Spin-polarized tunneling in ferromagnetic double barrier junctions

Spin-polarized tunneling in FMS/M/FMS double tunnel junctions where FMSs are ferromagnetic semiconductor layers and M is a metal spacer is studied theoretically within the single-site coherent potential approximation (CPA). The exchange interaction between a conduction electron and localized moment of the magnetic ion is treated in the framework of the s-f model. The spin polarization in the FMS layers is observed to oscillates as a function of the number of atomic planes in the spacer layer. Amplitude of these oscillations decreases with increasing the exchange interaction in FMS layers. Received 9 June 2001 and Received in final form 20 August 2001     

T-matrix analysis of biexcitonic correlations in the nonlinear optical response of semiconductor quantum wells

A detailed numerical analysis of exciton-exciton interactions in semiconductor quantum wells is presented. The theory is based on the dynamics-controlled truncation formalism and evaluated for the case of resonant excitation of 1s-heavy-hole excitons. It is formulated in terms of standard concepts of scattering theory, such as the forward-scattering amplitude (or T-matrix). The numerical diagonalization of the exciton-exciton interaction matrix in the 1s-approximation yields the excitonic T-matrix. We discuss the role of the direct and exchange interaction in the effective two-exciton Hamiltonian, which determines the T-matrix, evaluated within the 1s-subspace, and also analyze the effects of the excitonic wave function overlap matrix. Inclusion of the latter is shown to effectively prevent the 1s-approximation from making the Hamiltonian non-hermitian, but a critical discussion shows that other artefacts may be avoided by not including the overlap matrix. We also present a detailed analysis of the correspondence between the excitonic T-matrix in the 1s-approximation and the well-known T-matrix governing two-particle interactions in two dimensional systems via short-range potentials. Received 3 August 2001 and Received in final form 26 December 2001     

Ordering of the vortex lattice in Mo-Re films

We investigated the vortex lattice ordering induced by an applied current in thick (700-900 nm) Mo-Re films with strong pinning. Measurements of I-V characteristics as a function of field and at different temperatures were carried out. We found that, as in the case of weakly pinning amorphous samples, dynamic ordering can occur only if the size of the vortex correlated region is at least two times the intervortex distance. Received 20 July 2001     

Time-resolved two photon photoemission electron microscopy

Femtosecond, time-resolved two photon photoemission has been used to map the dynamics of photo-excited electrons at a structured metal/semiconductor surface. A photoemission microscope was employed as a spatially resolving electron detector. This novel setup has the potential to visualize variations of hot electron lifetimes in the femtosecond regime on heterogeneous sample surfaces and nanostructures. Received: 22 October 2001 / Revised version: 10 January 2002 / Published online: 7 February 2002     

Coherent transport in disordered metals out of equilibrium

We derive a formula for the quantum corrections to the electrical current for a metal out of equilibrium. In the limit of linear current-voltage characteristics our formula reproduces the well known Altshuler-Aronov correction to the conductivity of a disordered metal. The current formula is obtained by a direct diagrammatic approach, and is shown to agree with what is obtained within the Keldysh formulation of the non-linear sigma model. As an application we calculate the current of a mesoscopic wire. We find a current-voltage characteristics that scales with eV/kT, and calculate the different scaling curves for a wire in the hot-electron regime and in the regime of full non-equilibrium. Received 13 June 2001     

Quantum phase expectation values of a mesoscopic Josephson junction from quantum current measurements

A simple way to acquire information on the mean values of the phase operators sinϕ and cosϕ of an ultrasmall Josephson junction prepared in an arbitrary pure or not state is reported. Our proposal exploits the recently predicted occurrence of current spikes in the I-V characteristic of a mesojunction irradiated by a quantum single-mode low-intensity coherent electromagnetic field. A necessary condition for the validity of our treatment is presented and discussed. Received 11 April 2001     

Modeling of the current lines in discontinuous metal/insulator multilayers

Discontinuous magnetic metal/insulator multilayers are formed of equally spaced layers of magnetic particles embedded in an insulating matrix. Their electronic transport properties result from spin-polarized electron tunneling and Coulomb blockade effect. The current-in-plane (CIP) and current-perpendicular-to plane (CPP) resistances change by several orders of magnitude when the thicknesses of the metallic or insulating layers are varied. Calculations of the shape of the current lines in these multilayers are presented. It is shown that pure CIP or CPP transport occur in these systems only when the CIP or CPP resistances are very different in magnitude. If the two resistances are of the same order of magnitude, then the measured transport properties in both geometries are a combination of CIP and CPP transport. Received 9 October 2001     

Hydrogenic impurity ground state in quantum well: the envelope function revisited

We present a new variationnal method for calculating the ground state energy of an electron bound to an impurity located in a quantum well. This method relies on an envelope function which is determined exactly from a formal minimization procedure. The obtained energies are lower by as much as 10% than the ones found by the widely used free electron envelope function. Their large width limits are reached with exponentially small corrections as they should. We also find that, except for narrow wells, the shape of these exact envelope functions strongly depends on the impurity position, being consequently quite different from the usual free electron ones. In order to discuss the improvements brought by our new procedure in the most striking way, we have used a model semiconductor quantum well with infinite barrier height and simplified band structure. Extensions can be made to finite barrier and more realistic band structures, following the same technique. Received 11 December 2000     

III–V semiconductor interface properties as a knowledge basis for modern heterostructure devices

Some examples of interface studies are reported which show their close link with progress in III–V modern semiconductor device physics and technology. The surface electronic properties investigated in-situ by reflectance anisotropy spectroscopy during InGaP/InP growth (metal-organic vapor-phase epitaxy) are essential for the control of ordering phenomena in these layers, which is relevant for high-performance optoelectronic devices. Studies of electronic interface states at metal/narrow-gap III–V semiconductors are presented, which enabled the successful preparation of semiconductor/superconductor hybrid devices. For group-III nitrides with wurtzite structure the presence of fixed polarization interface charges yields new challenges in order to understand and control Schottky-barrier heights, band offsets and 2D confinement in heterostructure field-effect transistors. Received: 26 April 2001 / Accepted: 23 July 2001 / Published online: 3 April 2002     

Josephson effect through a ferromagnetic layer

We report transport measurements on Superconductor/Ferromagnet/Superconductor (S/F/S) junctions: Nb/Al/Gd/Al/Nb where gadolinium (Gd) is a weakly polarized ferromagnet. A sizeable critical current I _c is observed in the I(V) characteristics. This current can be modulated by a weak magnetic field, as expected for a Josephson current. With these experiments, we establish that superconducting coherent transport survives across a small ferromagnetic layer. The penetration depth of Cooper pairs in Gd has been measured. An extensive study of the Josephson critical current in temperature for different thicknesses of magnetic compounds is presented. A comparison of transport measurements with S/N/S junction is given through measurements made on Nb/Al/Y/Al/Nb, where yttrium (Y) is used as non magnetic rare earth metal. Received 20 September 2000 and Received in final form 22 February 2001     

Electron-hole diagrams versus exciton diagrams: the simplest problem on interacting excitons

We study the interaction of an exciton with a distant metal, which is the simplest problem on interacting excitons: The semiconductor and metal electrons being “different” species, we do not have to worry about the tricky consequences of Pauli exclusion between identical carriers, which appear in any other problem on interacting excitons. We show how the exciton absorption, in the presence of semiconductor-metal interaction, can be derived in a very simple and transparent way from an exciton diagram procedure, provided that we use the appropriate exciton-metal interaction vertex, which contains the scattering from an exciton state to another exciton state under a Coulomb excitation. We also show that the resolution of this problem using standard electron-hole diagrams is dreadfully complicated at the lowest order in the semiconductor-metal interaction already, preventing a full calculation of the exciton-metal coupling from this usual technique. Received 26 February 2001     

Propagator of an electron in a cavity in the presence of a coherent photonic field

In the present paper we consider the case of an electron under the presence of a single mode field in a cavity linearly polarized in the z-direction. We adopt the dipole approximation and we derive the full propagator of the electron. In the present case we suppose that the field is in a coherent state. The parameters of the propagator involve Mathieu functions. Finally we extract the time evolution of an initially Gaussian wavepacket and its probability density. The present theory is applicable to the interaction of strong fields with atoms. Received 17 March 2000 and Received in final form 19 December 2000     

A quasi-crisis in a quasi-dissipative system

A system concatenated by two area-preserving maps may be addressed as “quasi-dissipative", since such a system can display dissipative behaviors. This is due to noninvertibility induced by discontinuity in the system function. In such a system, the image set of the discontinuous border forms a chaotic quasi-attractor. At a critical control parameter value the quasi-attractor suddenly vanishes. The chaotic iterations escape, via a leaking hole, to an emergent period-8 elliptic island. The hole is the intersection of the chaotic quasi-attractor and the period-8 island. The chaotic quasi-attractor thus changes to chaotic quasi-transients. The scaling behavior that drives the quasi-crisis has been investigated numerically. Received 29 May 2001 and Received in final form 6 November 2001     

Characterization of a high-power tapered semiconductor amplifier system

We have characterized a semiconductor amplifier laser system which provides up to 200 mW output after a single-mode optical fiber at 780 nm wavelength. The system is based on a tapered semiconductor gain element, which amplifies the output of a narrow-linewidth diode laser. Gain and saturation are discussed as a function of operating temperature and injection current. The spectral properties of the amplifier are investigated with a grating spectrometer. Amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) causes a spectral background with a width of 4 nm FWHM. The ASE background was suppressed to below our detection limit by a proper choice of operating current and temperature and by sending the light through a single-mode optical fiber. The final ASE spectral density was less than 0.1 nW/MHz, i.e. less than 0.2% of the optical power. Related to an optical transition linewidth of Γ/2π=6 MHz for rubidium, this gives a background suppression of better than -82 dB. An indication of the beam quality is provided by the fiber coupling efficiency of up to 59%. The application of the amplifier system as a laser source for atom-optical experiments is discussed. Received: 8 May 2000 / Revised version: 21 September 2000 / Published online: 7 February 2001     

Ultrafast optical nonlinear properties of metal nanoparticles

The physical origin and the dynamics of the ultrafast optical nonlinear response of noble metal nanoparticles are analyzed around the surface plasmon resonance frequency using extension of the bulk metal electron kinetics and band structure models. The computed spectral and temporal responses are found to be in very good agreement with the measured ones in silver when taking into account the impact of electron excitation on both the interband absorption and electron optical scattering rate. A good reproduction of the strong excitation regime experimental results is also obtained in the case of gold, with a dominant contribution of the interband effect. Received: 4 July 2001 / Published online: 10 October 2001     

Electron energy state spin-splitting in 3D cylindrical semiconductor quantum dots

In this article we study the impact of the spin-orbit interaction on the electron quantum confinement for narrow gap semiconductor quantum dots. The model formulation includes: (1) the effective one-band Hamiltonian approximation; (2) the position- and energy-dependent quasi-particle effective mass approximation; (3) the finite hard wall confinement potential; and (4) the spin-dependent Ben Daniel-Duke boundary conditions. The Hartree-Fock approximation is also utilized for evaluating the characteristics of a two-electron quantum dot system. In our calculation, we describe the spin-orbit interaction which comes from both the spin-dependent boundary conditions and the Rashba term (for two-electron quantum dot system). It can significantly modify the electron energy spectrum for InAs semiconductor quantum dots built in the GaAs matrix. The energy state spin-splitting is strongly dependent on the dot size and reaches an experimentally measurable magnitude for relatively small dots. In addition, we have found the Coulomb interaction and the spin-splitting are suppressed in quantum dots with small height. Received 15 May 2001 / Received in final form 14 May 2002 Published online 13 August 2002     

Quantum effects on electron-proton bremsstrahlung spectrum in a two-component plasma

The electron-proton low energy bremsstrahlung process is investigated in a two-component plasma. The corrected Kelbg potential taking into account the quantum effects is applied to describe the electron-proton interaction potential in a two-component plasma. The straight-line trajectory method is applied to the motion of the projectile electron in order to investigate the variation of the bremsstrahlung cross-section as a function of the scaled impact parameter, thermal de Broglie wavelength, projectile energy, and photon energy. The results show that the quantum-mechanical effects decrease the bremsstrahlung cross-sections when the de Broglie wavelength (λ) is greater than the Bohr radius (a₀). It is also found that the quantum effects are important only for the region of impact parameters b < 3a ₀. Received 13 March 2001     

Hysteresis in current transport in a GaAs diode containing self-assembled InAs quantum dots

We have observed hysteresis loops in current transport in a GaAs metal–semiconductor–metal diode containing InAs quantum dots. The dots in our structure are directly embedded under the GaAs–metal interface. The charging and discharging of electrons in the dots modulate the current and produce hysteresis. These processes are controlled by the applied voltages. The dots are charged by forward current flowing through the structure. The discharging of the electrons is dominated by the tunneling process under high reverse bias. The modulated currents are well fitted with an electron-trapping model considering both the ground states and the excited states of the quantum dots. Received: 5 October 2000 / Accepted: 12 December 2000 / Published online: 23 May 2001     

Design of optical polarization splitters in a single-section deeply etched MMI waveguide

The design of a single-section polarization splitter in a deeply etched semiconductor MMI waveguide is presented. Numerically simulated results indicate that the semiconductor MMI exhibits considerable polarization dependence and, utilizing this effect, a compact 1.6-mm-long polarization splitter may be fabricated to yield more than 8-dB polarization separation and only 0.11-dB optical loss, using a very simple design-approach. Received: 16 May 2001 / Revised version: 14 August 2001 / Published online: 2 November 2001     

Magnetoquantum de Haas-van Alphen oscillations in spin-split two-dimensional Fermi liquid

Theory of magnetoquantum oscillations with spin-split structure in strongly anisotropic (two-dimensional (2D)) metal is developed in the formalism of level approach. Parametric method for exact calculation of oscillations wave forms and amplitudes, developed earlier for spin degenerate levels is generalized on a 2D electron system with spin-split levels. General results are proved: 1) proportionality relation between magnetization and chemical potential oscillations accounting for spin-split energy levels and magnetic field unperturbed levels (states of reservoir), 2) basic equation for chemical potential oscillations invariant to various models of 2D and 1D energy bands (intersecting or overlapping) and localized states. Equilibrium transfer of carriers between overlapping 2D and 1D bands, characterizing the band structure of organic quasi 2D metals, is considered. Transfer parameter, calculated in this model to be of the order of unity, confirms the fact that the wave form of oscillations in organic metals should be quasisymmetric up to ultralow temperature. Presented theory accounts for spin-split magnetization oscillations at magnetic field directions tilted relative to the anisotropic axis of a metal. Theoretical results are compared with available experimental data on organic quasi-2D metal α-(BEDT-TTF)₂KHg(SNC)₄ explaining the appearance of clear split structure under the kink magnetic field and absence above by the corresponding change in the electron g-factor rather than cyclotron mass. Received 20 December 2000 and Received in final form 13 July 2001