Macroscopic quantum coherence in a single molecular magnet and Kondo effect of electron transport

We report a Kondo-effect study of electron transport through a quantum dot with embedded biaxial single-molecule magnet based on slave boson mean-field theory and non-equilibrium Green-function technique. It is found the macroscopic quantum coherence of molecule-magnet results in the Kondo peak split of differential conductance due to interaction between electron and molecular magnet. It is also demonstrated that both the peak height and position can be controlled by the sweeping magnetic field and polarization of ferromagnetic electrodes. The characteristic peak split may be used to identify the macroscopic quantum coherence and develop molecule devices.     

Macroscopic Quantum Coherence in Antiferromagnetic Molecular Magnets

The macroscopic quantum coherence in a biaxial antiferromagnetic molecular magnet in the presence of magnetic field acting parallel to its hard anisotropy axis is studied within the two-sublattice model.On the basis of instanton technique in the spin-coherent-state path-integral representation,both the rigorous Wentzel-Kramers-Brillouin exponent and pre-exponential factor for the ground-state tunnel splitting are obtained.We find that the quantum fluctuations around the classical paths can not only induce a new quantum phase previously reported by Chiolero and Loss (Phys.Rev.Lett.80(1998)169),but also have great influence on the intensity of the ground-state tunnel splitting.Those features clearly have no analogue in the ferromagnetic molecular magnets.We suggest that they may be the universal behaviors in all antiferromagnetic molecular magnets.The analytical results are complemented by exact diagonalization calculation.     

Phonon-assisted Kondo effect in single-molecule quantum dots coupled to ferromagnetic leads

Based on the infinite-U Anderson model spin-polarized transport through the tunnel magnetoresistance (TMR) system of single-molecule quantum dot is investigated under the interplay of strong electron correlation and electron-phonon (e-ph) coupling. The spectral density and the nonlinear differential conductance are studied using the extended non-equilibrium Green's function method through calculating the dot-level splitting self-consistently. The results exhibit that a serial of peaks emerge on the two sides of the main Kondo peak for the antiparallel magnetic configuration of electrodes, while for the parallel case both the main and phonon-assisted satellite Kondo peaks all split up into two asymmetric peaks even at zero-bias. Correspondingly, the nonlinear differential conductance displays a set of satellite-peaks around the Kondo-peak in the presence of the e-ph interaction. Furthermore, extra maxima and minima appear in the TMR curve. The TMR alternates between the positive and the negative values along with the variation of bias voltage.     

Macroscopic quantum coherence of the Neel vector in antiferromagnetic system without Kramers' degeneracy

At low temperatures the Neel vector in a small antiferromagnetic particle can possess quantum coherence between the classically degenerate minima. In some cases, the topological term in the magnetic action can lead to destructive interference between the symmetry-related trajectories for the half-integer excess spin antiferromagnetic particle. By studying a macroscopic quantum coherence problem of the Neel vector with biaxial crystal symmetry and a weak magnetic field applied along the hard axis, we find that the quenching of tunnel splitting could take place in the system without Kramers' degeneracy. Both the Wentzel-Kramers-Brillouin exponent and the pre-exponential factors are found exactly for the tunnel splitting. Results show that the tunnel splitting oscillates with the weak applied magnetic field for both the integer and half-integer excess spin antiferromagnetic particles, and vanishes at certain values of the field. All the calculations are performed based on the two sublattices model and the instanton method in spin-coherent-state path integral. Received: 24 July 1997 / Accepted: 30 September 1997     

Cotunneling through a quantum dot coupled to ferromagnetic leads with noncollinear magnetizations

Spin-dependent electronic transport through a quantum dot has been analyzed theoretically in the cotunneling regime by means of the second-order perturbation theory. The system is described by the impurity Anderson Hamiltonian with arbitrary Coulomb correlation parameter U. It is assumed that the dot level is intrinsically spin-split due to an effective molecular field exerted by a magnetic substrate. The dot is coupled to two ferromagnetic leads whose magnetic moments are noncollinear. The angular dependence of electric current, tunnel magnetoresistance, and differential conductance are presented and discussed. The evolution of a cotunneling gap with the angle between magnetic moments and with the splitting of the dot level is also demonstrated.     

Quantum modulation effect in a graphene-based magnetic tunnel junction

The electronic (quantum) transport in a NG/F_B/FG tunnel junction (where NG, F_B and FG are a normal graphene layer, a ferromagnetic barrier connected to a gate and a ferromagnetic graphene layer, respectively) is investigated. The motions of the electrons in the graphene layers are taken to be governed by the Dirac Equation. Parallel (P) and antiparallel alignment (AP) of the magnetizations in the barrier and in the ferromagnetic graphene are considered. Our work focuses on the oscillation of the electrical conductance (Gq), of the spin conductance (Gs) and of the tunneling magneto resistance (TMR) of this magnetic tunnel junction. We find that, the quantum modulation due to the effect of the exchange field in F_B will be seen in the plots the conductance and of the TMR as functions of the thickness of ferromagnetic barrier (L). The period of two multiplied sinusoidal terms of the modulation are seen to be controlled by varying the gate potential and the exchange field of the F_B layer. The phenomenon, a quantum beating, is built up with two oscillating spin conductance components which have different periods of oscillation related to the splitting of Dirac's energies in the F_B region. The amplitudes of oscillations of Gq, Gs and TMR are not seen to decrease as the thickness increases. The decaying behaviors seen in the conventional transport through an insulator do not appear.     

Voltage-selective bidirectional polarization and coherent rotation of nuclear spins in quantum dots

We propose and demonstrate that the nuclear spins of the host lattice in GaAs double quantum dots can be polarized in either of two opposite directions, parallel or antiparallel to an external magnetic field. The direction is selected by adjusting the dc voltage. This nuclear polarization manifests itself by repeated controlled electron-nuclear spin scattering in the Pauli spin-blockade state. Polarized nuclei are also controlled by means of nuclear magnetic resonance. This Letter confirms that the nuclear spins in quantum dots are long-lived quantum states with a coherence time of up to 1 ms, and may be a promising resource for quantum-information processing such as quantum memories for electron spin qubits.     

Inelastic tunneling of electrons through a quantum dot with an embedded single molecular magnet

We report a theoretical analysis of electron transport through a quantum dot with an embedded biaxial single-molecule magnet (SMM) based on mapping of the many-body interaction-system onto a one-body problem by means of the non-equilibrium Green function technique. It is found that the conducting current exhibits a stepwise behavior and the nonlinear differential conductance displays additional peaks with variation of the sweeping speed and the magnitude of magnetic field. This observation can be interpreted by the interaction of electron-spin with the SMM and the quantum tunneling of magnetization. The inelastic conductance and the corresponding tunneling processes are investigated with normal as well as ferromagnetic electrodes. In the case of ferromagnetic configuration, the coupling to the SMM leads to an asymmetric tunneling magnetoresistance (TMR), which can be enhanced or suppressed greatly in certain regions. Moreover, a sudden TMR-switch with the variation of magnetic field is observed, which is seen to be caused by the inelastic tunneling.     

塞曼效应对正常金属/超导/正常金属双隧道结中的相干隧穿电导的影响

在超导中通过外加塞曼磁场,研究正常金属/超导/正常金属双隧道结中的量子相干输运。同时考虑从一个正常金属电极注入一电子,从另一个正常金属电极注入一空穴,推导出系统的微分电导的一般公式。研究表明,电导谱随偏压展示振荡行为,随着温度和磁场的增大,其振荡振幅被降低,且塞曼能可导致电导峰的塞曼劈裂。在隧道极限下,超导体中会形成一系列束缚态。     

Negative differential conductance induced by spin-charge separation

Spin-charge states of correlated electrons in a one-dimensional quantum dot attached to interacting leads are studied in the nonlinear transport regime. With nonsymmetric tunnel barriers, regions of negative differential conductance induced by spin-charge separation are found. They are due to a correlation-induced trapping of higher-spin states without magnetic field and are associated with a strong increase in the fluctuations of the electron spin.     

Transport Characteristics of Mesoscopic Radio-Frequency Single Electron Transistor

The transport property of a quantum dot under the influence of external time-dependent field is investigated. The mesoscopic device is modelled as semiconductor quantum dot coupled weakly to superconducting leads via asymmetric double tunnel barriers of different heights. An expression for the current is deduced by using the Landauer-Buttiker formula, taking into consideration of both the Coulomb blockade effect and the magnetic field. It is found that the periodic oscillation of the current with the magnetic field is controlled by the ratio of the frequency of the applied ac-field to the electron cyclotron frequency. Our results show that the present device operates as a radio-frequency single electron transistor.     

Zeeman effects on d-wave superconductor and the coherent tunneling spectrum in normal-metal/d-wave superconductor/normal-metal tunnel junctions

We solve a self-consistent equation for the d-wave superconducting gap and the magnetization in the mean-field approximation, study the Zeeman effects on the thermodynamic potential of d-wave superconductor (S) and coherent quantum transport in normal-metal (N)/d-wave S/N double tunnel junctions. Taking simultaneously into account the electron-injected current from one N electrode and the hole-injected current from the other N electrode, we derive a general formula for the differential conductance in a N/d-wave S/N system under a Zeeman magnetic field on the d-wave S. It is found that oscillations of all quasiparticle transport coefficients and differential conductance with the bias voltage and the thickness of the d-wave S depend to a great extent on the crystal orientation of the d-wave S. In the N/d-wave S/N junctions, the Zeeman magnetic field can lead to the Zeeman splitting of conductance peaks, and the temperature can reduce the coherent effect.     

Effects of Arbitrarily Directed Field on Spin Phase Oscillations in Biaxial Molecular Magnets

Quantum phase interference and spin-parity effects are studied in biaxial molecular magnets in a magnetic field at an arbitrarily directed angle.The calculations of the ground-state tunnel splitting are performed on the basis of the instanton technique in the spin-coherent-state path-integral representation,and complemented by exactly numerical diagonalization.Both the Wentzel-Kramers-Brillouin exponent and the pre-exponential factor are obtained for the entire region of the direction of the field.Our results show that the tunnel splitting oscillates with the field for the small field angle,while for the large field angle the oscillation is completely suppressed.This distinct angular dependence,together with the dependence of the tunnel splitting on the field strength,provides an independent test for spin-parity effects in biaxial molexular magnets.The analytical results for the molecular Fes magnet are found to be in good agreement with the numerical simulations,which suggests that even the molecular magnet with total spin S=10 is large enough to be treated as a giant spin system.     

单壁碳纳米管微分电导在高压和强磁场下的实验研究

单壁碳纳米管在高压下会发生结构相变，导致金属型的碳纳米管变成半导体.相变后碳纳米管中电子的库仑关联的表现形式发生变化，从Luttinger liquid行为转变成环境量子涨落行为.同时，相变后电子波函数的相位关联导致弱局域化行为的出现.为了研究库仑关联和相位关联之间是否有相互影响，使用金刚石对顶砧和液压自锁高压包在0—10 GPa准静压范围内测量了单层碳纳米管样品在低温和不同磁场下的微分电导随偏压的依赖关系.实验结果表明，相位关联和库仑关联是两种独立的效应，各自影响着电子的输运行为. 关键词： 单层碳纳米管 高压 微分电导     

Magnetic Field Effects on Quantum-Dot Spin Valves

We study the magnetic field effects on the spin-polarized transport of the quantum dot (QD) spin valve in the sequential tunneling regime. A set of generalized master equation is derived. Based on that, we discuss the collinear and noncollinear magnetic field effects, respectively. In the collinear magnetic field case,we find that the Zeeman splitting can induce a negative differential conductance (NDC), which is quite different from the one found in previous studies. It has a critical polarization in the parallel arrangement and will disappear in the antiparallelconfiguration. In the noncollinear magnetic field case, the current shows two plateaus and their angular dependence is analyzed. Although sometimes the two current plateaus have similar angular dependence, their mechanisms are different. Our formalism is also suitable for calculating the transport in magnetic molecules, in which the spin splitting is induced not by a magnetic field but by the intrinsic magnetization.     

Charge and spin currents tunnelling through a toroidal carbon nanotube side-coupled with a quantum dot

We have investigated the mesoscopic transport through the system with a quantum dot (QD) side-coupled to a toroidal carbon nanotube (TCN) in the presence of spin-flip effect. The coupled QD contributes to the mesoscopic transport significantly through adjusting the gate voltage and Zeeman field applied to the QD. The compound TCN-QD microstructure is related to the separate subsystems, the applied external magnetic fields, as well as the combination of subsystems. The spin current component I_z^s is independent on time, while the spin current components I_x^s and I_y^s evolve with time sinusoidally. The rotating magnetic field induces novel levels due to the spin splitting and photon absorption procedures. The suppression and enhancement of resonant peaks, and semiconductor-metal phase transition are observed by studying the differential conductance through tuning the source-drain bias and photon energy. The magnetic flux induces Aharonov-Bohm oscillation, and it controls the tunnelling behavior due to adjusting the flux. The Fano type of multi-resonant behaviors are displayed in the conductance structures by adjusting the gate voltage V_g and the Zeeman field applied to the QD.     

Electronic transport through a quantum ring coupled to ferromagnetic leads

We study the spin-dependent transport through a one-dimensional quantum ring with taking both the Rashba spin--orbit coupling (RSOC) and ferromagnetic leads into consideration. The linear conductance is obtained by the Green's function method. We find that due to the quantum interference effect arising from the RSOC-induced spin precession phase and the difference in travelling phase between the two arms of the ring, the conductance becomes spin-polarized even in the antiparallel magnetic configuration of the two leads, which is different from the case in single conduction channel system. The linear conductance, the spin polarization and the tunnel magnetoresistance are periodic functions of the two phases, and can be efficiently tuned by the structure parameters.     

正常金属-铁磁绝缘层-dx2-y2+idxy混合波超导结中的磁散射对隧道谱的影响

在正常金属铁磁绝缘层dx2-y2 idxy混合波超导隧道结中,考虑到铁磁绝缘层的磁散射和界面的粗糙散射效应,运用BogoliubovdeGennes(BdG)方程和BlonderTinkhamKlapwijk(BTK)理论,计算了隧道结中的准粒子传输系数和微分电导.研究表明:(1)磁散射和界面粗糙散射均可以压低电导峰,其中磁散射能使电导峰滑移,而粗糙界面散射却能阻止这种滑移,且两散射的共同作用可抑制由混合波两序参数的幅值比不同所导致的电导峰滑移;(2)随铁磁层离超导表面距离的增加,隧道谱在零偏压处由凹陷变成了零偏压电导峰,继而又演化为凹陷中的中心峰;(3)当铁磁层离开超导表面有若干相干长度时,隧道谱中将呈现一些子能级谐振峰.     

Magnetic quantum dot: a magnetic transmission barrier and resonator

We study the ballistic edge-channel transport in quantum wires with a magnetic quantum dot, which is formed by two different magnetic fields B(*) and B0 inside and outside the dot, respectively. We find that the electron states located near the dot and the scattering of edge channels by the dot strongly depend on whether B(*) is parallel or antiparallel to B0. For parallel fields, two-terminal conductance as a function of channel energy is quantized except for resonances, while, for antiparallel fields, it is not quantized and all channels can be completely reflected in some energy ranges. All these features are attributed to the characteristic magnetic confinements caused by nonuniform fields.     

Electronic transport in single-molecule magnets on metallic surfaces

An electron transport is studied in the system that consists of a scanning tunneling microscopy, single-molecule magnet metal. Because of quantum tunneling of magnetization in a single-molecule magnet, linear response conductance exhibits stepwise behavior with increasing longitudinal field, and each step is maximized at a certain value of field sweeping speed. The conductance at each step oscillates as a function of the additional transverse magnetic field along the hard axis. A rigorous theory is presented that combines the exchange model with the Landau-Zener model.