Valley and spin accumulation in ballistic and hydrodynamic channels

A theory of the valley and spin Hall effects and resulting accumulation of the valley and spin polarization is developed for ultraclean channels made of two-dimensional semiconductors where the electron mean free path due to the residual disorder or phonons exceeds the channel width. Both ballistic and hydrodynamic regimes of the electron transport are studied. The polarization accumulation is determined by interplay of the anomalous velocity, side-jump and skew scattering effects. In the hydrodynamic regime, where the electron-electron scattering is dominant, the valley and spin current generation and dissipation by the electron-electron collisions are taken into account. The accumulated polarization magnitude and its spatial distribution depend strongly on the transport regime. The polarization is much larger in the hydrodynamic regime as compared to the ballistic one. Significant valley and spin polarization arises in the immediate vicinity of the channel edges due to the side-jump and skew scattering mechanisms.

144Ce - 144Pr spectrum measurement with 4π semiconductor β-spectrometer

Precision β-spectra measurement always had a great importance in some fundamental physics problems including neutrino physics. Magnetic and electrostatic spectrometers have high resolution, but at the same time usage of such kinds of equipment involves the size and cost issues. Since electron mean free path at the energy of 3 MeV (which is basically the maximum energy of a β-transition for the long-lived nuclei) does not exceed 2 g/crn2 , electron registration could be effectively performed with the solid state scintillators and semiconductors. A strong probability of backscattering from detector surface is present in case of semiconductor detectors and is dependent upon the detector material. Such problem can be solved with 4π geometry detector development, which fully covers the radioactive source and is able to register the backscattered electrons. In this work we present the newly developed technology of 4π geometry β-spectrometer based on two semiconductor detectors. This spectrometer was used for measurement of the 144Ce - 144Pr spectrum, that is the perspective anti-neutrino source due to endpoint energy at 3 MeV and can be used for the sterile neutrino search experiments. The form-factor parameters that were obtained are: C(W) = 1 + (-0.02877 ± 0.00028)W + (-0.11722 ± 0.00297)W-1. The measurement accuracy was sufficiently enhanced with respect to the previous results.

Evidence of weak Anderson localization revealed by the resistivity, transverse magnetoresistance and Hall effect measured on thin Cu films deposited on mica

We report the resistivity of 5 Cu films approximately 65 nm thick, measured between 5 and 290 K, and the transverse magnetoresistance and Hall effect measured at temperatures 5 K < T < 50 K. The mean grain diameters are D = (8.9, 9.8, 20.2, 31.5, 34.7) nm, respectively. The magnetoresistance signal is positive in samples where D > L/2 (where L = 39 nm is the electron mean free path in the bulk at room temperature), and negative in samples where D < L/2. The sample where D = 20.2 nm exhibits a negative magnetoresistance at B < 2 Tesla and a positive magnetoresistance at B > 3 Tesla. A negative magnetoresistance in Cu films has been considered evidence of charge transport involving weak Anderson localization. These experiments reveal that electron scattering by disordered grain boundaries found along L leads to weak Anderson localization, confirming the localization phenomenon predicted by the quantum theory of resistivity of nanometric metallic connectors. Anderson localization becomes a severe obstacle for the successful development of the circuit miniaturization effort pursued by the electronic industry, for it leads to a steep rise in the resistivity of nanometric metallic connectors with decreasing wire dimensions (D < L/2) employed in the design of Integrated Circuits.

Transverse magnetoresistance, Hall mobility and Hall constant of thin Cu films deposited onto cleaved mica: Evidence of weak Anderson localization.

We report the resistivity of 5 Cu films approximately 65 nm thick, measured between 5 K and 290 K, and the transverse magnetoresistance and Hall effect measured at temperatures 5 K< T<50 K. The mean grain diameters are D=(8.9, 9.8, 20.2, 31.5, 34.7) nm, respectively. The magnetoresistance signal is positive in samples where D>L/2 (where L=39 nm is the electron mean free path in the bulk at room temperature), and negative in samples where D<L/2. The sample where D=20.2 nm exhibits a negative magnetoresistance at B < 2 Tesla and a positive magnetoresistance at B > 2 Tesla. A negative magnetoresistance in Cu films has been considered evidence of charge transport involving weak Anderson localization. These experiments reveal that electron scattering by disordered grain boundaries found along L leads to weak Anderson localization, confirming the localization phenomena predicted by the quantum theory of resistivity of nanometric metallic connectors. Anderson localization becomes a severe obstacle for the successful development of the circuit miniaturization effort pursued by the electronic industry, for it leads to a steep rise in the resistivity of nanometric metallic connector with decreasing wire dimensions (D<L/2) employed in the design of Integrated Circuits.

Влияние вида функции распределения электронов в плазме и дисперсии по энергии электронного пучка на устойчивость низковольтного пучкового разряда

Within the framework of the kinetic approach, the conditions for the loss of stability of a low-voltage beam discharge in inert gases (LVBD) are studied depending on the temperature of the electron beam, the dispersion of the electron beam velocity in the direction of the discharge axis, and the form of the electron energy distribution function (EEDF). Regimes are considered when the interelectrode distance is on the order of the electron mean free path relative to elastic collisions with inert gas atoms. It is shown that the beam temperature Tb, determined in the LVBD by the cathode temperature not exceeding 1500 K, and the dispersion of the beam electron energy, which in the LVBD can be significantly higher than kTb and reaches 1 - 2 eV, have little effect on the conditions for the loss of stability of the LVBD and the magnitude of the growth rate of disturbance amplification at frequencies up to plasma It was found that the form of the EEDF monotonically decreasing with increasing electron energy also does not affect the parameters of the perturbations propagating in the LVBD at the beam energy much higher than the average electron energy in the plasma. The results obtained are applicable not only to LVBD, but also to other types of self-sustained beam discharges.

Self-oscillations of non-neutral plasma diode

Self-oscillations of non-neutral plasma diode operating in the anode-glow mode are analysed using the self-consistent one-dimensional Particle-in-Cell Monte Carlo collisions model. In order to obtain these states, the current exceeding the space-charge limited current has to be emitted from the cathode, the electron mean free path must be much longer than the cathode-anode gap, and the cathode voltage must be slightly larger than the ionization potential of the background gas. It is obtained that in such a case, immobile ions form the electrostatic trap for the electrons generated in the cathode-anode gap. These electrons oscillate between the cathode and the anode causing the self-oscillations of the plasma potential. It is shown that the increase of the emission current leads to the increase of the frequency of the obtained self-oscillations. Starting at some value of the emission current, a lot of the emitted electrons are got trapped in the electrostatic well, which leads to the transition to chaos.

Control of Mooij correlations at the nanoscale in the disordered metallic Ta–nanoisland FeNi multilayers

Localisation phenomena in highly disordered metals close to the extreme conditions determined by the Mott-Ioffe-Regel (MIR) limit when the electron mean free path is approximately equal to the interatomic distance is a challenging problem. Here, to shed light on these localisation phenomena, we studied the dc transport and optical conductivity properties of nanoscaled multilayered films composed of disordered metallic Ta and magnetic FeNi nanoisland layers, where ferromagnetic FeNi nanoislands have giant magnetic moments of 10$$^3$$ 3 –10$$^5$$ 5 Bohr magnetons ($$\mu _{\mathrm{B}}$$ μ B ). In these multilayered structures, FeNi nanoisland giant magnetic moments are interacting due to the indirect exchange forces acting via the Ta electron subsystem. We discovered that the localisation phenomena in the disordered Ta layer lead to a decrease in the Drude contribution of free charge carriers and the appearance of the low-energy electronic excitations in the 1–2 eV spectral range characteristic of electronic correlations, which may accompany the formation of electronic inhomogeneities. From the consistent results of the dc transport and optical studies we found that with an increase in the FeNi layer thickness across the percolation threshold evolution from the superferromagnetic to ferromagnetic behaviour within the FeNi layer leads to the delocalisation of Ta electrons from the associated localised electronic states. On the contrary, we discovered that when the FeNi layer is discontinuous and represented by randomly distributed superparamagnetic FeNi nanoislands, the Ta layer normalized dc conductivity falls down below the MIR limit by about 60%. The discovered effect leading to the dc conductivity fall below the MIR limit can be associated with non-ergodicity and purely quantum (many-body) localisation phenomena, which need to be challenged further.

Characteristics of W thin film deposited by indirect inductively coupled plasma assisted sputtering

Tungsten (W) has a short electron mean free path (EMFP) of 19 nm and a high melting point (3673 K), and, therefore, is being actively studied as one of the next generation thin interconnector materials replacing Cu. In this study, DC magnetron sputtering of W thin film assisted by indirect inductively coupled plasma (ICP) (where, the ICP is located near the substrate) has been investigated for the deposition of 20 nm thick W thin films with a low resistivity and the results were compared with those deposited by direct ICP assisted DC magnetron (where, the ICP is located near the DC magnetron). The W thin films deposited with the indirect ICP assisted sputtering showed the continuous decrease of the W resistivity from 76.5 (0 W) to 22.2 (500 W) Ohm-cm with the increase of ICP power. In the case of W thin film deposited with direct ICP assisted sputtering, even though the resistivity was initially decreased with the ICP power, the resistivity was increased at high ICP powers due to the increased W surface roughness. The lower W resistivity at high ICP powers for the indirect ICP assisted DC sputtering was related to the change of crystal structure to BCC from A-15 and lower oxygen content in the film due to the higher ion flux to the substrate without increasing the surface roughness.