /Andreev reflection to operate. Quantum pumping is induced by adiabatically modulating two independent parameters of the ferromagnetic lead, namely the magnetization strength and the strength of coupli…
We applied the Floquet scattering-matrix formalism to studying the electronic transport properties in a mesoscopic Dirac system. Using the method, we investigate theoretically quantum pumping driven by a series of time-periodic potentials in graphene monolayer both in the adiabatic and non-adiabatic regimes. Our numerical results demonstrate that adding harmonic modulated potentials can break the time reversal symmetry when no voltage bias is applied to the graphene monolayer. Thus, when the system is pumped with proper dynamic parameters, these scatterers can produce a nonzero dc pumped curre…
All-electric devices for the generation and filtering of spin currents are of crucial importance for spintronics experiments and applications. Here we consider a quantum dot between two metallic leads in the presence of spin-orbit coupling, and we analyze in the frame of a scattering matrix approach the conditions for generating spin currents in an adiabatically driven two-terminal device. We then focus on a dot with two resonant orbitals and show by specific examples that both spin filtering and pure spin current generation can be achieved. Finally, we discuss the effect of the Coulomb intera…
We investigate charge and spin transport through an adiabatically driven, strongly interacting quantum dot weakly coupled to two metallic contacts with finite bias voltage. Within a kinetic equation approach, we identify coefficients of response to the time-dependent external driving and relate these to the concepts of charge and spin emissivities previously discussed within the time-dependent scattering matrix approach. Expressed in terms of auxiliary vector fields, the response coefficients allow for a straightforward analysis of recently predicted interaction-induced pumping under periodic …
Topological insulators (TIs) are a new quantum state of matter discovered recently, which are characterized by unconventional bulk topological invariants. Proposals for practical applications of the TIs are mostly based upon their metallic surface or edge states. Here, we report the theoretical discovery of a bulk quantum pumping effect in a two-dimensional TI electrically modulated in adiabatic cycles. In each cycle, an amount of spin proportional to the sample width can be pumped into a nonmagnetic electrode, which is attributed to nonzero spin Chern numbers $C_{\pm}$. Moreover, by using a h…
We investigate the transport of interacting electrons through single-mode quantum wires whose parameters are periodically modulated on the scale of the electronic Fermi wave length. The Umklapp and backscattering of electrons can be described in terms of non-uniform quantum sine-Gordon-like models which also incorporate the effects of electronic reservoirs (electrodes) adiabatically coupled to the wire. We concentrate on weak Umklapp scattering and analyze the precursors of the Mott transition. At half-filling the temperature dependence of the extra resistance $ΔR = R - π\hbar/e^2$ of a modula…
Recent theoretical calculations, demonstrating that quantized charge transfer due to adiabatically modulated potentials in mesoscopic devices can result purely from the interference of the electron wave functions (without invoking electron-electron interactions) are reviewed: (1) A new formula is derived for the pumped charge Q (per period); It reproduces the Brouwer formula without a bias, and also yields the effect of the modulating potential on the Landauer formula in the presence of a bias. (2) For a turnstile geometry, with time-dependent gate voltages V_L(t) and V_R(t), the magnitude and…
We demonstrate with a fully quantum-mechanical approach that graphene can function as gate-controllable transistors for pumped spin currents, i.e., a stream of angular momentum induced by the precession of adjacent magnetizations, which exists in the absence of net charge currents. Furthermore, we propose as a proof of concept how these spin currents can be modulated by an electrostatic gate. Because our proposal involves nano-sized systems that function with very high speeds and in the absence of any applied bias, it is potentially useful for the development of transistors capable of combinin…
The charge transported when a quantum pump is adiabatically driven by time-dependent external forces in presence of dissipation is given by the line integral of a pumping field $\mathbf{F}$. We give a general expression of $\mathbf{F}$ in terms of quantum correlation functions evaluated at fixed external forces. Hence, an advantage of our method is that it transforms the original time-dependent problem into an autonomous one. Yet another advantage is that the curl of $\mathbf{F}$ gives immediate visual information about the geometric structures governing dissipative quantum pumping. This can b…
We give a pedestrian interpretation of a formula of Buttiker et. al. (BPT) relating the adiabatically pumped current to the S matrix and its (time) derivatives. We relate the charge in BPT to Berry's phase and the corresponding Brouwer pumping formula to curvature. As applications we derive explicit formulas for the joint probability density of pumping and conductance when the S matrix is uniformly distributed; and derive a new formula that describes hard pumping when the S matrix is periodic in the driving parameters.
We study the quantum spin pumping of an antiferromagnetic spin-1/2 chain with competing exchange interactions. We show that spatially periodic potential modulated in space and time acts as a quantum spin pump. In our model system, an applied electric field causes a spin gap to its critical ground state by introducing bond-alternation exchange interactions. We study quantum spin pumping at different quantized magnetization states and also explain physically the presence and absence of quantum spin pumping at different fractionally quantized magnetization states.
We propose a setup to realize time-reversal invariant topological superconductors in quantum wires, proximity coupled to conventional superconductors. We consider a model of quantum wire with strong spin-orbit coupling and proximity coupling to two s-wave superconductors. When the relative phase between the two superconductors is $ϕ=π$ a Kramers' pair of Majorana zero modes appears at each edge of the wire. We study the robustness of the phase in presence of both time-reversal invariant and time-reversal breaking perturbations. In addition, we show that the system forms a natural realization o…
Thouless pumping is a mechanism to perform topologically protected transport of particles by adiabatically modulating the Hamiltonian. The transported current is a topological invariant that is intimately related to the integer quantum Hall effect. Most of the previous works focus on topological pumping in linear and square lattices. In this work, we theoretically propose a mechanism to perform topological pumping in arrays of spin chains with complex geometries. To achieve this, we consider an array where the spin chains are coupled through their edges, which allows to split the populations t…
Non-adiabatic charge pumping through a single-level quantum dot with periodically modulated parameters is studied theoretically. By means of a quantum-master-equation approach the full counting statistics of the system is obtained. We find a trinomial-probability distribution of the charge transfer, which adequately describes the reversal of the pumping current by sweeping the driving frequency. Further, we derive equations of motion for current and noise, and solve those numerically for two different driving schemes. Both show interesting features which can be fully analyzed due to the simple…
The generation of ac modulated quantized current waveforms using a semiconductor non-adiabatic single electron pump is demonstrated. In standard operation the single electron pump generates a quantized output current of I = ef where e is the charge of the electron and f is the pumping frequency. Suitable frequency modulation of f allows the generation of ac modulated output currents with different characteristics. By sinusoidal and saw tooth like modulation of f accordingly modulated quantized current waveforms with kHz modulation frequencies and peak currents up to 100 pA are obtained. Such a…
We study the effects of inter-electron interactions on the charge pumped through an adiabatic quantum electron pump. The pumping is through a system of barriers, whose heights are deformed adiabatically. (Weak) interaction effects are introduced through a renormalisation group flow of the scattering matrices and the pumped charge is shown to {\it always} approach a quantised value at low temperatures or long length scales. The maximum value of the pumped charge is set by the number of barriers and is given by $Q_{\rm max} = n_b -1$. The correlation between the transmission and the charge pumpe…
The unrelated discoveries of quasicrystals and topological insulators have in turn challenged prevailing paradigms in condensed-matter physics. We find a surprising connection between quasicrystals and topological phases of matter: (i) quasicrystals exhibit nontrivial topological properties and (ii) these properties are attributed to dimensions higher than that of the quasicrystal. Specifically, we show, both theoretically and experimentally, that one-dimensional quasicrystals are assigned two-dimensional Chern numbers and, respectively, exhibit topologically protected boundary states equivale…
A mechanism of current-induced magnetization reversal based on the parametric resonance is described. The source of the magnetization reversal is a current-induced magnetic field, which is applied perpendicularly to the easy axis of magnetic anisotropy of a ferromagnetic nanomagnet. The current-induced magnetic field was measured in a FeCoB nanomagnet to be 60 Gauss at a current density of 65 mA/um2. Two mechanisms of the magnetization reversal are described and calculated. The first mechanism is the reversal by a RF electrical current, which modulated at a frequency close to the precession fr…
The photoluminescence polarizations of (In,Ga)As/GaAs quantum dots annealed at different temperatures are studied as a function of external magnetic field (Hanle curves). In these dependencies, remarkable resonant features appear due to all-optical nuclear magnetic resonances (NMR) for optical excitation with modulated circular polarization. Application of an additional radio-frequency field synchronously with the polarization modulation strongly modifies the NMR features. The resonances can be related to transitions between different nuclear spin states split by the strain-induced gradient of…
In this article, we develop a description of topological pumps as slow classical dynamical variables coupled by a quantum system. We discuss the cases of quantum Hall pumps, Thouless pumps, and the more recent Floquet pumps based frequency converters. This last case corresponds to a quantum topological coupling between classical modes described by action-angle variables on which we focus. We propose a realization of such a topological coupler based on a superconducting qutrit suitably driven by three modulated drives. A detailed experimental protocol allowing to measure the quantized topologic…
We consider a system consisting of a large individual quantum dot with excitonic resonance coupled to a single mode photonic cavity in the nonlinear regime when exciton- exciton interaction becomes important. We show that in the presence of time-modulated external coherent pumping the system demonstrates essentially non classical behavior reflected in sub-Poissonian statistics of exciton- and photon-modes and the Wigner functions with negative values in phase-space for time-intervals exceeding the characteristic time of dissipative processes, $t\ggγ^{-1}$. It is shown that these results are ca…
We describe how adiabatically rocked quantum electron ratchets can act as heat pumps. In general, ratchets may be described as non-equilibrium systems in which directed particle motion is generated using spatial or temporal asymmetry. In a rocked ratchet, which may also be described as a non-linear rectifier, an asymmetric potential is tilted symmetrically and periodically. The potential deforms differently during each half-cycle, producing a net current of particles when averaged over a full period of rocking. Recently it was found that in the quantum regime, where tunnelling contributes to t…
The sharply quantized transport observed in the integer quantum Hall effect can be explained via a simple one-dimensional model with a time-periodic, adiabatically varying potential in which electronic charge is pumped from one side of the system to the other. This so-called `Thouless pump' captures the topological physics of the quantum Hall effect using the notion of dimensional reduction: The time-varying potential mathematically maps onto a momentum coordinate in a conceptual second dimension. Importantly, this assumes an electronic system in equilibrium and in its ground state, that is, w…
In this paper, we study the localized states of a generic quadratic fermionic chain with finite-range couplings and an inhomogeneity in the hopping (defect) that breaks translational invariance. When the hopping of the defect vanishes, which represents an open chain, we obtain a simple bulk-edge correspondence: the zero-energy modes localized at the ends of the chain are related to the roots of a polynomial determined by the couplings of the Hamiltonian of the bulk. From this result, we define an index that characterizes the different topological phases of the system and can be easily computed…
We address theoretically adiabatic regime of charge transport for a model of two tunnel-coupled quantum dots connected in series. The energy levels of the two dots are harmonically modulated by an external potential with a constant phase shift between the two. Motivated by recent experiments with surface-acoustic-wave excitation, we consider two situations: (a) pure pumping in the absence of external voltage (also at finite temperature), and (b) adiabatic modulation of the current driven by large external bias. In both cases we derive results consistent with published experimental data. For th…
We study electron pumping in the strong coupling and non-Markovian regime. Our model is a single quantum dot with periodically modulated energy and tunnelling amplitudes. We identify four parameters to control the direction of the current: the driving phase, the coupling strength, the driving frequency and the location of the maxima of the spectral density. In the high-frequency regime, we use a Markovian embedding strategy to map our model to three serial quantum dots weakly coupled to the reservoirs allowing us to use a Floquet master equation. We observe a rectification effect of the pumped…
