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The coupling of ferroelectricity (FE) and superconductivity (SC) becomes the frontier of condensed matter research recently especially in the realm of two-dimensional (2D) materials. Identifying a general strategy to realize coexistence of FE and SC in a single material is extremely important for this active field, but quite challenging thus far. We show in this work that coexistence of robust FE and metallicity/SC can be realized by hole-doping a ferroelectric insulator which hosts antibonding highest valence bands (HVB). Using typical 2D ferroelecrtic SnS monolayer as a concrete example, we demonstrate that 0.30 hole/cell doping leads to enhancement of total polarization mainly ascribed to the increasing of polar displacement and ionic polarization. In addition, due to the strong Fermi surface nesting and prominent softening of out-of-plane acoustic phonon upon hole-doping, SnS can be turned into a single gap superconductor with an unexpectedly high transition temperature (Tc) of ~7 K, whereas the polar phonon mode gives negligible contribution to electron-phonon couplings. Our work provides general principle and realistic material for realizing metallic FE and superconducting FE, which paves the way for reversible and nonvolatile superconducting devices., Comment: Comments are welcome

Intertwining of different quantum degrees of freedom manifests exotic quantum phenomena in many-body systems, especially in reduced dimensionality. Here we show that monolayered NbTe2 serves as an ideal platform where lattice, charge, and spin degrees of freedom manifest cooperatively, leading to a new and threading order of chirality. By using spin-polarized scanning tunneling microscopy/spectroscopy, we reveal that the root19 * root19 phase of NbTe2 is encoded with both alternating-chiral atomic displacements and charge density waves, characterized by two chiral units of opposite handedness within the reconstructed cell. We show unambiguous evidence for emergent spin polarizations spreading over the primitive cell, with the magnetization orientation synchronized with alternating handedness of chiral order. Our first-principles studies identify the origin of intertwined orders being correlation driven, with the threading order of chirality emerging when the on-site Coulomb repulsion exceeds a critical value. The spin ordering is further shown to be of hybrid ferrimagnetic nature, contributed by the itinerant electrons and localized d-orbitals. Collectively, these findings expand the realm of chiral order in correlated electron systems, and facilitate an appealing platform for chiral spintronic and related applications.

Ferroelectricity, band topology, and superconductivity are respectively local, global, and macroscopic properties of quantum materials, and understanding their mutual couplings offers unique opportunities for exploring rich physics and enhanced functionalities. In this mini-review, we attempt to highlight some of the latest advances in this vibrant area, focusing in particular on ferroelectricity-tuned superconductivity and band topology in two-dimensional (2D) materials and related heterostructures. We will first present results from predictive studies of the delicate couplings between ferroelectricity and topology or superconductivity based on first-principles calculations and phenomenological modeling, with ferroelectricity-enabled topological superconductivity as an appealing objective. Next, we will cover the latest advances on experimental studies of ferroelectricity-tuned superconductivity based on different 2D materials or van der Waals heterostructures. Finally, as perspectives, we will outline schemes that may allow to materialize new types of 2D systems that simultaneously harbor ferroelectricity and superconductivity, or that may lead to enhanced ferroelectric superconductivity, ferroelectric topological superconductivity, and new types of superconducting devices such as superconducting diodes., Comment: Invited Review for Adv.Funct.Mater.,comments are welcome

Two-dimensional materials are of interest for their exotic properties, for example, superconductivity, and highly tunability. Focusing on phonon-mediating superconductivity, one would propose to promote critical temperature by substituting heavy elements by lighter ones, in order to increase Debye temperature. Following recent experimental progress in transition-metal nitrides and theoretically revealing W$_2$N$_3$ as a candidate for high-temperature superconductivity, we investigate the possibility of two-dimensional superconductivity through surface engineering on MoN$_2$. Using density functional theory calculation, we found multigap superconductivity at temperature up to 36K within anisotropic Eliashberg equation in passivated electride-like surfaces. We also demonstrate their possibility to sustain topological superconductivity with strong spin-orbital coupling.

In recent experimental and theoretical studies of graphene, disorder scattering processes have been suggested to play an important role in its electronic and transport properties. In the preceding paper, it has been shown that the nonperturbative momentum-space Lanczos method is able to accurately describe all the multiple impurity scattering events and account for the quasiparticle and transport properties of disordered monolayer graphene. In the present study, we expand the range of applicability of this recursive method by numerically investigating the quasiparticle and transport properties of Bernal-stacked bilayer graphene in the presence of scalar Anderson disorder. The results are further compared with the findings of the same system using a self-consistent Born approximation, as well as the central findings in the preceding paper for monolayer graphene. It is found that in both systems, proper inclusions of all the scattering events are needed in order to reliably capture the role of disorder via multiple impurity scattering. In particular, the quasiparticle residue is shown to decrease sharply near the charge neutrality point, suggesting that the system is either a marginal Fermi liquid or a non-Fermi liquid. Furthermore, we reveal the dependences of the transport properties of disordered bilayer graphene on the carrier density and temperature, and explore the role of interlayer scattering at varying strengths. Our findings help to provide some new angles into the quasiparticle and transport properties of disordered bilayer graphene., Comment: 17 pages, 10 figures

Despite extensive existing studies, a complete understanding of the role of disorder in affecting the physical properties of two-dimensional Dirac fermionic systems remains a standing challenge, largely due to obstacles encountered in treating multiple scattering events for such inherently strong scattering systems. Using graphene as an example and a nonperturbative numerical technique, here we reveal that the low energy quasiparticle properties are considerably modified by multiple scattering processes even in the presence of weak scalar potentials. We extract unified power-law energy dependences of the self-energy with fractional exponents from the weak scattering limit to the strong scattering limit from our numerical analysis, leading to sharp reductions of the quasiparticle residues near the Dirac point, eventually vanishing at the Dirac point. The central findings stay valid when the Anderson-type impurities are replaced by correlated Gaussian- or Yukawa-type disorder with varying correlation lengths. The improved understanding gained here also enables us to provide better interpretations of the experimental observations surrounding the temperature and carrier density dependences of the conductivity in ultra-high mobility graphene samples. The approach demonstrated here is expected to find broad applicability in understanding the role of various other types of impurities in two-dimensional Dirac systems., Comment: 15 pages, 11 figures

Chemical activation of the intrinsically inert basal planes of transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) is crucial for developing high-efficiency electrocatalysts for energy technology applications. Here we report the discovery of an efficient TMD-based topological catalyst for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), containing high-density single-atom reactive centers on a few-layer (7x7)-PtTe2-x superstructure with a Te-vacancy density of x. Compared with pristine Pt(111), PtTe2, and (2x2)-PtTe2-x, (7x7)-PtTe2-x exhibits superior HER performance owing to its substantially increased density of undercoordinated Pt sites, and displays exceptional catalytic stability when operating at high current densities. Our first-principles calculations confirm that multiple types of undercoordinated Pt sites on (7x7)-PtTe2-x exhibit favorable hydrogen adsorption Gibbs free energies, and that the reactive sites can further increase their population upon increasing hydrogen coverage. Both the (2x2)- and (7x7)-PtTe2-x are also shown to possess nontrivial band topology with robust edge states that may further facilitate HER.

We report two non-degenerate magnon modes with opposite spins or chiralities in collinearly antiferromagnetic insulators driven by symmetry-governed anisotropic exchange couplings. The consequent giant spin splitting contributes to spin Seebeck and spin Nernst effects generating longitudinal and transverse spin currents when the temperature gradient applies along and away from the main crystal axis, without requiring any external magnetic field and spin-orbit coupling. Based on first-principle calculations, we predict feasible material candidates holding robust altermagnetic spin configurations and room-temperature structural stability to efficiently transport spin. The spin Seebeck conductivity is comparable to the records of antiferromagnets that require the magnetic field, and the spin Nernst conductivity is two orders in magnitude larger than that in antiferromagnetic monolayers that need Berry curvature., Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures

Over the past fifteen years, tremendous efforts have been devoted to realizing topological superconductivity in realistic materials and systems, predominately propelled by their promising application potentials in fault-tolerant quantum information processing. In this article, we attempt to give an overview on some of the main developments in this field, focusing in particular on two-dimensional crystalline superconductors that possess either intrinsic p-wave pairing or nontrivial band topology. We first classify the three different conceptual schemes to achieve topological superconductor (TSC), enabled by real-space superconducting proximity effect, reciprocal-space superconducting proximity effect, and intrinsic TSC. Whereas the first scheme has so far been most extensively explored, the subtle difference between the other two remains to be fully substantiated. We then move on to candidate intrinsic or p-wave superconductors, including Sr2RuO4, UTe2, Pb3Bi, and graphene-based systems. For TSC systems that rely on proximity effects, the emphases are mainly on the coexistence of superconductivity and nontrivial band topology, as exemplified by transition metal dichalcogenides, cobalt pnictides, and stanene, all in monolayer or few-layer regime. The review completes with discussions on the three dominant tuning schemes of strain, gating, and ferroelectricity in acquiring one or both essential ingredients of the TSC, and optimizations of such tuning capabilities may prove to be decisive in our drive towards braiding of Majorana zero modes and demonstration of topological qubits.

Abstract: Layered transition-metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs) down to the monolayer (ML) limit provide a fertile platform for exploring charge-density waves (CDWs). Though bulk NbTe2 is known to harbor a single axis 3*1 CDW coexisting with non-trivial quantum properties, the scenario in the ML limit is still experimentally unknown. In this study, we unveil the richness of the CDW phases in ML NbTe2, where not only the theoretically predicted 4*4 and 4*1 phases, but also two unexpected sqrt(28)*sqrt(28) and sqrt(19)*sqrt(19) phases, can be realized. For such a complex CDW system, we establish an exhaustive growth phase diagram via systematic efforts in the material synthesis and scanning tunneling microscope characterization. Moreover, we report that the energetically stable phase is the larger scale order (sqrt(19)*sqrt(19)), which is surprisingly in contradiction to the prior prediction (4*4). These findings are confirmed using two different kinetic pathways, i.e., direct growth at proper growth temperatures (T), and low-T growth followed by high-T annealing. Our results provide a comprehensive diagram of the "zoo" of CDW orders in ML 1T-NbTe2 for the first time and offer a new material platform for studying novel quantum phases in the 2D limit.

As a fundamental magnetic parameter, Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI), has gained a great deal of attention in the last two decades due to its critical role in formation of magnetic skyrmions. Recent discoveries of two-dimensional (2D) van der Waals (vdW) magnets has also gained a great deal of attention due to appealing physical properties, such as gate tunability, flexibility and miniaturization. Intensive studies have shown that isotropic DMI stabilizes ferromagnetic (FM) topological spin textures in 2D magnets or their corresponding heterostructures. However, the investigation of anisotropic DMI and antiferromagnetic (AFM) topological spin configurations remains elusive. Here, we propose and demonstrate that a family of 2D magnets with P4-m2 symmetry-protected anisotropic DMI. More interestingly, various topological spin configurations, including FM/AFM antiskyrmion and AFM vortex-antivortex pair, emerge in this family. These results give a general method to design anisotropic DMI and pave the way towards topological magnetism in 2D materials using crystal symmetry., Comment: 5 figures

Realization of tunable superconductivity with concomitant nontrivial band topology is conceptually intriguing and highly desirable for superconducting devices and topological quantum computation. Based on first-principles calculations, here we present the first prediction of simultaneously tunable superconducting transition temperature (Tc) and band topology in a superconducting IrTe2 overlayer on a ferroelectric In2Se3 monolayer. We first demonstrate that the Tc is substantially enhanced from that of IrTe2 nanoflakes (Tc ~3 K) due to significant charge repartitioning around the Fermi level. More importantly, the Tc is shown to sensitively depend on the In2Se3 polarization, with the higher Tc of ~(8-10) K attributed to enhanced interlayer electron-phonon coupling when the polarization is downward. The band topology is also switched from trivial to nontrivial as the polarization is reversed from upward to downward. These findings provide physically realistic platforms for simultaneously tuning superconductivity and band topology in two-dimensional heterobilayers and related heterostructures using a reversible and nonvolatile approach.

Two-dimensional (2D) magnetic materials empowered with nontrivial band topology may lead to the emergence of exotic quantum states with significant application potentials. Here we predict a family tree of 2D magnetic materials with tunable topological properties, starting from the parental materials of CrI3 and CrBr3. The underlying design principle is that, by substituting the alternating sites of the Cr honeycomb lattice sandwiched between the halogen layers with V or Mn, the parental materials of trivial ferromagnetic insulators are ripe to be converted into topological systems. Specifically, our first-principles calculations show that, due to the elegant interplay between bandgap narrowing and spin-orbital coupling, CrI3 branches into high-temperature quantum anomalous Hall insulators of CrVI6 and CrMnI6 with different topological invariants, while CrBr3 branches into topological half-metals of CrVBr6 and CrMnBr6. Those novel 2D magnets are also shown to be easily exfoliated from their bulk counterparts. The present study is thus geared to advance the field of 2D magnetic materials into the topologically nontrivial realm.

Topological magnetic excitations rooted in Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI) are promising information carriers for next-generation memory and spintronic devices. The recently discovered two-dimensional (2D) magnets provide fertile new platforms for revealing rich physical phenomena with atomic-scale precision, as exemplified by the enhanced DMI associated with an effective electric field that breaks the inversion symmetry. Here we use first-principles calculations to establish a conceptually difierent compositional engineering approach to induce giant DMI in a representative CrMnI$_6$ 2D magnet, and the underlying mechanism is rooted in the spontaneous inversion symmetry breaking in the bipartite system. Using atomistic magnetics simulations, we further reveal that bimeronic excitations can emerge upon cooling a spin random state or perturbing a ferromagnetic state. Strikingly, the bimeron can exhibit unidirectional soliton-like propagation, and such a ratchet phenomenon is highly desirable for racetrack memories. These findings may prove instrumental in developing novel devices for quantum information based on 2D magnets.

Recently, monolayer CoSb/SrTiO$_3$ has been proposed as a candidate harboring interfacial superconductivity in analogy with monolayer FeSe/SrTiO$_3$. Experimentally, while the CoSb-based compounds manifesting as nanowires and thin films have been realized on SrTiO$_3$ substrates, serving as a rich playground, their electronic structures are still unknown and yet to be resolved. Here, we have fabricated CoSb$_{1-x}$ nanoribbons with quasi-one-dimensional stripes on SrTiO$_3$(001) substrates using molecular beam epitaxy, and investigated the electronic structure by in situ angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy. Straight Fermi surfaces without lateral dispersions are observed. CoSb$_{1-x}$/SrTiO$_3$ is slightly hole doped, where the interfacial charge transfer is opposite to that in monolayer FeSe/SrTiO$_3$. The spectral weight near Fermi level exhibits power-law-like suppression and obeys a universal temperature scaling, serving as the signature of Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid (TLL) state. The obtained TLL parameter of $\sim$0.21 shows the underlying strong correlations. Our results not only suggest CoSb$_{1-x}$ nanoribbon as a representative TLL system, but also provide clues for further investigations on the CoSb-related interface., Comment: 27 pages, 3 figures

Ever since the first successful synthesis of stanene via epitaxial growth, numerous efforts have been devoted to improving its overall quality and exploring its topological and other exotic properties under different growth conditions. Here, using first-principles approaches, we reveal the atomistic growth mechanisms and robust topological properties of few-layer stanene on Bi(111). We first show that monolayer stanene grown on Bi(111) follows a highly desirable nucleation-and-growth mechanism, characterized by attractive interaction of the Sn adatoms. More importantly, we reveal that surface passivation by the residual hydrogen is essential in achieving layer-by-layer growth of high-quality few-layer stanene, with the hydrogen functioning as a surfactant in stabilizing the growing films. Furthermore, we investigate systematically the dependence of the topological properties of stanene on the film thickness, hydrogen passivation, and substrate, and obtain robust quantum spin Hall effects under diverse physical conditions. The robustness of the nontrivial topology is attributable to the strong spin-orbit coupling of the Bi substrate. The atomistic growth mechanisms and nontrivial topology of stanene as presented here are also discussed in connection with recent experimental findings.

Limited by the time complexity of querying k-hop neighbors in a graph database, most graph algorithms cannot be deployed online and execute millisecond-level inference. This problem dramatically limits the potential of applying graph algorithms in certain areas, such as financial fraud detection. Therefore, we propose Asynchronous Propagation Attention Network, an asynchronous continuous time dynamic graph algorithm for real-time temporal graph embedding. Traditional graph models usually execute two serial operations: first graph computation and then model inference. We decouple model inference and graph computation step so that the heavy graph query operations will not damage the speed of model inference. Extensive experiments demonstrate that the proposed method can achieve competitive performance and 8.7 times inference speed improvement in the meantime., Comment: In Proceedings of the 2021 International Conference on Management of Data (SIGMOD/PODS '21)

Nowadays, graph-structured data are increasingly used to model complex systems. Meanwhile, detecting anomalies from graph has become a vital research problem of pressing societal concerns. Anomaly detection is an unsupervised learning task of identifying rare data that differ from the majority. As one of the dominant anomaly detection algorithms, One Class Support Vector Machine has been widely used to detect outliers. However, those traditional anomaly detection methods lost their effectiveness in graph data. Since traditional anomaly detection methods are stable, robust and easy to use, it is vitally important to generalize them to graph data. In this work, we propose One Class Graph Neural Network (OCGNN), a one-class classification framework for graph anomaly detection. OCGNN is designed to combine the powerful representation ability of Graph Neural Networks along with the classical one-class objective. Compared with other baselines, OCGNN achieves significant improvements in extensive experiments., Comment: 16 pages, 4 figures. Neural Comput & Applic (2021)

Recently, deep generative models have become increasingly popular in unsupervised anomaly detection. However, deep generative models aim at recovering the data distribution rather than detecting anomalies. Besides, deep generative models have the risk of overfitting training samples, which has disastrous effects on anomaly detection performance. To solve the above two problems, we propose a Self-adversarial Variational Autoencoder with a Gaussian anomaly prior assumption. We assume that both the anomalous and the normal prior distribution are Gaussian and have overlaps in the latent space. Therefore, a Gaussian transformer net T is trained to synthesize anomalous but near-normal latent variables. Keeping the original training objective of Variational Autoencoder, besides, the generator G tries to distinguish between the normal latent variables and the anomalous ones synthesized by T, and the encoder E is trained to discriminate whether the output of G is real. These new objectives we added not only give both G and E the ability to discriminate but also introduce additional regularization to prevent overfitting. Compared with the SOTA baselines, the proposed model achieves significant improvements in extensive experiments. Datasets and our model are available at a Github repository., Comment: This paper has been accepted by Knowledge-based Systems

Two-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenides represent an emerging class of materials exhibiting various intriguing properties, and integration of such materials for potential device applications will necessarily encounter creation of different boundaries. Using first-principles approaches, here we investigate the structural, electronic, and magnetic properties along two inequivalent zigzag M and X edges of MX$_{2}$ (M=Mo, W; X=S, Se). Along the M edges, we reveal a previously unrecognized but energetically strongly preferred (2x1) reconstruction pattern, which is universally operative for all the MX$_{2}$, characterized by a self-passivation mechanism through place exchanges of the outmost X and M edge atoms. In contrast, the X edges undergo a more moderate (2x1) or (3x1) reconstruction for MoX$_{2}$ or WX$_{2}$, respectively. We further use the prototypical zigzag MoX$_{2}$ nanoribbons to demonstrate that the M and X edges possess distinctly different electronic and magnetic properties, which are discussed for spintronic and catalytic applications.

Lateral heterostructures of two-dimensional materials may exhibit various intriguing emergent properties. Yet when specified to the orientationally aligned heterojunctions of zigzag graphene and hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) nanoribbons, realizations of the high expectations on their properties encounter two standing hurtles. First, the rapid accumulation of strain energy prevents large- scale fabrication. Secondly, the pronounced half-metallicity predicted for freestanding graphene nanoribbons is severely suppressed. By properly tailoring orientational misalignment between zigzag graphene and chiral hBN nanoribbons, here we present a facile approach to overcome both obstacles. Our first-principles calculations show that the strain energy accumulation in such heterojunctions is significantly diminished for a range of misalignments. More strikingly, the half-metallicity is substantially enhanced from the orientationally aligned case, back to be comparable in magnitude with the freestanding case. The restored half-metallicity is largely attributed to the recovered superexchange interaction between the opposite heterojunction interfaces. The present findings may have important implications in eventual realization of graphene-based spintronics., Comment: 5pages, 3 figures

In integrating topological insulators (TIs) with conventional materials, one crucial issue is how the topological surface states (TSS) will behave in such heterostructures. We use first-principles approaches to establish accurate tunability of the vertical location of the TSS via intriguing dual-proximity effects. By depositing a conventional insulator (CI) overlayer onto a TI substrate (Bi2Se3 or Bi2Te3), we demonstrate that, the TSS can float to the top of the CI film, or stay put at the CI/TI interface, or be pushed down deeper into the otherwise structurally homogeneous TI substrate. These contrasting behaviors imply a rich variety of possible quantum phase transitions in the hybrid systems, dictated by key material-specific properties of the CI. These discoveries lay the foundation for accurate manipulation of the real space properties of TSS in TI heterostructures of diverse technological significance.

As undesirable defects, grain boundaries (GBs) are widespread in epitaxial graphene using existing growth methods on metal substrates. Employing density functional theory calculations, we first identify that the misorientations of carbon islands nucleated on a Cu(111) surface lead to the formation of GBs as the islands coalesce. We then propose a two-step kinetic pathway to effectively suppress the formation of GBs. In the first step, large aromatic hydrocarbon molecules are deposited onto a $\sqrt{3}\times\sqrt{3}$ superstructured Cu-Mn alloyed surface to seed the initial carbon clusters of a single orientation; in the second step, the seeded islands are enlarged through normal chemical vapor deposition of methane to form a complete graphene sheet. The present approach promises to overcome a standing obstacle in large scale single-crystal graphene fabrication.

As an appealing concept for developing next-generation solar cells, intermediate-band solar cells (IBSCs) promise to drastically increase the quantum efficiency of photovoltaic conversion. Yet to date, a standing challenge lies in the lack of materials suitable for developing IBSCs. Recently, a new doping approach, termed non-compensated n-p codoping, has been proposed to construct intermediate bands (IBs) in the intrinsic energy band gaps of oxide semiconductors such as TiO$_2$. We explore theoretically the optimal quantum efficiency of IBSCs based on non-compensated n-p codoped TiO$_2$ under two different design schemes. The first preserves the ideal condition that no electrical current be extracted from the IB. The corresponding maximum quantum efficiency for the codoped TiO$_2$ can reach 52.7%. In the second scheme, current is also extracted from the IB, resulting in a further enhancement in the maximum efficiency to 56.7%. Our findings also relax the stringent requirement that the IB location be close to the optimum value, making it more feasible to realize IBSCs with high quantum efficiencies.

Using DFT calculations, we present a thorough study of the quantum size effects on the stability of freestanding metal atom wires. Our systems include Na, Ag, Au, In, Ga and Pb atom wires, i.e. $s$, $sd$, and $sp$ electron prototypes. We found that the total energy always oscillates with the wire length, which clearly indicates the existence of preferred lengths. Increasing the length, the s-system exhibits even-odd oscillations following a $a/x +b/x^2$ decay law in the stability, which can be attributed to electron band filling and quantum confinement along the wire. The $sd$-system exhibits a similar oscillation pattern, even in the presence of $sd$ hybridization. In $sp$-system, the energy oscillations are beyond the simple even-odd nature, likely due to unpaired p orbitals and the corresponding nontrival band filling. Our findings clearly demonstrate that electronic contribution is quite critical to the stability of freestanding wires, and this stability may be important even when wires are deposited on substrates or strained. This study sheds light on the underlying formation mechanism of metal atom wires., Comment: 19 pages, 4 figures

The novel concept of non-compensated n-p codoping has made it possible to create tunable intermediate bands in the intrinsic band gap of TiO2, making the codoped TiO2 a promising material for developing intermediate band solar cells (IBSCs). Here we investigate the quantum efficiency of such IBSCs within two scenarios - with and without current extracted from the extended intermediate band. Using the ideal equivalent circuit model, we find that the maximum efficiency of 57% in the first scenario and 53% in the second are both much higher than the Shockley-Queisser limit from single gap solar cells. We also obtain various key quantities of the circuits, a useful step in realistic development of TiO2 based solar cells invoking device integration. These equivalent circuit results are also compared with the efficiencies obtained directly from consideration of electron transition between the energy bands, and both approaches reveal the intriguing existence of double peaks in the maximum quantum efficiency as a function of the relative location of IBs., Comment: This paper has been withdrawn by the author due to a crucial sign error in the last description

In the framework of the slave-boson approach to the $t-t'-t''-J$ model, it is found that for electron-doped high-$T_c$ cuprates, the staggered antiferromagnetic (AF) order coexists with superconducting (SC) order in a wide doping level ranged from underdoped to nearly optimal doping at the mean-field level. In the coexisting phase, it is revealed that the spin response is commensurate in a substantial frequency range below a crossover frequency $\omega_{c}$ for all dopings considered, and it switches to the incommensurate structure when the frequency is higher than $\omega_{c}$. This result is in agreement with the experimental measurements. Comparison of the spin response between the coexisting phase and the pure SC phase with a $d_{x^{2}-y^{2}}$-wave pairing plus a higher harmonics term (DP+HH) suggests that the inclusion of the two-band effect is important to consistently account for both the dispersion of the spin response and the non-monotonic gap behavior in the electron-doped cuprates., Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures

We investigate the superconducting order parameter, the spectral and optical properties in a stripe model with spin (charge) domain-derived scattering potential $V_{s}$ ($V_{c}$). We show that the charge domain-derived scattering is less effective than the spin scattering on the suppression of superconductivity. For $V_{s}\gg V_{c}$, the spectral weight concentrates on the ($\pi,0$) antinodal region, and a finite energy peak appears in the optical conductivity with the disappearance of the Drude peak. But for $V_{s}\approx V_{c}$, the spectral weight concentrates on the ($\pi/2,\pi/2$) nodal region, and a residual Drude peak exists in the optical conductivity without the finite energy peak. These results consistently account for the divergent observations in the ARPES and optical conductivity experiments in several high-$T_c$ cuprates, and suggest that the "insulating" and "metallic" properties are intrinsic to the stripe state, depending on the relative strength of the spin and charge domain-derived scattering potentials., Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures

A scheme of generating controllable (2+1) photons in a double-$% \Lambda$ atomic system based on active-Raman-gain is presented in this paper. Such (2+1) photons can be a potential candidate to generate a correlated photon pair as the photon `1' acts as a trigger. Compared to other schemes of generating correlated photon pairs, our scheme exhibits a number of advantages due to the exploit of the stimulated Raman process., Comment: 8 pages, 8 figures

In this work, we revisit the electron transfer rate theory, with particular interests in the distinct quantum solvation effect, and the characterizations of adiabatic/nonadiabatic and Markovian/non-Markovian rate processes. We first present a full account for the quantum solvation effect on the electron transfer in Debye solvents, addressed previously in J. Theore. & Comput. Chem. {\bf 5}, 685 (2006). Distinct reaction mechanisms, including the quantum solvation-induced transitions from barrier-crossing to tunneling, and from barrierless to quantum barrier-crossing rate processes, are shown in the fast modulation or low viscosity regime. This regime is also found in favor of nonadiabatic rate processes. We further propose to use Kubo's motional narrowing line shape function to describe the Markovian character of the reaction. It is found that a non-Markovian rate process is most likely to occur in a symmetric system in the fast modulation regime, where the electron transfer is dominant by tunneling due to the Fermi resonance., Comment: 13 pages, 10 figures, submitted to J. Phys. Chem. A

A hierarchical equations of motion formalism for a quantum dissipation system in a grand canonical bath ensemble surrounding is constructed, on the basis of the calculus-on-path-integral algorithm, together with the parametrization of arbitrary non-Markovin bath that satisfies fluctuation-dissipation theorem. The influence functionals for both the Fermion or Boson bath interaction are found to be of the same path-integral expression as the canonical bath, assuming they all satisfy the Gaussian statistics. However, the equation of motion formalism are different, due to the fluctuation-dissipation theories that are distinct and used explicitly. The implications of the present work to quantum transport through molecular wires and electron transfer in complex molecular systems are discussed., Comment: 12pages

The effect of solvation on the electron transfer (ET) rate processes is investigated on the basis of the exact theory constructed in J. Phys. Chem. B Vol. 110, (2006); quant-ph/0604071. The nature of solvation is studied in a close relation with the mechanism of ET processes. The resulting Kramers' turnover and Marcus' inversion characteristics are analyzed accordingly. The classical picture of solvation is found to be invalid when the solvent longitudinal relaxation time is short compared with the inverse temperature., Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures. J. Theo. & Comput. Chem., accepted

A nonperturbative electron transfer rate theory is developed based on the reduced density matrix dynamics, which can be evaluated readily for the Debye solvent model without further approximation. Not only does it recover for reaction rates the celebrated Marcus' inversion and Kramers' turnover behaviors, the present theory also predicts for reaction thermodynamics, such as equilibrium Gibbs free-energy and entropy, some interesting solvent-dependent features that are calling for experimental verification. Moreover, a continued fraction Green's function formalism is also constructed, which can be used together with Dyson equation technique, for efficient evaluation of nonperturbative reduced density matrix dynamics., Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures. J. Phys. Chem. B, accepted

By viewing the non-equilibrium transport setup as a quantum open system, we propose a reduced-density-matrix based quantum transport formalism. At the level of self-consistent Born approximation, it can precisely account for the correlation between tunneling and the system internal many-body interaction, leading to certain novel behavior such as the non-equilibrium Kondo effect. It also opens a new way to construct time-dependent density functional theory for transport through large-scale complex systems., Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures; the TDDFT scheme is explained in more detail in this new version

For quantum transport through mesoscopic system, a quantum master equation approach is developed in terms of compact expressions for the transport current and the reduced density matrix of the system. The present work is an extension of Gurvitz's approach for quantum transport and quantum measurement, namely, to finite temperature and arbitrary bias voltage. Our derivation starts from a second-order cummulant expansion of the tunneling Hamiltonian, then follows conditional average over the electrode reservoir states. As a consequence, in the usual weak tunneling regime, the established formalism is applicable for a wide range of transport problems. The validity of the formalism and its convenience in application are well illustrated by a number of examples., Comment: 8 pages, 1 figure; with considerable extension of the previous version submitted in September 2004; to appear in Phys. Rev. B

An exact quantum master equation formalism is constructed for the efficient evaluation of quantum non-Markovian dissipation beyond the weak system-bath interaction regime in the presence of time-dependent external field. A novel truncation scheme is further proposed and compared with other approaches to close the resulting hierarchically coupled equations of motion. The interplay between system-bath interaction strength, non-Markovian property, and required level of hierarchy is also demonstrated with the aid of simple spin-boson systems., Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures

In this work we first derive a generalized conditional master equation for quantum measurement by a mesoscopic detector, then study the readout characteristics of qubit measurement where a number of new features are found. The work would in particular highlight the qubit spontaneous relaxation effect induced by the measurement itself rather than an external thermal bath., Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures; an error in Eq.(8) is corrected

Quantum measurement of a solid-state qubit by a mesoscopic detector is of fundamental interest in quantum physics and an essential issue in quantum computing. In this work, by employing a unified quantum master equation approach constructed in our recent publications, we study the measurement-induced relaxation and dephasing of the coupled-quantum-dot states measured by a quantum-point-contact. Our treatment pays particular attention on the detailed-balance relation, which is a consequence of properly accounting for the energy exchange between the qubit and detector during the measurement process. As a result, our theory is applicable to measurement at arbitrary voltage and temperature. Both numerical and analytical results for the qubit relaxation and dephasing are carried out, and new features are highlighted in concern with their possible relevance to future experiments., Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures