We investigated the effect due to perpendicular magnetic field on quantum wires where spin-orbit interaction (SOI) of electrons is not neglected. Based on the calculated energy dispersion, the nonlinear ballistic conductance ($G$) and electron-diffusion thermoelectric power ($S_d$) are calculated as functions of electron density, temperature and applied bias voltage. A low-temperature half-step feature in $G$, which was observed experimentally by Quay et al. [see Nature Physics {\bf 6}, 336 (2010)], as well as a new peak in $S_d$ are reproduced here in the low density regime. These phenomena are related to the occurrence of the Zeeman splitting and SOI induced saddle point in the band structure, where the channel chemical potential lies within an anticrossing gap between the saddle point of the lower subband and the bottom of the upper subband. Additionally, side peaks in $G$ far away from the zero bias for the nonlinear transport, as well as a quadratic bias-voltage dependence of $G$ near zero voltage, are predicted and discussed.
The quantized conductance plateaus and zero conductance fluctuation are the general consequence of electron transport in chiral edge states of Hermitian Chern insulators. Here we show that the physics of electron transport through chiral or helical edge channels becomes much richer when the non-Hermicity is allowed. In the presence of an unbalanced non-Hermicity where the chiral edge states have finite-lifetime, the conductance of the edge channels is not quantized, but its conductance fluctuation is zero. For the balanced non-Hermicity, however, the chiral edge states have infinite-lifetime, …
Quantized thermal conductance of dielectric quantum wires
利用输运理论的Landauer公式，我们预测介电量子线在低温下应该表现出量子化的热导，在弹道声子制度。热传导的量子是通用的，与材料的特性无关，并且等于$π^2 k^2_B T /3h$，其中$k_B$是玻耳兹曼常量，h是普朗克常数，T是温度。量子化的热导应该是实验上可观察到的悬浮纳米结构，磁耦合到水库，设备，可以实现在目前的时间。
We show theoretically that quantized zero-bias conductance peaks should be ubiquitous in superconductor-semiconductor hybrids by employing a zero-dimensional random matrix model with continuous tuning parameters. We demonstrate that a normal metal-superconductor (NS) junction conductance spectra can be generically obtained in this model replicating all features seen in recent experimental results. The theoretical quantized conductance peaks, which explicitly do not arise from spatially isolated Majorana zero modes, are easily found by preparing a contour plot of conductance over several indepe…
We introduce a non-linear frequency dependent D+1 terminal conductance that characterizes a D dimensional Fermi gas, generalizing the Landauer conductance in D=1. For a 2D ballistic conductor we show that this conductance is quantized and probes the Euler characteristic of the Fermi sea. We critically address the roles of electrical contacts and of Fermi liquid interactions, and we propose experiments on 2D Dirac materials such as graphene using a triple point contact geometry.
Recently,a half-quantized Hall conductance (HQHC) plateau is experimentally observed in a semi-magnetic topological insulator heterostructure. However,the heterostructure is metallic with a nonzero longitudinal conductance, which contradicts the common belief that quantized Hall conductance is usually observed in insulators.In this work,we systematically study the surface transport of the semi-magnetic topological insulator with both gapped and gapless Dirac surfaces in the presence of dephasing process.In particular, we reveal that the HQHC is directly related to the half-quantized chiral cur…
We show that partially separated Andreev bound states (ps-ABSs), comprised of pairs of overlapping Majorana bound states (MBSs) emerging in quantum dot-semiconductor-superconductor heterostructures, produce robust zero bias conductance plateaus in end-of-wire charge tunneling experiments. These plateaus remain quantized at $2e^2/h$ over large ranges of experimental control parameters. In light of recent experiments reporting the observation of robust $2e^2/h$-quantized conductance plateaus in local charge tunneling experiments, we perform extensive numerical calculations to explicitly show tha…
We report the experimental observation of quantized conductance by Rashba bands at the surface of 50-nm Bi nanowires. With increasing magnetic fields along the wire axis, the wires exhibit a stepwise increase of conductance with as many as four distinct plateaus together with oscillatory thermopower. The observations can be accounted for by the increase of the number of propagating surface modes. The modes have very high mobility and are associated with Aharonov-Bohm interference around the perimeter consistently with theory of quasiballistic one-dimensional nanowires considering that Lorentz …
Majorana zero-modes hold great promise for topological quantum computing. Tunnelling spectroscopy in electrical transport is the primary tool to identify the presence of Majorana zero-modes, for instance as a zero-bias peak (ZBP) in differential-conductance. The Majorana ZBP-height is predicted to be quantized at the universal conductance value of 2e2/h at zero temperature. Interestingly, this quantization is a direct consequence of the famous Majorana symmetry, 'particle equals antiparticle'. The Majorana symmetry protects the quantization against disorder, interactions, and variations in the…
Electrical conductance measurements have limited scope in identifying Andreev edge states (AESs), which form the basis for realizing various topological excitations in quantum Hall (QH) - superconductor (SC) junctions. To unambiguously detect AESs, we measure shot noise along with electrical conductance in a graphene based QH-SC junction at integer filling nu=2. Remarkably, we find that the Fano factor of shot noise approaches half when the bias energy is less than the superconducting gap, whereas it is close to zero above the superconducting gap. This is striking, given that, at the same time…
We report on magnetic field dependence of half-integer quantized conductance plateaus (HQPs) in InAs quantum wires. We observed HQPs at zero applied magnetic field in InAs quantum wires fabricated from a high-quality InAs quantum well. The application of in-plane magnetic field causes Zeeman splitting of the HQP features, indicating that the origin of the observed HQP is not spontaneous spin polarization. Additionally we observe that conductance of the split HQPs decreases gradually as the in-plane magnetic field increases. We finally assume electron-electron interaction as a possible mechanis…
Majorana zero modes can appear at the wire ends of a 1D topological superconductor and manifest themselves as a quantized zero-bias conductance peak in the tunneling spectroscopy of normal-superconductor junctions. However, in superconductor-semiconductor hybrid nanowires, zero-bias conductance peaks may arise owing to topologically trivial mechanisms as well, mimicking the Majorana-induced topological peak in many aspects. In this work, we systematically investigate the characteristics of zero-bias conductance peaks for topological Majorana bound states, trivial quasi-Majorana bound states an…
We demonstrate that it is possible to distinguish two conductance switching mechanisms in silver sulfide devices at room temperature. Experiments were performed using a Ag$_2$S thin film deposited on a wide Ag bottom electrode, which was contacted by the Pt tip of a scanning tunneling microscope. By applying a positive voltage on the silver electrode the conductance is seen to switch to a state having three orders of magnitude higher conductance, which is related to the formation of a conductive path inside the Ag$_2$S thin film. We argue this to be composed of a metallic silver nanowire accom…
Probing an isolated Majorana zero mode is predicted to reveal a tunneling conductance quantized at $2e^2/h$ at zero temperature. Experimentally, a zero-bias peak (ZBP) is expected and its height should remain robust against relevant parameter tuning, forming a quantized plateau. Here, we report the observation of large ZBPs in a thin InAs-Al hybrid nanowire device. The ZBP height can stick close to $2e^2/h$, mostly within $5\%$ tolerance, by sweeping gate voltages and magnetic field. We further map out the phase diagram and identify two plateau regions in the phase space. Despite the presence …
The energy spectrum of massless Dirac fermions in graphene under two dimensional periodic magnetic modulation having square lattice symmetry is calculated. We show that the translation symmetry of the problem is similar to that of the Hofstadter or TKNN problem and in the weak field limit the tight binding energy eigenvalue equation is indeed given by Harper Hofstadter hamiltonian. We show that due to its magnetic translational symmetry the Hall conductivity can be identified as a topological invariant and hence quantized. We thus extend the idea of Quantum Hall Effect to magnetically modulate…
The universal quantization of thermal conductance provides information on the topological order of a state beyond electrical conductance. Such measurements have become possible only recently, and have discovered, in particular, that the value of the observed thermal conductance of the 5/2 state is not consistent with either the Pfaffian or the anti-Pfaffian model, motivating several theoretical articles. The analysis of the experiments has been made complicated by the presence of counter-propagating edge channels arising from edge reconstruction, an inevitable consequence of separating the dop…
Half-quantized anomalous Hall conductance in topological insulator/ferromagnet van der Waals heterostructures
Linnaeus University（林奈大学）；Nordita, KTH Royal Institute of Technology and Stockholm University（北欧原子理论中心，皇家理工学院和斯德哥尔摩大学）；University of Connecticut（康涅狄格大学）；University of Texas at El Paso（德克萨斯大学埃尔帕索分校）；University of Texas at Austin（德克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校）
We study the electronic transport of heterojunctions made of chiral topological superconductors (TSCs) with $N$ chiral Majorana fermion modes and quantum Hall insulators (QHIs) with integer Chern number $C$. In the weak disorder regime, we show the two-terminal conductance $σ_{12}$ of a QHI-TSC-QHI junction is generically non-quantized, but obeys a certain distribution determined by $C$ and $N$, which is induced by random SO($N$) rotations of chiral Majorana fermion mode basis on the TSC edges. Oppositely, in the strong disorder regime, $σ_{12}$ tends to be a quantized value. We conclude with …
We investigate a possibility of pair electron-electron e-e collisions in a ballistic wire with spin-orbit coupling and only one populated mode. Unlike in a spin-degenerate system, a combination of spin-splitting in momentum space with a momentum-dependent spin-precession opens up a finite phase space for pair e-e collisions around three distinct positions of the wire's chemical potential. For a short wire, we calculate corresponding resonant contributions to the conductance, which have different power-law temperature dependencies, and, in some cases, vanish if the wire's transverse confinement…
Controllable quantized conductance states of TiN/Ti/HfO$_x$/TiN memristors are realized with great precision through a pulse-mode reset procedure, assisted with analytical differentiation of the condition of the set procedure, which involves critical monitoring of the measured bias voltage. An intriguing training effect that leads to faster switching of the states is also observed during the operation. Detailed analyses on the low- and high-resistance states under different compliance currents reveal a complete picture of the structural evolution and dynamic behaviors of the conductive filamen…
Quantized conductance in a CVD-grown nanoribbon with hidden Rashba effect
Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院物理研究所凝聚态物理国家实验室）；University of Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院大学）；Hefei National Laboratory（合肥国家实验室）
