The quasiclassical theory of a nanosize point contacts (PC) between two ferromagnets is developed. The maximum available magnetoresistance values in PC are calculated for ballistic versus diffusive transport through the area of a contact. In the ballistic regime the magnetoresistance in excess of few hundreds percents is obtained for the iron-group ferromagnets. The necessary conditions for realization of so large magnetoresistance in PC, and the experimental results by Garcia et al are discussed
In ferromagnetic nanostructures, the ballistic anisotropic magnetoresistance (BAMR) is a change in the ballistic conductance with the direction of magnetization due to spin-orbit interaction. Very recently, a directional dependent ballistic conductance has been predicted to occur in a number of newly synthesized nonmagnetic semiconducting nanostructures subject to externally applied magnetic fields, without necessitating spin-orbit coupling. In this article, we review past works on the prediction of this BAMR effect in core-shell nanowires and rolled-up nanotubes. This is complemented by new r…
We theoretically study the magnetoresistance of single wall carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) in the ballistic transport regime, using a standard tight-binding approach. The main attention is directed to spin-polarized electrical transport in the presence of either axial or perpendicular magnetic field. The method takes into account both Zeeman splitting as well as size and chirality effects. These factors (along with a broadening of energy levels due to a strong nanotube/electrode coupling) lead, in ultra small SWCNTs, to serious modifications in profile of the Aharonov-Bohm oscillations. Other notew…
Large ballistic magnetoresistance (BMR) has been measured in Ni single-atom conductors electrodeposited between microfabricated thin films. These measurements irrefutably eliminate any magnetostriction related artifacts in the BMR effect.
The electronic structure and conductance of substitutionally edge-doped zigzag silicene nanoribbons (ZSiNRs) are investigated using the nonequilibrium Green's function method combined with the density functional theory. Two-probe systems of ZSiNRs in both ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic states are considered. Doping effects of elements from groups III and V, in a parallel or antiparallel magnetic configuration of the two electrodes, are discussed. Switching on and off the external magnetic field, we may convert the metallic ferromagnetic ZSiNRs into insulating antiferromagnetic ZSiNRs. In …
Ballistic transport was studied in a multiple-band system consisting of an antidot lattice of AB-stacked trilayer graphene. The low temperature magnetoresistance showed commensurability peaks arising from matching of the antidot lattice period and radius of cyclotron orbits for each mono- and bilayer-like band in AB stacked trilayer graphene. The commensurability peak of the monolayer-like band appeared at a lower magnetic field than that of the bilayer-like band, which reflects the fact that the Fermi surface of the bilayer-like band is larger than that of monolayer-like band. Rotation of the…
Hydrodynamic phonon transport was recently predicted as an important regime for phonon transport in graphitic materials. Many of past studies on hydrodynamic phonon transport have focused on the cases where the hydrodynamic regime predominates over other regimes such that hydrodynamic features can be clearly observed. However, this often requires stringent conditions of temperature and sample size. In many cases, a single regime does not dominate other regimes, but all three regimes - ballistic, hydrodynamic, and diffusive regimes - exist to some extent. Here we assess the extent of three regi…
For electron transport in parallel-plane semiconducting structures, a model is developed that unifies ballistic and diffusive transport and thus generalizes the Drude model. The unified model is valid for arbitrary magnitude of the mean free path and arbitrary shape of the conduction band edge profile. Universal formulas are obtained for the current-voltage characteristic in the nondegenerate case and for the zero-bias conductance in the degenerate case, which describe in a transparent manner the interplay of ballistic and diffusive transport. The semiclassical approach is adopted, but quantum…
We investigate the transport of electrons in disordered and pristine graphene devices. Fano shot noise, a standard metric to assess the mechanism for electronic transport in mesoscopic devices, has been shown to produce almost the same magnitude ($\approx 1/3$) in ballistic and diffusive graphene devices and is therefore of limited applicability. We consider a two-terminal geometry where the graphene flake is contacted by narrow metallic leads. We propose that the dependence of the conductance on the position of one of the leads, a conductance profile, can give us insight into the charge flow,…
We analyze the interplay between disorder and band structure in current perpendicular to the planes (CPP) giant magnetoresistance (GMR). We consider finite magnetic multilayers attached to pure crystalline leads, described by a tight-binding simple cubic two-band model (s-d). Several models of disorder are considered, including random on-site potentials, lattice distortions, impurities, vacancies, and cross-section fluctuations. Magneto-transport properties are calculated in the zero-temperature zero-bias limit, within the Landauer-Buttiker formalism. Using a very efficient numerical scatterin…
We present a detailed microscopic study of quasi-ballistic transport in deep submicron semiconductor channels. In particular, we study the crossover between the diffusive and ballistic regimes of transport and identify signatures in the electrostatic response, electron density, and nonequilibrium electron distribution function that are due to ballistic and diffusive transport, respectively. Our theoretical and computational approach is based on the Boltzmann transport equation for a nondegenerate electron system, together with the Poisson equation, from which we obtain the nonequilibrium elect…
In this study we present a new method of measuring magnetostriction with an atomic force microscope adapted for the application magnetic fields. The experiment allows us to visualise, in an elegant and educational way how the lateral magnetoelastic shape changes take place on the sample surface when a magnetic field is applied. We have, furthermore, used this technique to observe magnetically induced strains as small as 5*10-8, and have measured Ni, permalloy and commercial Cu wires and films, as well as pure Cu and Pt wires, where results are in agreement with other methods of measurement. Th…
Improved fabrication techniques have enabled the possibility of ballistic transport and unprecedented spin manipulation in ultraclean graphene devices. Spin transport in graphene is typically probed in a nonlocal spin valve and is analyzed using spin diffusion theory, but this theory is not necessarily applicable when charge transport becomes ballistic or when the spin diffusion length is exceptionally long. Here, we study these regimes by performing quantum simulations of graphene nonlocal spin valves. We find that conventional spin diffusion theory fails to capture the crossover to the balli…
Phonon-phonon interaction is systematically studied by nonequilibrium Green's function (NEGF) formulism in momentum space at finite temperatures. Within the quasi-particle approximation, phonon frequency shift and lifetime are obtained from the retarded self-energy. The lowest order NEGF provides the same phonon lifetime as Fermi's golden rule. Thermal conductance is predicted by the Landauer formula with a phenomenological transmission function. The main advantage of our method is that it covers both ballistic and diffusive limits and thermal conductance of different system sizes can be easil…
Heat flow in nanomaterials is an important area of study, with both fundamental and technological implications. However, little is known about heat flow in two-dimensional (2D) devices or interconnects with dimensions comparable to the phonon mean free path (mfp). Here, we find that short, quarter-micron graphene samples reach ~35% of the ballistic heat conductance limit up to room temperature, enabled by the relatively large phonon mfp (~100 nm) in substrate-supported graphene. In contrast, patterning similar samples into nanoribbons (GNRs) leads to a diffusive heat flow regime that is contro…
A unified theoretical description of ballistic and diffusive carrier transport in parallel-plane semiconductor structures is developed within the semiclassical model. The approach is based on the introduction of a thermo-ballistic current consisting of carriers which move ballistically in the electric field provided by the band edge potential, and are thermalized at certain randomly distributed equilibration points by coupling to the background of impurity atoms and carriers in equilibrium. The sum of the thermo-ballistic and background currents is conserved, and is identified with the physica…
We test whether current-induced magnetization switching due to spin-transfer-torque in ferromagnetic/non-magnetic/ferromagnetic (F/N/F) trilayers changes significantly when scattering within the N-metal layers is changed from ballistic to diffusive. Here ballistic corresponds to a ratio r = lambda/t greater than or equal to 3 for a Cu spacer layer, and diffusive to r = lambda/t less than or equal to 0.4 for a CuGe alloy spacer layer, where lambda is the mean-free-path in the N-layer of fixed thickness t = 10 nm. The average switching currents for the alloy spacer layer are only modestly larger…
Coexisting Ballistic and Diffusive Heat Transport in Micrometer-Long Molecular Junctions
Instituto de Ciencia de Materiales de Madrid (ICMM), CSIC（马德里材料科学研究所）；Departamento de Física Teórica de la Materia Condensada, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid（马德里自治大学凝聚态物理理论系）；Condensed Matter Physics Center (IFIMAC), Universidad Autónoma de Madrid（马德里自治大学凝聚态物理中心）
We report on a strong delay in light propagation through bulk GaN, detected by time-of-flight spectroscopy. The delay increases resonantly as the photon energy approaches the energy of a neutral-donor bound exciton (BX), resulting in a velocity of light as low as 2100 km/s. In the close vicinity of the BX resonance, the transmitted light contains both ballistic and diffusive components. This phenomenon is quantitatively explained in terms of optical dispersion in a medium where resonant light scattering by the BX resonance takes place in addition to the polariton propagation.
Inverse magnetoresistance has been observed in magnetic tunnel junctions with pinhole nanocontacts over a broad temperature range. The tunnel magnetoresistance undergoes a change of sign at higher bias and temperature. This phenomenon is attributed to the competition between the spin conserved ballistic transport through the pinhole contact where the transmission probability is close to unity and spin polarized tunneling across the insulating spacer with weak transmittivity.
We report on the structural, magnetic, and electron transport properties of a L1o-ordered epitaxial iron-platinum alloy layer fabricated by magnetron-sputtering on a MgO(001) substrate. The film studied displayed a long range chemical order parameter of S~0.90, and hence has a very strong perpendicular magnetic anisotropy. In the diffusive electron transport regime, for temperatures ranging from 2 K to 258 K, we found hysteresis in the magnetoresistance mainly due to electron scattering from magnetic domain walls. At 2 K, we observed an overall domain wall magnetoresistance of about 0.5 %. By …
Layered materials have uncommonly anisotropic thermal properties due to their strong in-plane covalent bonds and weak out-of-plane van der Waals interactions. Here we examine heat flow in graphene (graphite), h-BN, MoS2, and WS2 monolayers and bulk films, from diffusive to ballistic limits. We determine the ballistic thermal conductance limit (Gball) both in-plane and out-of-plane, based on full phonon dispersions from first-principles calculations. An overall phonon mean free path (λ) is expressed in terms of Gball and the diffusive thermal conductivity, consistent with kinetic theory if prop…
A theory of spin-polarized electron transport in ferromagnet-semiconductor heterostructures, based on a unified semiclassical description of ballistic and diffusive transport in semiconductors, is outlined. The aim is to provide a framework for studying the interplay of spin relaxation and transport mechanism in spintronic devices. Transport inside the (nondegenerate) semiconductor is described in terms of a thermoballistic current, in which electrons move ballistically in the electric field arising from internal and external electrostatic potentials, and are thermalized at randomly distribute…
We present a numerical model allowing to determine the electron and lattice temperature dynamics in a gold nanoparticle under subpicosecond pulsed excitation, as well as that of the surrounding medium. For this, we have used the electron-phonon coupling equation in the particle with a source term linked with the laser pulse, and the ballistic-diffusive equations for heat conduction in the host medium. Our results show that the heat transfer rate from the particle to the matrix is significantly smaller than the prediction of Fourier's law. Consequently, the particle temperature rise is much lar…
Transport properties of magnetic multilayers in current perpendicular to the plane of the layers geometry are defined by diffusive scattering in the bulk of the layers, and diffusive and ballistic scattering across the interfaces. Due to the short screening length in metals, layer by layer treatment of the multilayers is possible, when the macroscopic transport equation (Boltzmann equation or diffusion equation) is solved in each layer, while the details of the interface scattering are taken into account via the boundary conditions. Embedding the ballistic and diffusive interface scattering in…
Electronic transport in nickel magnetic point contacts is investigated with a combination of density functional theory and the non-equilibrium Green functions method. In particular we address the possibility of huge ballistic magnetoresistance in impurity-free point contacts and the effects of oxygen impurities. On-site corrections over the local spin density approximation (LSDA) for the exchange and correlation potential, namely the LDA+U method, are applied in order to account for low-coordination and strong correlations. We show that impurity-free point contacts present magnetoresistance ne…
Recent fabrication of atomic precision nanodevices for spintronics greatly boosted their performance and also revealed new interesting features, as oscillating magnetoresistance with number of atomic layers in a multilayered structure. This motivates the need to go beyond the usual theoretical approach of semi-classical continuous layers. Here the simple tight-binding dynamics is used to describe quantum conduction in a multicomponent system with spin-polarized electrodes separated by an ultrathin and atomically coherent non-magnetic spacer (either metallic or insulating). A possibility is ind…
A theory of spin-polarized electron transport in ferromagnet/semiconductor heterostructures, based on a unified semiclassical description of ballistic and diffusive transport in semiconductor structures, is developed. The aim is to provide a framework for studying the interplay of spin relaxation and transport mechanism in spintronic devices. A key element of the unified description of transport inside a (nondegenerate) semiconductor is the thermoballistic current consisting of electrons which move ballistically in the electric field arising from internal and external electrostatic potentials,…
This contribution reports on comparative studies on giant magnetoresistance (GMR) in carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and graphene nanoribbons of similar aspect ratios (i.e perimeter/length and width/length ratios, for the former and the latter, respectively). The problem is solved at zero temperature in the ballistic transport regime, by means of the Green's functions technique within the tight-binding model and with the so-called wide band approximation for electrodes. The GMR effect in graphene is comparable to that of CNTs, it depends strongly on the chirality and only slightly on the aspect ratio.…
Simulations (e.g. Zhou et al., Phys. Rev. B 79, 115201 (2009)) show nonlocal effects of the ballistic/diffusive crossover. The local temperature has nonlinear spatial variation not contained in the local Fourier law $\vec{j}(\vec{r})=-κ\vec{\nabla}T(\vec{r})$. The heat current $\vec{j}(\vec{r})$ depends not just on the local temperature gradient $\vec{\nabla}T(\vec{r})$, but also on temperatures at points $\vec{r}^{ \ \prime}$ within phonon mean free paths, which can be micrometers long. This paper uses the Peierls-Boltzmann transport theory in non-local form to analyze the spatial variation $…
We present a theoretical study of the ballistic magnetoresistance in Ni contacts using first-principles, atomistic electronic-structure calculations. In particular we investigate the role of defects in the contact region in order to explain the recently observed spectacular magnetoresistance ratio. Our results predict that possible presence of spin polarized oxygen in the contact region, could explain conductance changes by an order of magnitude. Electronic transport essentially occurs through spin-polarized oxygen p states, and this mechanism gives a much higher magnetoresistance than that ob…
We report on systematic ab-initio investigations of Co and Cr interlayers embedded in Fe(001)/MgO/Fe(001) magnetic tunnel junctions, focusing on the changes of the electronic structure and the transport properties with interlayer thickness. The results of spin-dependent ballistic transport calculations reveal options to specifically manipulate the tunnel magnetoresistance ratio. The resistance area products and the tunnel magnetoresistance ratios show a monotonous trend with distinct oscillations as a function of the Cr thickness. These modulations are directly addressed and interpreted by mea…
