Biomedical subjects

A H MacDonald

Publications and source records attributed to A H MacDonald.

24 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

PubMed2001

Resistance spikes and domain wall loops in Ising quantum Hall ferromagnets.

We explain the recent observation of resistance spikes and hysteretic transport properties in Ising quantum Hall ferromagnets in terms of the unique physics of their domain walls. Self-consistent RPA/Hartree-Fock theory is applied to microscopically determine properties of the ground state and domain wall excitations. In these systems domain wall loops support one-dimensional electron systems with an effective mass comparable to the bare electron mass and may carry charge. Our theory is able to account quantitatively for the experimental Ising critical temperature and to explain qualitative characteristics of the resistive hysteresis loops.

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PubMed2001

Is there a dc Josephson effect in bilayer quantum Hall systems?

We argue on the basis of phenomenological and microscopic considerations that there is no dc Josephson effect in ordered bilayer quantum Hall systems, even at T = 0. Instead the tunnel conductance is strongly enhanced, approaching a finite value proportional to the square of the order parameter as the interlayer tunneling amplitude vanishes.

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PubMed2001

Theory of interlayer tunneling in bilayer quantum Hall ferromagnets.

Spielman et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 84, 5808 (2000] recently observed a large and sharp Josephson-like zero-bias peak in the tunnel conductance of a bilayer system in a quantum Hall ferromagnet state. We argue that disorder-induced topological defects in the pseudospin order parameter limit the peak size and destroy the predicted Josephson effect. We predict that the peak would be split and shifted by an in-plane magnetic field in a way that maps the dispersion relation of the ferromagnet's Goldstone mode. We also predict resonant structures in the dc I-V characteristic under bias by an ac electric field.

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PubMed2001

Strong correlation to weak correlation phase transition in bilayer quantum Hall systems.

At small layer separations, the ground state of a nu = 1 bilayer quantum Hall system exhibits spontaneous interlayer phase coherence. The evolution of this state with increasing layer separation d has been a matter of controversy. We report on small system exact diagonalization calculations which suggest that a single-phase transition, likely of first order, separates incompressible states with strong interlayer correlations from compressible states with weak interlayer correlations. We find a dependence of the phase boundary on d and interlayer tunneling amplitude that is in very good agreement with recent experiments.

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PubMed2000

Theory of tunneling spectroscopy in ferromagnetic nanoparticles.

We present a theory of the low-energy excitations of a ferromagnetic metal nanoparticle. In addition to the particle-hole excitations, which occur in a paramagnetic metal nanoparticle, we predict a branch of excitations involving the magnetization-orientation collective coordinate. Tunneling matrix elements are in general sizable for several different collective states associated with the same band configuration. We point out that the average change in ground state spin per added electron differs from noninteracting quasiparticle expectations, and that the change in the spin polarization, due to Zeeman coupling, is strongly influenced by Coulomb blockade physics.

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PubMed2000

Reorientation of anisotropy in a square well quantum hall sample.

We have measured magnetotransport at half-filled high Landau levels in a quantum well with two occupied electric subbands. We find resistivities that are isotropic in perpendicular magnetic field but become strongly anisotropic at nu = 9/2 and 11/2 on tilting the field. The anisotropy appears at an in-plane field, B(ip) approximately 2.5 T, with the easy-current direction parallel to B(ip) but rotates by 90 degrees at B(ip) approximately 10 T and points now in the same direction as in single-subband samples. This complex behavior is in quantitative agreement with theoretical calculations based on a unidirectional charge density wave state model.

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