Helical Luttinger liquid in topological insulator nanowires

We derive and analyze the effective low-energy theory for interacting electrons in a cylindrical nanowire made of a strong topological insulator. Three different approaches provide a consistent picture for the band structure, where surface states forming inside the bulk gap correspond to one-dimensional bands indexed by total angular momentum. When a half-integer magnetic flux pierces the nanowire, we find a strongly correlated helical Luttinger liquid topologically protected against weak disorder. We describe how transport experiments can detect this state.     

Thermal conductivity of nanowires

Thermal conductivity of nanowires(NWs) is a crucial criterion to assess the operating performance of NWs-based device applications, such as in the field of heat dissipation, thermal management, and thermoelectrics. Therefore, numerous research interests have been focused on controlling and manipulating thermal conductivity of one-dimensional materials in the past decade. In this review, we summarize the state-of-the-art research status on thermal conductivity of NWs from both experimental and theoretical studies. Various NWs are included, such as Si, Ge, Bi, Ti, Cu, Ag, Bi_2Te_3, ZnO, AgTe,and their hybrids. First, several important size effects on thermal conductivity of NWs are discussed, such as the length,diameter, orientation, and cross-section. Then, we introduce diverse nanostructuring pathways to control the phonons and thermal transport in NWs, such as alloy, superlattices, core–shell structure, porous structure, resonant structure, and kinked structure. Distinct thermal transport behaviors and the associated underlying physical mechanisms are presented.Finally, we outline the important potential applications of NWs in the fields of thermoelectrics and thermal management,and provide an outlook.     

Lattice thermal conductivity crossovers in semiconductor nanowires

For binary compound semiconductor nanowires, we find a striking relationship between the nanowire's thermal conductivity kappa(nwire), the bulk material's thermal conductivity kappa(bulk), and the mass ratio of the material's constituent atoms, r, as kappa(bulk)/kappa(nwire) (alpha) (1+1/r)(-3/2). A significant consequence is the presence of crossovers in which a material with higher bulk thermal conductivity than the rest is no longer the best nanowire thermal conductor. We show that this behavior stems from a change in the dominant phonon scattering mechanism with decreasing nanowire size. The results have important implications for nanoscale heat dissipation, thermoelectricity, and thermal conductivity of nanocomposites.     

Thermal conductivity of dielectric nanowires with different cross-section shapes

Non-equilibrium molecular dynamics simulations have been performed to investigate the effect of the cross-section shape on the thermal conductivity of argon nanowires. Some typical cross-section shapes, such as triangle, square, pentagon, hexagon and circle, are carefully explored. The simulation results show that with the same cross-sectional area of the regular polygons, the thermal conductivities decrease with the reduction of the sides of the polygons, and the thermal conductivity of the circular nanowire is larger than those of the other polygonal ones. Phonon gas kinetic theory is used to analyse the phonon transport in nanowires, and the concept of equivalent diameter is proposed to illustrate the characteristic dimension of the none-circular cross-section.     

Luttinger liquid with asymmetric dispersion

We present an extension of the Tomonaga-Luttinger model in which left and right-moving particles have different Fermi velocities. We derive expressions for one-particle Green's functions, momentum-distributions, density of states, charge compressibility and conductivity as functions of both the velocity difference ε and the strength of the interaction β. This allows us to identify a novel restricted region in the parameter space in which the system keeps the main features of a Luttinger liquid but with an unusual behavior of the density of states and the static charge compressibility κ. In particular κ diverges on the boundary of the restricted region, indicating the occurrence of a phase transition. Received 20 May 2002 / Received in final form 23 August 2002 Published online 19 November 2002     

Thermal conductivity of liquid Ga

We present accurate values of the thermal conductivity of liquid Ga calculated from measurements of the Lorenz number and the electrical conductivity.     

Measuring the Luttinger liquid parameter with shot noise

We explore the low-frequency noise of interacting electrons in a one-dimensional structure (quantum wire or interaction-coupled edge states) with counterpropagating modes, assuming a single channel in each direction. The system is driven out of equilibrium by a quantum point contact (QPC) with an applied voltage, which induces a double-step energy distribution of incoming electrons on one side of the device. A second QPC serves to explore the statistics of outgoing electrons. We show that measurement of a low-frequency noise in such a setup allows one to extract the Luttinger liquid constant K which is the key parameter characterizing an interacting 1D system. We evaluate the dependence of the zero-frequency noise on K and on parameters of both QPCs (transparencies and voltages).     

Thermal conductivity of VLS-grown rough Si nanowires with various surface roughnesses and diameters

In this paper, we synthesize VLS-grown rough Si nanowires using Mn as a catalyst with various surface roughnesses and diameters and measured their thermal conductivities. We grew the nanowires by a combination vapor-liquid-solid and vapor-solid mechanism for longitudinal and radial growth, respectively. The surface roughness was controlled from smooth up to about 37 nm by the radial growth. Our measurements showed that the thermal conductivity of rough surface Si nanowires is significantly lower than that of smooth surface nanowires and decreased with increasing surface roughness even though the diameter of the smooth nanowire was lower than that of the rough nanowires. Considering both nanowires were grown via the same growth mechanism, these outcomes clearly demonstrate that the rough surface induces phonon scattering and reduces thermal conductivity with this nanoscale-hole-free nanowires. Control of roughness induced phonon scattering in Si nanowires holds promise for novel thermoelectric devices with high figures of merit.     

Thermal conductivity of liquid R507 refrigerant

Thermal conductivity of ozone-safe liquid refrigerant R507 was studied by the method of high-frequency thermal waves within the temperature range of 297.95 … 332.55 K and pressures from the saturation line up to 3.7 MPa. The estimated errors of temperature, pressure, and thermal conductivity measurements are 0.1 K, 3 kPa, and 1.5 %, correspondingly. Thermal conductivity of liquid R507 was calculated on the saturation line. Approximation dependences for thermal conductivity were derived for the whole range of studied temperatures and pressures and on the saturation line. The work was financially supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (Grant No. 07-08-00295-a).     

Thermal conductivity of spin-polarized liquid 3He

We present the first measurements of the thermal conductivity of spin-polarized normal liquid 3He. Using the rapid melting technique to produce nuclear polarizations up to 0.7, and a vibrating wire both as a heater and a thermometer, we show that, unlike the viscosity, the conductivity increases much less than predicted for s-wave scattering. We suggest that this might be due to a small probability for head-on collisions between quasiparticles.     

Transmission properties in a one-dimensional finite extrinsic semiconductor InSb photonic crystal

The properties of wave transmission in a strongly dispersive semiconductor-dielectric photonic crystal (SDPC) are theoretically investigated. We consider a one-dimensional finite SDPC, air/(SD) ^N S/air, where, N is the stack number, S is an extrinsic semiconductor, n-type InSb (n-InSb), and D is a dielectric layer of SiO₂. Transmission peaks can be found in the frequency region where the real part of the complex permittivity of n-InSb is negative. The number of peaks is equal to the stack number N. The positions of peaks can be tuned by the thicknesses of S and D. The peaks are seen to be blue-shifted as the doping density increases, leading to a tunable filter. The locations of peaks are also strongly dependent on the incidence angle, but weakly dependent on the polarization of the incident wave. The results suggest that a tunable multichannel filter can be achieved by using such an SDPC. Filters with tunable and multichannel features are of technical use in photonic applications such as in the optical electronics and communications.     

Thermal conductivity of periodic array of intermolecular junctions of silicon nanowires

Recent studies on intramolecular junctions of silicon nanowires and carbon nanotubes have revealed a wealth of intriguing phenomena. However, the thermal properties of the intramolecular junctions of silicon nanowires (SiNWs) are not yet well understood. In this study periodic arrays of intramolecular junctions with different lattice orientations are investigated, and their thermal conductivities are calculated using nonequilibrium molecular dynamics (NEMD) simulations. Different from the X-shaped and Y-shaped junctions of carbon nanotubes, no distinct jump is found in the temperature profile at the junctions. Compared with straight pristine SiNWs of the same length, the thermal conductivity of the periodic array of intramolecular junctions is reduced. The underlying mechanism of the observed behavior is analyzed by the phonon spectral density of the atomic velocities. The dependence of temperature on the thermal conductivity of this junction array structure is discussed.     

Thermal conductivity of liquid refrigerant R404A

Thermal conductivity of liquid ozone-safe refrigerant R404A was studied for the first time in the range of temperatures of 297.9–332.6 K and pressures from the saturation line to 3.7 MPa. The uncertainties of temperature, pressure, and thermal conductivity measurements were estimated to be within ±0.1 K, ±3 kPa, and ±0.15%, correspondingly. Values of thermal conductivity were calculated for liquid R404A at the boiling line. Approximating dependences for thermal conductivity were obtained for the whole range of studied temperatures and pressures, and at the boiling line. The work was financially supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (grant No. 04-02-16355).     

Reprint of : Measuring the Luttinger liquid parameter with shot noise

We explore the low-frequency noise of interacting electrons in a one-dimensional structure (quantum wire or interaction-coupled edge states) with counterpropagating modes, assuming a single channel in each direction. The system is driven out of equilibrium by a quantum point contact (QPC) with an applied voltage, which induces a double-step energy distribution of incoming electrons on one side of the device. A second QPC serves to explore the statistics of outgoing electrons. We show that measurement of a low-frequency noise in such a setup allows one to extract the Luttinger liquid constant K which is the key parameter characterizing an interacting 1D system. We evaluate the dependence of the zero-frequency noise on K and on parameters of both QPCs (transparencies and voltages).     

Pumping current of a Luttinger liquid with finite length

We study transport properties in a Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid in the presence of two time-dependent point like weak impurities, taking into account finite-length effects. By employing analytical methods and performing a perturbation theory, we compute the backscattering pumping current (I _bs ) in different regimes which can be established in relation to the oscillatory frequency of the impurities and to the frequency related to the length and the renormalized velocity (by the electron-electron interactions) of the charge density modes. We investigate the role played by the spatial position of the impurity potentials. We also show how the previous infinite length results for I _bs are modified by the finite size of the system.