By eliminating normal fabrication processes, we preserve the bulk insulating state of calcium-doped Bi2Se3 single crystals in suspended nanodevices, as indicated by the activated temperature dependence of the resistivity at low temperatures. We perform low-energy electron beam irradiation (<16 keV) and electrostatic gating to control the carrier density and therefore the Fermi level position in the nanodevices. In slightly p-doped Bi2-xCaxSe3 devices, continuous tuning of the Fermi level from the bulk valence band to the band-gap reveals dramatic enhancement (> a factor of 10) in the field-effect mobility, which suggests suppressed backscattering expected for the Dirac fermion surface states in the gap of topological insulators.
Boltzmann diffusive transport including relaxation time and mobility in graphene limited by ionized impurity scattering is investigated. The relaxation time is evaluated with two different methods, first one directly use Boltzmann transport equation via scattering matrix, second one is based on scattering cross-section. Two methods yield the same relaxation time results for graphene. Assume linear Thomas-Fermi screening and a reasonable electron carrier density, relaxation time and mobility can be calculated and plotted, which demonstrates graphene is a very promising high mobility material fo…
The interaction between intersubband resonances (ISRs) and metamaterial microcavities can form a strongly coupled system where new resonances form that depend on the coupling strength. Here we present experimental evidence of strong coupling between the cavity resonance of a THz metamaterial and the ISR in a high electron mobility transistor structure with a triangular confinement. The device is electrically switched from an uncoupled to a strongly coupled regime by tuning the ISR with epitaxially grown transparent gates. An asymmetric triangular potential in the heterostructure enables ultraw…
The density-dependent mobility of n-type HgTe quantum wells with inverted band ordering has been studied both experimentally and theoretically. While semiconductor heterostructures with a parabolic dispersion exhibit an increase in mobility with carrier density, high quality HgTe quantum wells exhibit a distinct mobility maximum. We show that this mobility anomaly is due to backscattering of Dirac fermions from random fluctuations of the band gap (Dirac mass). Our findings open new avenues for the study of Dirac fermion transport with finite and random mass, which so far has been hard to acces…
Sets of nanomagnets are often utilized to mimic cellular automata in design of nanomagnetic logic devices or frustration and emergence of magnetic charges in artificial spin ice systems. in previous work we showed that unidirectional arrangement of nanomagnets can behave as artificial spin ice, with frustration arising from second neighbor dipolar interaction, and present good magnetic charge mobility due to the low string tension among charges. Here, we present an experimental investigation of magnetic charge population and mobility in function of lateral and longitudinal distance among nanom…
A theoretical model is presented for the phonon limited mobility of the Dirac-Fermion gas in a three-dimensional (3D) Dirac semimetal Cd$_3$As$_2$ considering scattering from both the acoustic and the optical phonons. Screening effects are taken into account and it is found that they lead to a significant enhancement of the mobility. Simple analytical equations and power laws are obtained in both the Bloch-Gruneisen and equipartition regimes. The dependence of mobility on the temperature $T$ and the electron density $n_e$ is investigated. It is found that optical phonon limited mobility $μ_{op…
Impact of induced strain on charge carrier mobility is investigated for a monolayer graphene sheet. Mobility is computed within Born approximation by including impurity scattering, surface roughness effects and interaction with lattice phonons. Unlike its sSi counterpart, strained graphene shows a drop in mobility with increasing strain. Main reason for this effect is decrease in Fermi velocity due to induced distortions in the graphene honeycomb.
We report on a detailed study of the terahertz (THz) photoresistivity in a strained HgTe three-dimensional topological insulator (3D TI) for all Fermi level positions: inside the conduction and valence bands, and in the bulk gap. In the presence of a magnetic field we detect a resonance corresponding to the cyclotron resonance (CR) in the top surface Dirac fermions (DF) and examine the nontrivial dependence of the surface state cyclotron mass on the Fermi level position. We also detect additional resonant features at moderate electron densities and demonstrate that they are caused by the mixin…
We develop a microscopic theory of the Coulomb drag effect in a hybrid system consisting of spatially separated two-dimensional quantum gases of degenerate electrons and dipolar excitons. We consider both the normal-phase and condensate regimes of the exciton subsystem and investigate the cross-mobility of the system being the kinetic coefficient, which couples the static electric field applied to the electron layer with the particle density current (flux) in the exciton subsystem. We study the temperature dependence of the cross-mobility and its dependence on the interlayer separation. We sho…
The calculated electron mobility for a graphene nanoribbon as a function of applied electric field has been found to have a large threshold field for entering a nonlinear transport regime. This field depends on the lattice temperature, electron density, impurity scattering strength, nanoribbon width and correlation length for the line-edge roughness. An enhanced electron mobility beyond this threshold has been observed, which is related to the initially-heated electrons in high energy states with a larger group velocity. However, this mobility enhancement quickly reaches a maximum due to the F…
Experimental and theoretical evidence is presented for new low-magnetic-field ($B<5$ kG) 1/B-oscillations in the thermoelectric power of a high-mobility GaAs/AlGaAs two-dimensional (2D) electron gas. The oscillations result from inter-Landau-Level resonances of acoustic phonons carrying a momentum equal to twice the Fermi wavenumber at $B = 0$. Numerical calculations show that both 3D and 2D phonons can contribute to this effect.
Recent experiments on suspended graphene layers have indicated the crucial role of carrier mobility in the competition between Laughlin collective state and insulating state, probably of Wigner-crystal-type. Moreover, the fractional quantum Hall effect (FQHE) in graphene has been observed at a low carrier density where the interaction is reduced as a result of particles dilution. This suggests that the interaction may not be as important in the triggering of FQHE as expected based on the standard formulation of the composite fermions model. Here, the topological arguments are presented to expl…
We report the observation of a parallel magnetic field induced metal-insulator transition (MIT) in a high-mobility two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) for which spin and localization physics most likely play no major role. The high-mobility metallic phase at low field is consistent with the established Fermi liquid transport theory including phonon scattering, whereas the insulating phase at higher field shows a large negative temperature dependence at resistances much smaller than the quantum of resistance, $h/e^2$. We argue that this observation is a direct manifestation of a quantum-classic…
Anisotropic charge carrier transport in black phosphorus limited by ionized impurity scattering at finite temperature is explored theoretically. The anisotropic electronic structure enters the calculation for the polarizability (screening), the momentum relaxation time, and the mobility. For finite temperature, scattering is not limited to the Fermi surface and the polarizability is temperature dependent. The impact of screening is investigated in detail with its dependence on carrier density and temperature. Competing with the thermal excitation effects, the temperature dependence of the pola…
Dirac fermions in condensed matter physics hold great promise for novel fundamental physics, quantum devices and data storage applications. IV-VI semiconductors, in the inverted regime, have been recently shown to exhibit massless topological surface Dirac fermions protected by crystalline symmetry, as well as massive bulk Dirac fermions. Under a strong magnetic field (B), both surface and bulk states are quantized into Landau levels that disperse as B^1/2, and are thus difficult to distinguish. In this work, magneto-optical absorption is used to probe the Landau levels of high mobility Bi-dop…
We demonstrate tuning of the Fermi contour anisotropy of two-dimensional (2D) holes in a symmetric GaAs (001) quantum well via the application of in-plane strain. The ballistic transport of high-mobility hole carriers allows us to measure the Fermi wavevector of 2D holes via commensurability oscillations as a function of strain. Our results show that a small amount of in-plane strain, on the order of $10^{-4}$, can induce significant Fermi wavevector anisotropy as large as 3.3, equivalent to a mass anisotropy of 11 in a parabolic band. Our method to tune the anisotropy \textit{in situ} provide…
We investigated the magnetotransport properties of strained, 80nm thick HgTe layers featuring a high mobility of mu =4x10^5 cm^2/Vs. By means of a top gate the Fermi-energy is tuned from the valence band through the Dirac type surface states into the conduction band. Magnetotransport measurements allow to disentangle the different contributions of conduction band electrons, holes and Dirac electrons to the conductivity. The results are are in line with previous claims that strained HgTe is a topological insulator with a bulk gap of ~15meV and gapless surface states.
Spin drag measurements were performed in a two-dimensional electron system set close to the crossed spin helix regime and coupled by strong intersubband scattering. In a sample with uncommon combination of long spin lifetime and high charge mobility, the drift transport allows us to determine the spin-orbit field and the spin mobility anisotropies. We used a random walk model to describe the system dynamics and found excellent agreement for the Rashba and Dresselhaus couplings. The proposed two-subband system displays a large tuning lever arm for the Rashba constant with gate voltage, which pr…
Dirac materials are characterized by energy-momentum relations that resemble those of relativistic massless particles. Commonly denominated Dirac cones, these dispersion relations are considered to be their essential feature. These materials comprise quite diverse examples, such as graphene and topological insulators. Band-engineering techniques should aim to a full control of the parameter that characterizes the Dirac cones: the Fermi velocity. We propose a general mechanism that enables the fine-tuning of the Fermi velocity in Dirac materials in a readily accessible way for experiments. By e…
Electronic behavior of a 1D Aubry chain with Hubbard interaction is critically analyzed in presence of electric field. Multiple energy bands are generated as a result of Hubbard correlation and Aubry potential, and, within these bands localized states are developed under the application of electric field. Within a tight-binding framework we compute electronic transmission probability and average density of states using Green's function approach where the interaction parameter is treated under Hartree-Fock mean field scheme. From our analysis we find that selective transmission can be obtained …
Introduction of a Josephson field effect transistor (JoFET) concept sparked active research on proximity effects in semiconductors. Induced superconductivity and electrostatic control of critical current has been demonstrated in two-dimensional gases in InAs, graphene and topological insulators, and in one-dimensional systems including quantum spin Hall edges. Recently, interest in superconductor-semiconductor interfaces was renewed by the search for Majorana fermions, which were predicted to reside at the interface. More exotic non-Abelian excitations, such as parafermions (fractional Majoran…
We have theoretically studied the dielectric environment effect on the charged-impurity-limited carrier mobility of graphene double-layer structure (GDLS) on the basis of the Boltzmann transport theory. In this system, two graphene layers are separated by a dielectric barrier layer. It is pointed out that the carrier mobility strongly depends on the dielectric constant of the barrier layer when the interlayer distance becomes larger than the inverse of the Fermi wave vector. Moreover, the conditions to improve the charged-impurity-limited carrier mobility of the GDLS are evaluated.
Expressions for the electron power loss F(T) and mobility μ_p due to acoustic phonon scattering are given in the Bloch-Grüneisen (BG) regime for three- and two- dimensional electron gas in semiconductors and Dirac-fermions. We obtain a simple relation F(T) μ_p = ηev_s^2, where η (~1) is a constant, e is the electron charge and v_s is acoustic phonon velocity. It is found to be independent of temperature and electron concentration. This relation is applied to GaAs heterojucntions and graphene, to obtain μ_p from the measured F(T). We propose that, using this relation, the measurements of F(T), …
Using small wavelength surface acoustic waves (SAW) on ultra-high mobility heterostructures, Fermi surface properties are detected at 5/2 filling factor at temperatures higher than those at which the quantum Hall state forms. An enhanced conductivity is observed at 5/2 by employing sub 0.5 micron wavelength SAW, indicating a quasiparticle mean-free-path substantially smaller than that in the lowest Landau level. These findings are consistent with the presence of a filled Fermi sea of composite fermions, which may pair at lower temperatures to form the 5/2 ground state.
We observe minima of the longitudinal resistance corresponding to the quantum Hall effect of composite fermions at quantum numbers $p=1$, 2, 3, 4, and 6 in an ultraclean strongly interacting bivalley SiGe/Si/SiGe two-dimensional electron system. The minima at $p=3$ disappear below a certain electron density, although the surrounding minima at $p=2$ and $p=4$ survive at significantly lower densities. Furthermore, the onset for the resistance minimum at a filling factor $ν=3/5$ is found to be independent of the tilt angle of the magnetic field. These surprising results indicate the intersection …
In this work, we use charge extraction via organic overlayer deposition to lower the chemical potential of topological insulator Bi2Se3 thin films into the intrinsic (bulk-insulating) regime. We demonstrate the tuning and stabilization of intrinsic topological insulators at high mobility with low-cost organic films. With the protection of the organic charge extraction layers tetrafluorotetracyanoquinodimethane(F4TCNQ) or tris(acetylacetonato)cobalt(III) (Co(acac)3), the sample is stable in the atmosphere with chemical potential ~135 meV above the Dirac point (85 meV below the conduction band m…
We describe a new class of nanoscale structured metals wherein the effects of quantum confinement are combined with dispersive metallic electronic states to induce modifications to the fundamental low-energy microscopic properties of a three-dimensional metal: the density of states, the distribution of Fermi velocities, and the collective electronic response.
We show that an internal localization mobility edge can appear around the Fermi energy in graphene by introducing impurities in the split-band regimen, or by producing vacancies in the lattice. The edge appears at the center of the spectrum and not at the band edges, in contrast with the usual picture of localization. Such result is explained by showing that the bipartite nature of lattice allows to renormalize the Hamiltonian, and the internal edge appears because of frustration effects in the renormalized lattice. The size in energy of the spectral region with localized states is similar in …
Strain engineering is an important method for tuning the properties of semiconductors and has been used to improve the mobility of silicon transistors for several decades. Recently, theoretical studies have predicted that strain can also improve the mobility of two-dimensional (2D) semiconductors, e.g. by reducing intervalley scattering or lowering effective masses. Here, we experimentally show strain-enhanced electron mobility in monolayer MoS2 transistors with uniaxial tensile strain, on flexible substrates. The on-state current and mobility are nearly doubled with tensile strain up to 0.7%,…
Instead of normal non-Arrhenius relationship, the carrier mobility $ln(μ)$ v.s. $1/T^2$ showed abnormal dependence in an MEH-PPV / InP nanocrystal composite system that a critical temperature $(T_c)$ behavior is prominent in temperature range of 233 K to 333 K. Here, in the model of variable range hopping theory, an analytical model is developed within a Gaussian trap distribution, which is successfully implemented on that phenomenon. The results show that Tc becomes the transition temperature as long as trap-filling factor (FF) ~1, which means a transition point from Boltzmann to Fermi distri…
We report the observation of fractional quantum Hall (FQH) effects in a two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) confined to an InAs/AlGaSb quantum well, using a dual-gated Hall-bar device allowing for the independent control of the vertical electric field and electron density. At a magnetic field of 24 T, we observe FQH states at several filling factors, namely $ν= 5/3$, $2/3$, and $1/3$, in addition to the $ν= 4/3$ previously reported for an InAs 2DEG. The $ν= 4/3$ and $5/3$ states, which are absent at zero back-gate voltage, emerge as the quantum well is made more symmetric by applying a positiv…
We show Shubnikov-de Haas oscillations in topological insulator (Bi$_{x}$Sb$_{1-x}$)$_{2}$Te$_{3}$ films whose carrier type is p-type (x = 0.29, 0.34) and n-type (x = 0.42). The physical properties such as the Berry phase, mobility, and the scattering time are significantly changed by tuning the Fermi-level position with the concentration x. The Landau-level fan diagram in the sample with x = 0.42 showed the $π$ Berry phase and its mobility was as high as 17,000 cm$^{2}$/V/s, whereas the others had the 2$π$ Berry phase and much lower mobility. This suggests that because the bulk band of the sa…
In Bi$_2$Te$_2$Se, the period of quantum oscillations arising from surface Dirac fermions can be increased 6-fold using ionic liquid gating. At large gate voltages, the Fermi energy reaches the $N$ = 1 Landau level in a 14-Tesla field. This enables the $\frac12$-shift predicted for the Dirac spectrum to be measured accurately. A surprising result is that liquid gating strongly enhances the surface mobility. By analyzing the Hall conductivity, we show that the enhancement occurs on only one surface. We present evidence that the gating process is fully reversible (hence consistent with band-bend…
In order to stabilize Majorana excitations within vortices of proximity induced topological superconductors, it is mandatory that the Dirac point matches the Fermi level rather exactly, such that the conventionally confined states within the vortex are well separated from the Majorana-type excitation. Here, we show by angle resolved photoelectron spectroscopy that (Bi$_{1-x}$Sb$_{x}$)$_{2}$Te$_{3}$ thin films with $x=0.94$ prepared by molecular beam epitaxy and transferred in ultrahigh vacuum from the molecular beam epitaxy system to the photoemission setup matches this condition. The Dirac po…
We calculate the mobility of a two-dimensional electron gas residing at the interface of LaAlO$_{3}$/SrTiO$_{3}$ following a three band Boltzmann approach at low temperature, where carrier-charged impurity scattering process is assumed to be dominant. We explain the anisotropic characteristic of the dielectric function, which is a consequence of elliptical bands close to Fermi surface. The screening effect, which weakens the long-range Coulomb interaction of the electron-impurity is considered within the random phase approximation. Working at carrier densities high enough to neglect the spin-o…
We discuss the Seebeck coefficient and the Hall mobility of electrons confined in narrow SrTiO3 quantum wells as a function of the three-dimensional carrier density and temperature. The quantum wells contain a fixed sheet carrier density of ~ 7x10^14 cm^-2 and their thickness is varied. At high temperatures, both properties exhibit apparent Fermi liquid behavior. In particular, the Seebeck coefficient increases nearly linearly with temperature (T) when phonon drag contributions are minimized, while the mobility decreases proportional to T^2. Furthermore, the Seebeck coefficient scales inversel…
High surface-mobility, which is attributable to topological protection, is a trademark of three-dimensional topological insulators (3DTIs). Exploiting surface-mobility indicates successful application of topological properties for practical purposes. However, the detection of the surface-mobility has been hindered by the inevitable bulk conduction. Even in the case of high-quality crystals, the bulk state forms the dominant channel of the electrical current. Therefore, with electrical transport measurement, the surface-mobility can be resolved only below-micrometer-thick crystals. The evaluati…
We investigate theoretically 2D electronic transport in Si:P $δ$-doped layers limited by charged-dopant scattering. Since the carrier density is approximately equal to the dopant impurity density, the density dependent transport shows qualitatively different behavior from that of the well-studied 2D Si-MOSFETs where the carrier density is independent of the impurity density. We find that the density dependent mobility of the Si:P system shows non-monotonic behavior which is exactly opposite of the non-monotonicity observed in Si-MOSFETs --- in the Si:P system the mobility first decreases with …
We present a study of Andreev Quantum Dots (QDots) fabricated with small-diameter (30 nm) Si-doped InAs nanowires where the Fermi level can be tuned across a mobility edge separating localized states from delocalized states. The transition to the insulating phase is identified by a drop in the amplitude and width of the excited levels and is found to have remarkable consequences on the spectrum of superconducting SubGap Resonances (SGRs). While at deeply localized levels, only quasiparticles co-tunneling is observed, for slightly delocalized levels, Shiba bound states form and a parity changin…
