Non-Fermi-liquid effects in tunneling

Non-Fermi-liquid tunneling mechanisms in a quantum structure with its own two-dimensional continuum doped with transition metal impurities are considered. New physical realizations of the two-channel Kondo orbital model with mechanisms different from those previously described in literature occur in such quantum structures. The tunneling transparency is anomalously high owing to new channels generated by multiparticle Fermi-liquid resonances near the edge of the two-dimensional energy band in the process of tunneling. The widths of new edge resonances can be much smaller than the width of the “bare” non-Fermi-liquid resonance at the Fermi level in the banks. The additional scattering due to tunneling induces a transition from the non-Fermi-liquid to the Fermi-liquid state as the separation between the Fermi level in the banks and the two-dimensional band edge in the quantum well varies. Zh. éksp. Teor. Fiz. 114, 1466–1486 (October 1998)     

Transition between non-Fermi-liquid and Fermi-liquid states as a result of tunneling

It is shown that additional scattering due to tunneling induces a transition of the system from a non-Fermi-liquid into a Fermi-liquid state as the distance between the Fermi level in the walls and the 2D-band edge is varied in a double-barrier quantum well, doped with transition-metal impurities and having an intrinsic two-dimensional continuum. Pis’ma Zh. éksp. Teor. Fiz. 67, No. 12, 1009–1014 (25 June 1998)     

Instability of the non-Fermi-liquid state in a metal with d or f impurities

It is shown that the non-Fermi-liquid state is unstable with respect to scattering of multiparticle excitations with different quantum numbers by one another. As a result of the scattering, a multiparticle Fermi-liquid resonance forms at the Fermi level. An anomalous increase in the conductivity occurs as a result of a transition between the non-Fermi-liquid and Fermi-liquid states. Pis’ma Zh. éksp. Teor. Fiz. 69, No. 10, 721–726 (25 May 1999)     

Competition between single-and multiparticle resonances in tunneling

A new mechanism is proposed for the anomalous tunneling transmittance of a double-barrier quantum-well structure doped with a transition-metal impurity and possessing an intrinsic two-dimensional continuum. The new tunneling channels are due to exponentially-narrow single-particle resonances arising near the edge of a 2D band during tunneling. They are temperature-independent and their contribution to the transmittance can exceed the contribution of the Kondo resonance even at temperatures T<T _K . Pis’ma Zh. éksp. Teor. Fiz. 65, No. 6, 459–464 (25 March 1997)     

Robustness of the Van Hove scenario for high-T(c) superconductors

The pinning of the Fermi level to the Van Hove singularity and the formation of flat bands in the two-dimensional t-t' Hubbard model is investigated by the renormalization group technique. The "Van Hove" scenario of non-Fermi-liquid behavior for high-T(c) compounds can take place in a broad enough range of the hole concentrations. The results are in qualitative agreement with the recent angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy data on La 2CuO (4).     

Transition in a Luttinger liquid with two-level impurities to the fermi-liquid state

The mechanisms leading to instability of the non-Fermi-liquid state of a Luttinger liquid with two-level impurities are proposed. Since exchange scattering in 1D systems is two-channel scattering in a certain range of parameters, several types of non-Fermi-liquid excitations with different quantum numbers exist in the vicinity of the Fermi level. These excitations include, first, charge density fluctuations in the Luttinger liquid and, second, many-particle excitations due to two-channel exchange interaction, which are associated with band-type as well as impurity fermion states. It is shown that mutual scattering of many-particle excitations of various types leads to the emergence of an additional Fermi-liquid singularity in the vicinity of the Fermi level. The conditions under which the Fermi-liquid state with a new energy scale (which is much smaller than the Kondo temperature) is the ground state of the system are formulated.     

Suppression of the equilibrium tunneling current between slightly disordered two-dimensional electron systems with different electron concentrations in a high magnetic field

Tunneling between parallel two-dimensional electron gases (2DEG) in accumulation layers formed on both sides of the single doped AlGaAs barrier are examined in both zero and high magnetic field. Accumulation layers are separated from highly n-doped contact regions which freely supply electrons to the 2DEGs via 80 nm thick lightly n-doped spacer layers. Strongly oscillating current with magnetic field along the 2DEGs is absent in this arrangement. Without magnetic field resonant tunneling between 2DEGs with different as grown electron concentration could be settle by application of external voltage bias. High magnetic fields (ν<1) shift resonant tunneling to zero external bias and suppresses tunneling current, creating wide gap in the tunneling density of states at the Fermi level arisen from the in-plane Coulomb interaction in the 2DEGs. Pis’ma Zh. éksp. Teor. Fiz. 69, No. 3, 236–241 (10 February 1999) Published in English in the original Russian journal. Edited by Steve Torstveit.     

Two-dimensional electron gas in double quantum wells with tilted bands

When a voltage is applied to double quantum wells based on AlGaAs/GaAs heterostructures with contact regions (n-i-n structures), a two-dimensional (2D) electron gas appears in one of the quantum wells. Under illumination which generates electron-hole pairs, the photoexcited holes become localized in a neighboring quantum well and recombine radiatively with the 2D electrons (tunneling recombination through the barrier). The appearance, ground-state energy, and density of the degenerate 2D electron gas are determined from the structure of the Landau levels in the luminescence and luminescence excitation spectra as well as from the oscillations of the radiative recombination intensity in a magnetic field with detection directly at the Fermi level. The electron density is regulated by the voltage between the contact regions and increases with the slope of the bands. For a fixed slope of the bands the 2D-electron density has an upper limit determined by the resonance tunneling of electrons into a neighboring quantum well and subsequent direct recombination with photoexcited holes. Pis’ma Zh. éksp. Teor. Fiz. 65, No. 11, 840–845 (10 June 1997)     

Electrical conduction mechanism in amorphous Se80In20−xPbx films

DC conductivity measurements on thin films of a-Se₈₀In_20−xPb_x (where x=0, 2, 6 and 10) are reported in the temperature range 200–400 K. The density of states near the Fermi level is calculated using the DC conductivity (Mott parameters). The conduction in the low-temperature region is found to be due to variable range hopping while that in the high-temperature region is due to thermally assisted tunneling of the carriers in the localized states near the band edge.     

Properties of electrons near a Van Hove singularity

The Fermi surface of most hole-doped cuprates is close to a Van Hove singularity at the M point. A two-dimensional electronic system, whose Fermi surface is close to a Van Hove singularity, shows a variety of weak coupling instabilities. It is a convenient model to study the interplay between antiferromagnetism and anisotropic superconductivity. The renormalization group approach is reviewed with emphasis on the underlying physical processes. General properties of the phase diagram and possible deformations of the Fermi surface due to the Van Hove proximity are described.     

On the theory of the Kondo effect in two-dimensional metals

The Kondo effect in a (quasi-)two-dimensional metal is studied. The special feature of the two-dimensionality is the Van Hove singularity in the electron density of states. For the band filling choosen such, that the Fermi level is close to the saddle points of the band spectrum, the Van Hove singularity comes into play and changes the usual Kondo log to the log². It turnes out to be possible to carry out the first order parquet summation and to obtain the conditions for the Kondo antiferromagnetic resonance for an arbitrary geometry of the band spectrum. The connection with the Orthogonality Catastrophe is traced and it is shown, that the weak coupling Kondo problem just corresponds to the intermediate asymptotics of the metal's relaxation in a time-dependent external potential.     

One- and two-channel Kondo model with logarithmic Van Hove singularity: A numerical renormalization group solution

Simple scaling consideration and NRG solution of the one- and two-channel Kondo model in the presence of a logarithmic Van Hove singularity at the Fermi level is given. The temperature dependences of local and impurity magnetic susceptibility and impurity entropy are calculated. The low-temperature behavior of the impurity susceptibility and impurity entropy turns out to be non-universal in the Kondo sense and independent of the s–d coupling J. The resonant level model solution in the strong coupling regime confirms the NRG results. In the two-channel case the local susceptibility demonstrates a non-Fermi-liquid power-law behavior.     

Lateral tunneling through the controlled barrier between edge channels in a two-dimensional electron system

A study is made of the lateral tunneling between edge channels at the depletion-induced edges of a gated two-dimensional electron system, through a gate-voltage-controlled barrier arising when the donor layer of the heterostructure is partly removed along a fine strip by means of an atomic force microscope. For a sufficiently high barrier the typical current-voltage characteristic is found to be strongly asymmetric, having, in addition to the positive tunneling branch, a negative branch that corresponds to the current overflowing the barrier. It is established that the barrier height depends linearly on both the gate voltage and the magnetic field, and the data are described in terms of electron tunneling between the outermost edge channels. Pis’ma Zh. éksp. Teor. Fiz. 69, No. 8, 561–566 (25 April 1999) Published in English in the original Russian journal. Edited by Steve Torstveit.     

The formation of heavy-fermion states in non-Fermi-liquid impurity systems

A mechanism for the occurrence of heavy-fermion states in non-Fermi-liquid (NFL) metals with f-shell impurities is proposed. The impurity with an unstable valence is suggested to have an energy spectrum consisting of a deep f-level and quasicontinuum states (narrow band) in resonance with the Fermi energy. Depending on the impurity concentration, the single-site NFL states are generated by the two-channel Kondo scattering for the low concentration (the Kondo regime) or by the screening interaction for a relatively high concentration (the X-ray-edge regime). It is shown that the NFL states are unstable against the scattering of the NFL excitations by electron states of the narrow band. This scattering generates additional narrow Fermi-liquid (FL) resonances at/near the Fermi level in the Kondo regime and in the X-ray-edge regime. The mixed-valence states are shown to be induced by new FL resonances. The mixed valence mechanism is local and is related to the instability of single-site NFL states. The FL resonances lead to the existence of additional energy scales and of pseudogaps near the Fermi level in the mixed-valence states. They also considerably narrow the region with a nearly integer valence.     

Threshold and probability of impact ionization by electrons in narrow-gap p-type semiconductors with highly degenerate holes

The process of electron-initiated impact ionization of states in the heavy-hole band is investigated theoretically for a p-type narrow-gap semiconductor with energy bands governed by the Kane dispersion law, subject to the condition that the Fermi level of the holes lies in the valence band. The dependence of the minimum electron energy for ionization of a state at the Fermi level in the valence band on the heavy-hole Fermi momentum is determined. The probability of impact ionization for electrons with near-threshold energies is calculated for the case in which the heavy-hole Fermi momentum exceeds the hole threshold momentum for the given ionization process. Relations between the temperatures of holes and electrons with energies of the order of the threshold value are found, thereby establishing the validity domain of the final results. Fiz. Tverd. Tela (St. Petersburg) 39, 275–279 (February 1997)     

Density of states and dispersion of quasiparticles in the Emery model: Nonlocal path-integral Monte Carlo algorithm

The spectral density of states for a 108-site Cu₃₆O₇₂ cluster in the two-dimensional three-band Emery model is reconstructed with the aid of a path integral Monte Carlo algorithm. Dispersion relations are obtained for quasiparticles in the upper Hubbard band and in the correlated-states band; this corresponds to electron and hole doping of high-T _c superconductors. The form of the isoenergy surfaces is close to the experimentally observed form and confirms the existence of singularities in the density of states near the Fermi level. Pis’ma Zh. éksp. Teor. Fiz. 63, No. 11, 860–865 (10 June 1996)     

Edge states of graphene bilayer strip

The electronic structure of the zig-zag bilayer strip is analyzed. The electronic spectraof the bilayer strip is computed. The dependence of the edge state band flatness on thebilayer width is found. The density of states at the Fermi level is analytically computed.It is shown that it has the singularity which depends on the width of the bilayer strip.There is also asymmetry in the density of states below and above the Fermi energy.     

Remnant Fermi surface in a pseudogap regime of the two-dimensional Hubbard model at finite temperature

A precursor effect on the Fermi surface in the two-dimensional Hubbard model at finite temperatures near the antiferromagnetic instability is studied using three different itinerant approaches: the second order perturbation theory, the paramagnon theory (PT), and the two-particle self-consistent (TPSC) approach. In general, at finite temperature, the Fermi surface of the interacting electron systems is not sharply defined due to the broadening effects of the self-energy. In order to take account of those effects we consider the single-particle spectral function A(, 0) at the Fermi level, to describe the counterpart of the Fermi surface at T = 0. We find that the Fermi surface is destroyed close to the pseudogap regime due to the spin-fluctuation effects in both PT and TPSC approaches. Moreover, the top of the effective valence band is located around = (π/2,π/2) in agreement with earlier investigations on the single-hole motion in the antiferromagnetic background. A crossover behavior from the Fermi-liquid regime to the pseudogap regime is observed in the electron concentration dependence of the spectral function and the self-energy. Received 8 September 2000 and Received in final form 20 December 2000     

General properties of a magnetic-field-induced landau Fermi liquid in high-temperature superconductors and heavy fermion metals

It has been shown that the magnetic-field-induced transition from a non-Fermi-liquid state to a Fermi liquid state in the Tl₂Ba₂CuO_{6 + x} high-temperature superconductor is similar to a transition observed in heavy fermion metals. This behavior is explained in the theory of the Fermi condensate quantum-phase transition implying the existence of Landau quasiparticles. The Fermi condensate quantum-phase transition can be considered as a universal cause of the strongly correlated behavior observed in various metals and liquids such as high-temperature superconductors, heavy fermion metals, and two-dimensional Fermi systems.     

Heavy-fermion states in non-Fermi-liquid impurity metals

It is shown that a new type of instability of a non-Fermi-liquid state to the interband scattering of multiparticle excitations can dominate the formation of heavy-fermion states in non-Fermi-liquid metals doped with unstable-valence f impurities. A new mechanism is proposed for the formation of a small energy scale and pseudogaps near the Fermi level in a mixed-valent state.