Controllable spin-dependent transport in silicene superlattice

Based on the transfer-matrix method, we theoretically investigate the spin-dependent transport properties in magnetic silicene superlattice in the presence of extrinsic Rashba spin–orbit interaction (RSOI). It is found that the spin transmission probability and spin conductivities can be efficiently controlled by the number of magnetic barriers. As the number of magnetic barriers increases, spin conductivities strongly decrease, and reduce to zero in the large on-site potential difference between A and B sublattices (Δ_z) region. The results indicate that a magnetic silicene superlattice exhibits a remarkable wavevector-dependent spin filtering effect. Also, the magnetoresistance (MR) ratio exhibits an oscillatory behavior with the Fermi energy. The MR ratio can be tuned by the Fermi energy, number of magnetic barriers and extrinsic RSOI. Specifically, in the presence of magnetic field the spin polarization can be observed, and increases by increasing the magnetic field.     

Effect of a gap opening on the conductance of graphene superlattices

The electronic transmission and conductance of a gapped graphene superlattice were calculated by means of the transfer-matrix method. The system that we study consists of a sequence of electron-doped graphene as wells and hole-doped graphene as barriers. We show that the transmission probability approaches unity at some critical value of the gap. We also find that there is a domain around the critical gap value for which the conductance of the system attains its maximum value.     

Transport and Conductance in Fibonacci Graphene Superlattices with Electric and Magnetic Potentials

We investigate the electron transport and conductance properties in Fibonacci quasi-periodic graphene superlattices with electrostatic barriers and magnetic vector potentials.It is found that a new Dirac point appears in the band structure of graphene superlattice and the position of the Dirac point is exactly located at the energy corresponding to the zero-averaged wave number.The magnetic and electric potentials modify the energy band structure and transmission spectrum in entirely diverse ways.In addition,the angular-dependent transmission is blocked by the potential barriers at certain incident angles due to the appearance of the evanescent states.The effects of lattice constants and different potentials on angular-averaged conductance are also discussed.     

Conductance of graphene superlattices with correlated disorder in velocity profiles

The propagation of massless Dirac fermion waves through a graphene system is studied in the presence of a long-range correlated disorder. The system consists of a graphene layer in which the Dirac fermions velocity is position-dependent. The velocity profile is multiform and assumed to be long-range correlated. The effect of disorder in the transmission probability through the system with different sizes is also studied. In addition, we show that the conductance of the system increases with increasing the correlation exponent values giving rise to a metallic phase. We obtain a phase transition diagram in which the critical correlation exponent depends strongly on disorder strength. We demonstrate that in the limit of large system size, the conductance fluctuations become independent of the correlation exponent and tend to a constant value.     

磁性硅烯超晶格中电场调制的谷极化和自旋极化

研究了基于硅烯的静电势超晶格、铁磁超晶格、反铁磁超晶格中谷极化、自旋极化以及赝自旋极化的输运性质,分析了铁磁交换场、反铁磁交换场以及化学势对输运性质的影响,讨论了电场对谷极化、自旋极化以及赝自旋极化的调控作用.结果表明:当3种超晶格的晶格数达到10以上时,在硅烯超晶格中很容易实现100%的谷极化、自旋极化和赝自旋极化,而且通过调节超晶格上的外加电场可以使极化方向发生翻转,从而在硅烯超晶格中实现外电场对谷自由度、自旋自由度以及赝自旋自由度的操控.     

一维有限超晶格的电子态与透射问题的转移矩阵方法研究

采用转移矩阵方法,研究了一维有限超晶格的电子态与透射问题.计算了一维有限超晶格含单个缺陷层或少量缺陷层的透射谱和波函数,以及当电子被束缚在一维有限超晶格中电子的本征值和相应的定态本征函数.给出的方法对于研究电子通过任意排列的一维有限超晶格的输运具有普适性.     

Transport in magnetic graphene superlattice with Rashba spin-orbit interaction

Based on the transfer-matrix method, we have investigated the spin-dependent transport properties of magnetic graphene superlattice in the presence of Rashba spin-orbit interaction (RSOI). It is shown that the angular range of the spin transmission probability through magnetic graphene superlattice can be efficiently controlled by the number of barriers. As the number of magnetic barriers increases, the angular range of the transmission through the magnetic superlattice decreases, the gaps in the transmission and conductivity versus energy become wider. It is also found that the spin conductivities oscillate with the Fermi energy and RSOI strength. Specifically, when a magnetic field is present, the spin polarisation can be observed, whereas for the RSOI alone it is zero. Application of such a phenomenon to design a spin polarised electron device based on the graphene material is anticipated.     

Two types of extended states in random dimer barrier superlattices

We study numerically the effects of short-range correlated disorder on the electronic and transport properties of intentionally disordered GaAs–Al_xGa_1−xAs superlattices. We consider layers having identical thickness where the Al concentration x takes at random two different values with the constraint that one of them appears only in pairs, i.e. the random dimer barrier. Various physical quantities such as the conductance, the universal fluctuation conductance, the localization length, the resistance and its probability distribution are statistically computed by means of the transfer matrix formalism to discriminate the nature of the electronic states. In spite of the presence of disorder, the system exhibits two kinds of sets of propagating states lying below the barrier due to the characteristic structure of the superlattice. The states close to the resonance can be viewed as consisting of weakly localized states with very large localization length. In the band tails, i.e. for vanishing conductance, the states are strongly localized. The nature of the transition between these two regimes is quantitatively investigated through relevant physical quantities.     

Transmission spectra of ballistic electrons in conventional and effective-mass superlattices

In this paper, we compare transmission spectra of electrons propagated in ballistic transport regime in finite conventional and finite effective-mass superlattices. Taking into account the off-center-zone transport as well as center-zone one, we show theoretically that the Bragg transmission of carriers and the kinetic confinement effect are presented not only in the effective-mass superlattice but in the conventional one as well. However, these effects appear at the center of the Brillouin zone only in the case of the effective-mass superlattice. In the conventional superlattice, the effects are observable at the periphery of the Brillouin zone.     

Improved thermoelectric power factor in metal-based superlattices

In this paper we present a detailed theory of electron and thermoelectric transport perpendicular to heterostructure superlattices. This nonlinear transport regime above barriers is also called heterostructure thermionic emission. We show that metal-based superlattices with tall barriers can achieve a large effective thermoelectric figure of merit (ZT > 5 at room temperature). A key parameter to achieving high performance is the nonconservation of lateral momentum during the thermionic emission process. Conservation of lateral momentum is a consequence of translational symmetry in the plane of the superlattice. We also discuss the use of nonplanar barriers and embedded quantum dot structures to achieve high thermoelectric conversion efficiency.     

Manipulation of resonant tunneling by substrate-induced inhomogeneous energy band gaps in graphene with square superlattice potentials

We investigate the resonant transmission of Dirac electrons through inhomogeneous band gap graphene with square superlattice potentials by transfer matrix method. The effects of the incident angle of the electrons, Fermi energy and substrate-induced Dirac gaps on the transmission are considered. It is found that the Dirac gap of graphene adds another degree of freedom with respect to the incident angle, the Fermi energy and the parameters of periodic superlattice potentials (i.e., the number, width and height of the barriers) for the transmission. In particular, the inhomogeneous Dirac gap induced by staggered substrates can be used to manipulate the transmission. The properties of the conductance and Fano factor at the resonant peaks are found to be affected by the gaps significantly. The results may be helpful for the practical application of graphene-based electronic devices.     

Current oscillation and chaotic dynamics in superlattices driven by crossed electric and magnetic fields

We have theoretically studied current oscillation and chaotic dynamics in doped GaAsAlAs superlattices driven by crossed electric and magnetic fields. When the superlattice system is driven by a dc voltage, a stationary or dynamic electric-field domain can be obtained. We carefully studied the electric-field-domain dynamics and current self-oscillation which both display different modes with the change of magnetic field. When an ac electric field is also applied to the superlattice, a typical nonlinear dynamic system is constructed with the ac amplitude, ac frequency, and magnetic field as the control parameters. Different nonlinear behaviors show up when we tune the control parameters.     

Resonant peak splitting through magnetic Kronig–Penney superlattices in graphene

The resonance splitting effect of Dirac electrons through magnetic Kronig–Penney superlattices with delta-function barriers in graphene is studied theoretically. It is found that both transmission probability and conductance present (n−1)-fold$(n-1)\mathrm{-}\mathrm{fold}$ resonant peak splitting in n vector potential barriers, which is the same as that of standard electrons in semiconductor superlattices [R. Tsu, L. Esaki, Appl. Phys. Lett. 22 (1973) 562]. The resonant peak splitting and wave-vector filtering could be controlled by adjusting the transverse wave vector and structural parameters. These properties may be useful for the design of graphene-based electronic devices.     

THz-field induced nonlinear transport and dc voltage generation in a semiconductor superlattice due to Bloch oscillations

We report on a theoretical analysis of terahertz (THz-) field induced nonlinear dynamics of electrons in a semiconductor superlattice that are capable to perform Bloch oscillations. Our results suggest that for a strong THz-field a dc voltage should be generated. We have analyzed the real-time dynamics using a balance equation approach to describe the electron transport in a superlattice miniband. Taking account of both Bloch oscillations of electrons in a superlattice miniband and dissipation, we studied the influence of a strong THz-field on currently available superlattices at room temperature. We found that a THz-field can lead to a negative conductance resulting in turn in a THz-field induced dc voltage, and that the voltage per superlattice period should show, for varying amplitue of the THz-field, a form of wisted plateaus with the middle points being with high precision equal to the photon energy divided by the electron charge. We show voltage to the finite voltage state, and that in the finite voltage state dynamic localization of the electrons in a miniband occurs.     

Giant magnetoresistance caused by magnetic-field-sensitive resonant tunnelling in a random multibarrier semiconductor superlattice

By using a transmission probability formalism, we perform a calculation for the conductance related to the tunnelling of electrons through a semiconductor multibarrier superlattice with special thickness randomness in the presence of a magnetic field. Because of the sharp resonance of the tunnelling in such a structure, the current is highly sensitive to the variation of the in-plane magnetic field. The calculated results show a giant magnetoresistance even for small strength of the field. Possible applications of this effect are discussed.     

Landauer conductance of tunnel junctions: strong impact from boundary conditions

We present model calculations for the Landauer conductance of tunnel junctions. The tunnelling of free electrons through a rectangular potential barrier is considered. The conductance of a finite number of barriers was calculated using a transfer matrix method. The periodic arrangement of the same barriers was described by a Kronig–Penney model to calculate the band structure and, from that, the conductance of a point contact in the ballistic limit. Comparison of the results showed the importance of the boundary conditions. Caused by resonant scattering in the superlattice, the conductance is overestimated by an order of 1/t, the transmission coefficient of the single barrier. In the case of metallic multilayers, these interferences are of minor importance. In conclusion, the application of the Landauer formula to periodic lattices to describe the tunnelling conductance of a single barrier is not appropriate.     

Resonant peak splitting in graphene superlattices with one-dimensional periodic potentials

We have investigated theoretically the resonant tunneling phenomenon of Dirac electrons through graphene superlattices with periodic potentials of square barriers. It is found that there are two resonance conditions for the graphene superlattices. Some of the resonance transmission peaks present N – 1-fold resonance splitting for $ N{\text{-barriers}} $ , which is the analogy of the resonance splitting in semiconductor superlattices. The resonance splitting effect depends on the incidence angle rather than the height and width of the potential. However, there is no explicit splitting rule for the conductance and shot noise, which is different from the magnetic case. Furthermore, the resonant splitting rule of the transmission is not sensitive to the shape of the potential barrier. These properties in graphene superlattices may lead to potential applications in graphene-based electron devices.     

Scanning-tunneling spectroscopy of surface-state electrons scattered by a slightly disordered two-dimensional dilute "solid": Ce on Ag(111)

Low temperature (3.9 K) scanning-tunneling spectroscopy on a hexagonal superlattice of Ce adatoms on Ag(111) reveals site-dependent characteristic features in differential conductance spectra and in spectroscopic images at atomic-scale spatial resolution. Using a tight-binding model, we relate the overall spectral structures to the scattering of Ag(111) surface-state electrons by the Ce adatoms, the site dependence to the disorder induced by imperfections of the superlattice, and the opening of a gap in the local density of states to the observed stabilization of superlattices with adatom distances in the range of 2.3-3.5 nm.     

Effects of strain on shot noise properties in graphene superlattices

In this paper the transmission and the shot noise properties through the strain-inducedgraphene superlattices are studied. It is found that for the zigzag direction strain theFano factor shows a peak at new Dirac-like point and the position of the new Dirac pointvaries against the strain. Also, Fano factor has an oscillatory behavior with respect tostrain strength and the oscillation period decreases by increasing the number of barriers.However, for the armchair direction strain the transmission can be blocked by the electricbarrier and the Fano factor approaches 1, this is different from the zigzag directionstrain.