Theory of Interfacial Plasmon-Phonon Scattering in Supported Graphene

One of the factors limiting electron mobility in supported graphene is remote phonon scattering. We formulate the theory of the coupling between graphene plasmon and substrate surface polar phonon (SPP) modes, and find that it leads to the formation of interfacial plasmon-phonon (IPP) modes, from which the phenomena of dynamic anti-screening and screening of remote phonons emerge. The remote phonon-limited mobilities for SiO$_{2}$, HfO$_{2}$, h-BN and Al$_{2}$O$_{3}$ substrates are computed using our theory. We find that h-BN yields the highest peak mobility, but in the practically useful high-density range the mobility in HfO$_{2}$-supported graphene is high, despite the fact that HfO$_{2}$ is a high-$\kappa$ dielectric with low-frequency modes. Our theory predicts that the strong temperature dependence of the total mobility effectively vanishes at very high carrier concentrations. The effects of polycrystallinity on IPP scattering are also discussed.Comment: 33 pages, 7 figure

The role of electron-electron scattering in spin transport

We investigate spin transport in quasi 2DEG formed by III-V semiconductor heterojunctions using the Monte Carlo method. The results obtained with and without electron-electron scattering are compared and appreciable difference between the two is found. The electron-electron scattering leads to suppression of Dyakonov-Perel mechanism (DP) and enhancement of Elliott-Yafet mechanism (EY). Finally, spin transport in InSb and GaAs heterostructures is investigated considering both DP and EY mechanisms. While DP mechanism dominates spin decoherence in GaAs, EY mechanism is found to dominate in high mobility InSb. Our simulations predict a lower spin relaxation/decoherence rate in wide gap semiconductors which is desirable for spin transport.Comment: to appear in Journal of Applied Physic

Theory of hole mobility in strained Ge and III-V p-channel inversion layers with high-kappa insulators

We present a comprehensive investigation of the low-field hole mobility in strained Ge and III-V (GaAs, GaSb, InSb, and In(1-x)Ga(x)As) p-channel inversion layers with both SiO(2) and high-kappa insulators. The valence (sub) band structure of Ge and III-V channels, relaxed and under biaxial strain (tensile and compressive) is calculated using an efficient self-consistent method based on the six-band k.p perturbation theory. The hole mobility is then computed using the Kubo-Greenwood formalism accounting for nonpolar hole-phonon scattering (acoustic and optical), surface roughness scattering, polar phonon scattering (III-Vs only), alloy scattering (alloys only) and remote phonon scattering, accounting for multisubband dielectric screening. As expected, we find that Ge and III-V semiconductors exhibit a mobility significantly larger than the "universal" Si mobility. This is true for MOS systems with either SiO(2) or high-kappa insulators, although the latter ones are found to degrade the hole mobility compared to SiO(2) due to scattering with interfacial optical phonons. In addition, III-Vs are more sensitive to the interfacial optical phonons than Ge due to the existence of the substrate polar phonons. Strain-especially biaxial tensile stress for Ge and biaxial compressive stress for III-Vs (except for GaAs) - is found to have a significant beneficial effect with both SiO(2) and HfO(2). Among strained p-channels, InSb exhibits the largest mobility enhancement. In(0.7)Ga(0.3)As also exhibits an increased hole mobility compared to Si, although the enhancement is not as large. Finally, our theoretical results are favorably compared with available experimental data for a relaxed Ge p-channel with a HfO(2) insulator. (C) 2010 American Institute of Physics. [doi: 10.1063/1.3524569

Spin diffusion/transport in nn-type GaAs quantum wells

The spin diffusion/transport in $n$-type (001) GaAs quantum well at high temperatures ($\ge120$ K) is studied by setting up and numerically solving the kinetic spin Bloch equations together with the Poisson equation self-consistently. All the scattering, especially the electron-electron Coulomb scattering, is explicitly included and solved in the theory. This enables us to study the system far away from the equilibrium, such as the hot-electron effect induced by the external electric field parallel to the quantum well. We find that the spin polarization/coherence oscillates along the transport direction even when there is no external magnetic field. We show that when the scattering is strong enough, electron spins with different momentums oscillate in the same phase which leads to equal transversal spin injection length and ensemble transversal injection length. It is also shown that the intrinsic scattering is already strong enough for such a phenomena. The oscillation period is almost independent on the external electric field which is in agreement with the latest experiment in bulk system at very low temperature [Europhys. Lett. {\bf 75}, 597 (2006)]. The spin relaxation/dephasing along the diffusion/transport can be well understood by the inhomogeneous broadening, which is caused by the momentum-dependent diffusion and the spin-orbit coupling, and the scattering. The scattering, temperature, quantum well width and external magnetic/electric field dependence of the spin diffusion is studied in detail.Comment: 12 pages, 6 figures, to be published in J Appl. Phy

Calculation of the electron mobility in III-V inversion layers with high-kappa dielectrics

We calculate the electron mobility for a metal-oxide-semiconductor system with a metallic gate, high-kappa dielectric layer, and III-V substrate, including scattering with longitudinal-optical (LO) polar-phonons of the III-V substrate and with the interfacial excitations resulting from the coupling of insulator and substrate optical modes among themselves and with substrate plasmons. In treating scattering with the substrate LO-modes, multisubband dynamic screening is included and compared to the dielectric screening in the static limit and with the commonly used screening model obtained by defining an effective screening wave vector. The electron mobility components limited by substrate LO phonons and interfacial modes are calculated for In0.53Ga0.47As and GaAs substrates with SiO2 and HfO2 gate dielectrics. The mobility components limited by the LO-modes and interfacial phonons are also investigated as a function of temperature. Scattering with surface roughness, fixed interface charge, and nonpolar-phonons is also included to judge the relative impact of each scattering mechanism in the total mobility for In0.53Ga0.47As with HfO2 gate dielectric. We show that InGaAs is affected by interfacial-phonon scattering to an extent larger than Si, lowering the expected performance, but probably not enough to question the technological relevance of InGaAs. (C) 2010 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3500553

Relation Between Einstein And Quantum Field Equations

We show that there exists a choice of scalar field modes, such that the evolution of the quantum field in the zero-mass and large-mass limits is consistent with the Einstein equations for the background geometry. This choice of modes is also consistent with zero production of these particles and thus corresponds to a preferred vacuum state preserved by the evolution. In the zero-mass limit, we find that the quantum field equation implies the Einstein equation for the scale factor of a radiation-dominated universe; in the large-mass case, it implies the corresponding Einstein equation for a matter-dominated universe. Conversely, if the classical radiation-dominated or matter-dominated Einstein equations hold, there is no production of scalar particles in the zero and large mass limits, respectively. The suppression of particle production in the large mass limit is over and above the expected suppression at large mass. Our results hold for a certain class of conformally ultrastatic background geometries and therefore generalize previous results by one of us for spatially flat Robertson-Walker background geometries. In these geometries, we find that the temporal part of the graviton equations reduces to the temporal equation for a massless minimally coupled scalar field, and therefore the results for massless particle production hold also for gravitons. Within the class of modes we study, we also find that the requirement of zero production of massless scalar particles is not consistent with a non-zero cosmological constant. Possible implications are discussed.Comment: Latex, 24 pages. Minor changes in text from original versio

Decoherence of electron spin qubits in Si-based quantum computers

Direct phonon spin-lattice relaxation of an electron qubit bound by a donor impurity or quantum dot in SiGe heterostructures is investigated. The aim is to evaluate the importance of decoherence from this mechanism in several important solid-state quantum computer designs operating at low temperatures. We calculate the relaxation rate $1/T_1$ as a function of [100] uniaxial strain, temperature, magnetic field, and silicon/germanium content for Si:P bound electrons. The quantum dot potential is much smoother, leading to smaller splittings of the valley degeneracies. We have estimated these splittings in order to obtain upper bounds for the relaxation rate. In general, we find that the relaxation rate is strongly decreased by uniaxial compressive strain in a SiGe-Si-SiGe quantum well, making this strain an important positive design feature. Ge in high concentrations (particularly over 85%) increases the rate, making Si-rich materials preferable. We conclude that SiGe bound electron qubits must meet certain conditions to minimize decoherence but that spin-phonon relaxation does not rule out the solid-state implementation of error-tolerant quantum computing.Comment: 8 figures. To appear in PRB-July 2002. Revisions include: some references added/corrected, several typos fixed, a few things clarified. Nothing dramati

Semiclassical effects in black hole interiors

First-order semiclassical perturbations to the Schwarzschild black hole geometry are studied within the black hole interior. The source of the perturbations is taken to be the vacuum stress-energy of quantized scalar, spinor, and vector fields, evaluated using analytic approximations developed by Page and others (for massless fields) and the DeWitt-Schwinger approximation (for massive fields). Viewing the interior as an anisotropic collapsing cosmology, we find that minimally or conformally coupled scalar fields, and spinor fields, decrease the anisotropy as the singularity is approached, while vector fields increase the anisotropy. In addition, we find that massless fields of all spins, and massive vector fields, strengthen the singularity, while massive scalar and spinor fields tend to slow the growth of curvature.Comment: 29 pages, ReVTeX; 4 ps figure

An exact self-consistent gravitational shock wave in semiclassical gravity

We find a self-consistent pp-gravitational shock wave solution to the semiclassical Einstein equations resulting from the $1/N$ approach to the effective action. We model the renormalized matter stress-energy-momentum tensor by $N$ massless scalar fields in the Minkowski vacuum plus a classical particle. We show that quantum effects generate a milder singularity at the position of the particle than the classical solution, but the singularity does not disappear. At large distances from the particle, the quantum correction decreases slowly, as $1/\rho^2$ ($\rho$ being the distance to the particle in the shock wave plane). We argue that this large distance correction is a necessary consequence of quantum gravity.Comment: 13 pages, REVTEX, 4 PS figures. Revised version contains a derivation of the solution compatible with its distributional character. The final results, though, are the sam

Noise and Fluctuations in Semiclassical Gravity

We continue our earlier investigation of the backreaction problem in semiclassical gravity with the Schwinger-Keldysh or closed-time-path (CTP) functional formalism using the language of the decoherent history formulation of quantum mechanics. Making use of its intimate relation with the Feynman-Vernon influence functional (IF) method, we examine the statistical mechanical meaning and show the interrelation of the many quantum processes involved in the backreaction problem, such as particle creation, decoherence and dissipation. We show how noise and fluctuation arise naturally from the CTP formalism. We derive an expression for the CTP effective action in terms of the Bogolubov coefficients and show how noise is related to the fluctuations in the number of particles created. In so doing we have extended the old framework of semiclassical gravity, based on the mean field theory of Einstein equation with a source given by the expectation value of the energy-momentum tensor, to that based on a Langevin-type equation, where the dynamics of fluctuations of spacetime is driven by the quantum fluctuations of the matter field. This generalized framework is useful for the investigation of quantum processes in the early universe involving fluctuations, vacuum stability and phase transtion phenomena and the non-equilibrium thermodynamics of black holes. It is also essential to an understanding of the transition from any quantum theory of gravity to classical general relativity. \pacs{pacs numbers: 04.60.+n,98.80.Cq,05.40.+j,03.65.Sq}Comment: Latex 37 pages, umdpp 93-216 (submitted to Phys. Rev. D, 24 Nov. 1993