Infinite Spin Diffusion Length of Any Spin Polarization Along Direction Perpendicular to Effective Magnetic Field from Dresselhaus and Rashba Spin–Orbit Couplings with Identical Strengths in (001) GaAs Quantum Wells

In this note, we show that the latest spin grating measurement of spin helix by Koralek et al. (Nature 458:610, 2009) provides strong evidence of the infinite spin diffusion length of any spin polarization along the direction perpendicular to the effective magnetic field from the Dresselhaus and Rashba spin–orbit couplings with identical strengths in (001) GaAs quantum wells, predicted by Cheng et al. (Phys. Rev. B 75:205328, 2007).     

The Influence of Many-Body Interactions on the Electron States in Quantum Point Contacs: Persistence of Exchange-Driven Splitting at High External Magnetic Fields

Spontaneous spin polarization of a quasi-1D electron gas in quantum point contacts (QPCs) is an important concept when analyzing conductance anomalies in the quantum limit. As suggested by recent measurements (Koop et al., J. Supercond. Nov. Magn. 20:433, 2007) there is a splitting of the subband levels in QPCs related to 0.7 conductance anomaly, both for zero- and finite in-plane magnetic fields. In the present paper we present theoretical results for spin polarization occurring in a QPC in a magnetic field as obtained from the local spin-density approximation (LSDA). Our numerical simulations are consistent with the findings of Koop et al. and support the idea that spin polarization underpins the conductance anomaly.     

Electron Spin Relaxations in the Electric-Field Applied GaAs/InGaAs Heterostructure

We have investigated the electron spin relaxation rates in GaAs/InGaAs heterostructure in the presence of electric field by time-resolved photoluminescence (PL) measurements at 10 K. Spin-polarized electrons were optically generated in the bulk GaAs region, drifted driven by the electric field, and captured in two InGaAs quantum wells which work as spin detectors. The comparison of the degrees of PL polarizations from two wells, by adjusting excitation energy and electric field, enables us to investigate the electron spin relaxation rates in the different parts of the sample separately. We have found that the spin relaxation during the drift transport in the bulk region is accelerated in the high electric fields and that a significant spin relaxation takes place when electrons are captured into the quantum well.     

Electron Spin Relaxations in the Electric-Field Applied GaAs/InGaAs Heterostructure

We have investigated the electron spin relaxation rates in GaAs/InGaAs heterostructure in the presence of electric field by time-resolved photoluminescence (PL) measurements at 10 K. Spin-polarized electrons were optically generated in the bulk GaAs region, drifted driven by the electric field, and captured in two InGaAs quantum wells which work as spin detectors. The comparison of the degrees of PL polarizations from two wells, by adjusting excitation energy and electric field, enables us to investigate the electron spin relaxation rates in the different parts of the sample separately. We have found that the spin relaxation during the drift transport in the bulk region is accelerated in the high electric fields and that a significant spin relaxation takes place when electrons are captured into the quantum well.     

Optical Spin Orientation Under Inter- and Intra-Subband Transitions in QWs

It is shown that absorption of circularly polarized infrared radiation achieved by inter-subband and intra-subband (Drude-like) transitions results in a monopolar spin orientation of free carriers. The monopolar spin polarization in zinc-blende-based quantum wells (QWs) is demonstrated by the observation of the spin-galvanic and circular photogalvanic effects. It is shown that monopolar spin orientation in n-type QWs becomes possible if an admixture of valence band states to the conduction band wave function and the spin–orbit splitting of the valence band are taken into account.     

Spin Properties of Electrons in Low-Dimensional SiGe Structures

Using ESR, we investigate g-factor and spin coherence time of electrons confined in 2D Si_1–xGe_x {channels} (x < 0.1) by barriers with x > 0.2 and in SiGe quantum dots grown on prepatterned Si substrates. The quantum wells exhibit 2D-anisotropy of both g and which can be explained in terms of the Bychkov–Rashba field. The latter increases with increasing Ge content in the well indicating that the increasing spin-orbit coupling is more important than interface properties. The narrow ESR permits selective spin manipulation already for x > 0.02. Large, regular arrays of Ge quantum dots (about 10⁹) were grown on prepatterned substrates. Strain in the Si capping layer lowers the conduction band relative to that of Ge causing confinement. The g-shift observed implies the possibility of g-tuning by confinement. The line width shows substantial inhomogeneous broadening whereas the longitudinal spin lifetime is hardly changed with respect to 2D structures.     

HotQC simulation of nanovoid growth under tension in copper

We apply the HotQC method of Kulkarni et al. (J Mech Phys Solids 56:1417–1449, 2008) to the study of quasistatic void growth in copper single crystals at finite temperature under triaxial expansion. The void is strained to 30% deformation at initial temperatures and nominal strain rates ranging from 150 to 600 K and from 2.5 × 10⁵ to 2.5 × 10¹¹s⁻¹, respectively. The interatomic potential used in the calculations is Johnson’s Embedded-Atom Method potential Johnson (Phys Rev B 37:3924–3931, 1988). The computed pressure versus volumetric strain is in close agreement with that obtained using molecular dynamics, which suggests that inertia effects are not dominant for the void size and conditions considered. Upon the attainment of a critical or cavitation strain of the order of 20%, dislocations are abruptly and profusely emitted from the void and the rate of growth of the void increases precipitously. Prior to cavitation, the crystal cools down due to the thermoelastic effect. Following cavitation dislocation emission causes rapid local heating in the vicinity of the void, which in turn sets up a temperature gradient and results in the conduction of heat away from the void. The cavitation pressure is found to be relatively temperature-insensitive at low temperatures and decreases markedly beyond a transition temperature of the order of 250 K.     

Growth Dynamics and Faceting of 3He Crystals

³He crystals start to show facets on their surface only at about 100 mK, well below the roughening transition temperature. To find out the reason for this discrepancy, we have performed the first quantitative investigation on the growth dynamics of the faceted and rough surfaces of ³He crystals in the temperature range of 60–110 mK. We have applied an original method to obtain the variation of the overpressure on the crystal surface by measuring its curvature and height locally using a Fabry–Pérot interferometer. The growth of the rough surface was found to be limited by the transport of the latent heat which elaborates in the liquid, in accordance with theoretical predictions (Puech L., et al. in J. Low Temp. Phys. 62:315, 1986; Graner F., et al. in J. Low Temp. Phys. 75:69, 1989 and 80:113, 1990) and previous measurements near the minimum of the melting curve (Graner F., et al. in J. Low Temp. Phys. 75:69, 1989 and 80:113, 1990). The mobility of an elementary step on a facet was shown to be limited by the latent heat transport as well. The values obtained for the step free energy are by two orders of magnitude smaller than at ultra low temperatures, which we show to be the result of quantum oscillations of the solid-liquid interface, which quickly become damped when temperature decreases below 100 mK.     

Rise of silicene: A competitive 2D material

Silicene, a silicon analogue of graphene, has attracted increasing attention during the past few years. As early as in 1994, the possibility of stage corrugation in the Si analogs of graphite had already been theoretically explored. But there were very few studies on silicene until 2009, when silicene with a low buckled structure was confirmed to be dynamically stable by ab initio calculations. In spite of the low buckled geometry, silicene shares most of the outstanding electronic properties of planar graphene (e.g., the “Dirac cone”, high Fermi velocity and carrier mobility). Compared with graphene, silicene has several prominent advantages: (1) a much stronger spin–orbit coupling, which may lead to a realization of quantum spin Hall effect in the experimentally accessible temperature, (2) a better tunability of the band gap, which is necessary for an effective field effect transistor (FET) operating at room temperature, (3) an easier valley polarization and more suitability for valleytronics study. From 2012, monolayer silicene sheets of different superstructures were successfully synthesized on various substrates, including Ag(1 1 1), Ir(1 1 1), ZrB₂(0 0 0 1), ZrC(1 1 1) and MoS₂ surfaces. Multilayer silicene sheets have also been grown on Ag(1 1 1) surface. The experimental successes have stimulated many efforts to explore the intrinsic properties as well as potential device applications of silicene, including quantum spin Hall effect, quantum anomalous Hall effect, quantum valley Hall effect, superconductivity, band engineering, magnetism, thermoelectric effect, gas sensor, tunneling FET, spin filter, and spin FET, etc. Recently, a silicene FET has been fabricated, which shows the expected ambipolar Dirac charge transport and paves the way towards silicene-based nanoelectronics. This comprehensive review covers all the important theoretical and experimental advances on silicene to date, from the basic theory of intrinsic properties, experimental synthesis and characterization, modulation of physical properties by modifications, and finally to device explorations.     

Spin Properties of Electrons in Low-Dimensional SiGe Structures

Using ESR, we investigate g-factor and spin coherence time of electrons confined in 2D Si_1–xGe_x {channels} (x < 0.1) by barriers with x > 0.2 and in SiGe quantum dots grown on prepatterned Si substrates. The quantum wells exhibit 2D-anisotropy of both g and which can be explained in terms of the Bychkov–Rashba field. The latter increases with increasing Ge content in the well indicating that the increasing spin-orbit coupling is more important than interface properties. The narrow ESR permits selective spin manipulation already for x > 0.02. Large, regular arrays of Ge quantum dots (about 10⁹) were grown on prepatterned substrates. Strain in the Si capping layer lowers the conduction band relative to that of Ge causing confinement. The g-shift observed implies the possibility of g-tuning by confinement. The line width shows substantial inhomogeneous broadening whereas the longitudinal spin lifetime is hardly changed with respect to 2D structures.     

Luminescence and ultrafast phenomena in InGaN multiple quantum wells

High quality In_0.13Ga_0.87N/GaN multiple quantum wells (MQWs) on (0001) sapphire substrate were fabricated by MOCVD method. The quantum well thickness is as thin as 10 Å, and the barrier thickness is 50 Å. We have investigated these ultrathin MQWs by continuous wave (cw) and time-resolved spectroscopy in the picosecond time scales in a wide temperature range from 10 to 290 K. In the luminescence spectrum at 10 K, we observed a broad peak at 3.134 eV which was attributed to the quantum wells emission of InGaN. The full width at half maximum of this peak was 129 meV at 10 K and the broadening at low temperatures which was mostly inhomogeneous was thought to be due to compositional fluctuations and interfacial disorder in the alloy. We also observed an intense and narrow peak at 3.471 eV due to the GaN barrier. The temperature dependence of the luminescence was studied and the peak positions and the intensities of the different peaks were obtained. The activation energy of the InGaN quantum well emission peak was estimated as 69 meV. From the measurements of luminescence intensities and lifetimes at various temperatures, radiative and non-radiative recombination lifetimes were deduced. The results were explained by considering only the localization of the excitons due to potential fluctuations.     

Coherent spin transport through dynamic quantum dots

Spin transport and manipulation in semiconductors have been studied intensively with the ultimate goal of realizing spintronic devices. Previous work in GaAs has focused on controlling the carrier density, crystallographic orientation and dimensionality to limit the electron spin decoherence and allow transport over long distances. Here, we introduce a new method for the coherent transport of spin-polarized electronic wave packets using dynamic quantum dots (DQDs) created by the piezoelectric field of coherent acoustic phonons. Photogenerated spin carriers transported by the DQDs in undoped GaAs (001) quantum wells exhibit a spin coherence length exceeding 100 microm, which is attributed to the simultaneous control of the carrier density and the dimensionality by the DQDs during transport. In the absence of an applied magnetic field, we observe the precession of the electron spin induced by the internal magnetic field associated with the spin splitting of the conduction band (Dresselhaus term). The coherent manipulation of the precession frequency is also achieved by applying an external magnetic field.     

Suhl Instability as a Mechanism of the Catastrophic Relaxation in the Superfluid 3He–B

In order to explain catastrophic relaxation, bulk mechanism based on Suhl instability (J. Phys. Chem. Solids 1, 209, 1957) is studied. It is shown, that at sufficiently low temperatures homogeneous precession of spin becomes unstable in the whole region of tipping angles of spin 0≤β≤π. In comparison with the previous publication of Surovtsev and Fomin (J. Exp. Theor. Phys. Lett. 83, 410, 2006) the leading zero temperature increments for the angles θ ₀≃104°≤β≤π are found. Estimation of the temperature of transition to the unstable state for the angle of 105°, that corresponds to the region of tipping angles in homogeneously precessing domain (HPD), is made.     

Gate-Tunable van der Waals Photodiodes with an Ultrahigh Peak-to-Valley Current Ratio

Photodetectors and imagers based on 2D layered materials are currently subject to a rapidly expanding application space, with an increasing demand for cost-effective and lightweight devices. However, the underlying carrier transport across the 2D homo- or heterojunction channel driven by the external electric field, like a gate or drain bias, is still unclear. Here, a visible-near infrared photodetector based on van der Waals stacked molybdenum telluride (MoTe₂) and black phosphorus (BP) is reported. The type-I and type-II band alignment can be tuned by the gate and drain voltage combined showing a dynamic modulation of the conduction polarity and negative differential transconductance. The heterojunction devices show a good photoresponse to light illumination ranging from 520–2000 nm. The built-in potential at the MoTe₂/BP interface can efficiently separate photoexcited electron–hole pairs with a high responsivity of 290 mA W⁻¹, an external quantum efficiency of 70%, and a fast photoresponse of 78 µs under zero bias.     

Spin Transport in (110) GaAs-Based Cavity Structures

The anisotropic spin dephasing of optically generated electrons in an undoped (110) GaAs quantum well inside a microcavity structure is investigated by means of spatially resolved photoluminescence experiments at a temperature of T=80 K. The dynamic type-II potential modulation induced by a surface acoustic wave (SAW) is used to transport electrons spatially separated from holes. Thus, the D’yakonov–Perel’ (DP) and the Bir–Aronov–Pikus spin dephasing mechanisms are suppressed, and electron spins can be transported over long distances of about 24 μm, which correspond to spin lifetimes of at least 8 ns. The spin vector can be rotated by an external in-plane magnetic field or by the effective in-plane field resulting from the structural inversion anisotropy induced by an intense SAW. This rotation generates an in-plane spin component that is subject to the DP spin dephasing mechanism. By means of Hanle effect measurements the lifetime of this in-plane spin component is found to be of 0.7 ns.     

Very Large Rashba Spin–Orbit Splitting in HgTe Quantum Wells

A large Rashba spin splitting has been observed in the first conduction subband of n-type modulation doped HgTe quantum wells with an inverted band structure via an investigation of Shubnikov–de Haas oscillations as a function of gate voltage. Self-consistent Hartree calculations of the band structure based on an 8 × 8 k p model quantitatively describe the experimental results. It has been shown that the heavy-hole nature of the H1 conduction subband greatly influences the spatial distribution of electrons in the quantum well and also enhances the Rashba spin splitting at large electron densities. These are unique features of type III heterostructures in the inverted band regime. The k ³ dispersion predicted by an analytical model is a good approximation of the self-consistent Hartree calculations for small values of the in-plane wave vector k . This is in contrast to the commonly used k dispersion for the conduction subband in type I heterojunctions.     

Low-field D. C. conductivity in the bulk amorphous GexTe10Se90-x System

D. C. conductivity measurements have been made as a function of temperature and electric field on bulk amorphous Ge_xTe₁₀Se_90?x (10? x ?40) samples, in order to identify the conduction mechanism and to study the effect of the electric field on the conductivity. In the entire range of temperature (80–300 K) the conduction in all the samples is found to take place $\text{via}$ thermally assisted tunnelling of the charge carriers in the localized states of the band tails. The addition of germanium results in an increase in the localized state density and hence an increase in conductivity. An increase in the electric field decreases the activation energy, thereby increasing the conductivity of the samples. The conductivity shows an exponential dependence on the electric field.     

Deformation-driven formation of equilibrium phases in the Cu–Ni alloys

The homogeneous coarse-grained (CG) Cu–Ni alloys with nickel concentrations of 9, 26, 42, and 77 wt% were produced from as-cast ingots by homogenization at 850 °C followed by quenching. The subsequent high-pressure torsion (5 torsions at 5 GPa) leads to the grain refinement (grain size about 100 nm) and to the decomposition of the supersaturated solid solution in the alloys containing 42 and 77 wt% Ni. The lattice spacing of the fine Cu-rich regions in the Cu–77 wt% Ni alloy was measured by the X-ray diffraction (XRD). They contain 28 ± 5 wt% Ni. The amount of the fine Ni-rich ferromagnetic regions in the paramagnetic Cu–42 wt% Ni alloy was estimated by comparing its magnetization with that of fully ferromagnetic Cu–77 wt% Ni alloy. According to the lever rule, these Ni-rich ferromagnetic regions contain about 88 wt% Ni. It means that the high-pressure torsion of the supersaturated Cu–Ni solid solutions produces phases which correspond to the equilibrium solubility limit at 200 ± 40 °C (Cu–77 wt% Ni alloy) and 270 ± 20 °C (Cu–42 wt% Ni alloy). To explain this phenomenon, the concept of the effective temperature proposed by Martin (Phys Rev B 30:1424, 1984) for the irradiation-driven decomposition of supersaturated solid solutions was employed. It follows from this concept that the deformation-driven decomposition of supersaturated Cu–Ni solid solutions proceeds at the mean effective temperature T _eff = 235 ± 30 °C. The elevated effective temperature for the high-pressure torsion-driven decomposition of a supersaturated solid solution has been observed for the first time. Previously, only the T _eff equal to the room temperature was observed in the Al–Zn alloys.     

Crack tip fields in a viscoplastic solid: monotonic and cyclic loading

The asymptotic stress and strain field near the tip of a plane strain Mode I stationary crack in a viscoplastic material are investigated in this work, using a unified viscoplastic model based on Chaboche (Int J Plast 5(3):247–302, 1989). Asymptotic analysis shows that the near tip stress field is governed by the Hutchinson–Rice–Rosengren (HRR) field (Hutchinson in J Mech Phys Solids 16(1):13–31, 1968; Rice and Rosengren in J Mech Phys Solids 16(1):1–12, 1968) with a time dependent amplitude that depends on the loading history. Finite element analysis is carried out for a single edge crack specimen subjected to a constant applied load and a simple class of cyclic loading history. The focus is on small scale creep where the region of inelasticity is small in comparison with typical specimen dimensions. For the case of constant load, the amplitude of the HRR field is found to vanish at long times and the elastic K field dominates. For the case of cyclic loading, we study the effect of stress ratio on inelastic strain and find that the strain accumulated per cycle decreases with stress ratio.     

Study of powder flow patterns in a Couette cell with axial flow using tracers and solid fraction measurements

We present different aspects of dense granular flows in a Couette geometry using a variety of particulate materials with shape and size distributions. Tracer studies point to an apparent coupling of particle size with flow and stress field gradients. While there is a clear industrial motivation to use “real” materials as a means to expand basic physical and engineering research in granular dynamics, the current study suggests additional academic motivations. Indeed, particles with distributed characteristics uncover rich interactions between flow and stress fields that might otherwise go un-noticed with model materials such as spherical glass beads. Distribution of size and shape play a strong role in how stress is transmitted in granular media (Kheiripour Langroudi et al. in Powder Technol 203:23–32, 2010) and how particle pattern arrangements evolve. Direct solid fraction measurements, using a capacitance probe, show that dense particle flows exhibit significant variations in solid fraction in both sheared and stagnant layers. Furthermore, these measurements also show different dependence of the solid fraction on shearing rate: solid fraction decreases in sheared layers and increases in stagnant layers as the shear rate is increased. From these results the thickness of the shear band could be estimated and was found to vary as a function of particle shape and the roughness of the container walls. The main result is that shear stress (or torque) (see also Kheiripour Langroudi et al. in Powder Technol 197:91–101, 2010) and solid fraction profiles depend on particle shape and whether or not an extra degree of freedom in their movement is provided so that the system can dilate under various shear states in the Couette cell. This extra degree of freedom is assured in the present experimental work by allowing a slight axial outflow from the Couette device while the driven shear fields are in the radial and tangential directions.