Search

Hydrodynamic transport effectively describes the collective dynamics of fluids with well-defined thermodynamic quantities. With enhanced electron-electron interactions at elevated temperatures, the collective behavior of electrons in graphene with minimal impurities can be depicted as a hydrodynamic flow of charges. In this new regime, the well-known rules of Ohmic transport based on a single electron picture no longer apply, necessitating the consideration of collective electron dynamics. In particular, the hydrodynamic analogues of Joule heating and thermal transport require consideration of the viscous motion of the electron fluid, which has a direct impact on energy dissipation and heat generation by the fluidic motion of charge. In this work, we probe graphene hydrodynamics with thermal transport and find two distinct, qualitative signatures: thermal conductivity suppression below the Wiedemann-Franz value and viscous heating leading to magnetically-induced redistribution of temperature. We find these two effects are coincident in temperature and density, providing robust qualitative signatures of hydrodynamics, despite arising from two distinct aspects of this new regime: microscopic momentum conservation due to electron-electron scattering, and geometry-dependent viscous dissipation. Our results mark the first observation of viscous electronic heating in an electron fluid, providing insight for thermal management in electronic hydrodynamic devices and offering a new methodology for identifying hydrodynamic states in other systems., Comment: 36 pages, 9 figures, including supplementary information

In low-dimensional systems, the combination of reduced dimensionality, strong interactions, and topology has led to a growing number of many-body quantum phenomena. Thermal transport, which is sensitive to all energy-carrying degrees of freedom, provides a discriminating probe of emergent excitations in quantum materials and devices. However, thermal transport measurements in low dimensions are dominated by the phonon contribution of the lattice, requiring an experimental approach to isolate the electronic thermal conductance. Here, we show how the measurement of nonlocal voltage fluctuations in a multiterminal device can reveal the electronic heat transported across a mesoscopic bridge made of low-dimensional materials. By using 2-dimensional graphene as a noise thermometer, we demonstrate quantitative electronic thermal conductance measurements of graphene and carbon nanotubes up to 70 K, achieving a precision of ~1% of the thermal conductance quantum at 5 K. Employing linear and nonlinear thermal transport, we observe signatures of long-range interaction-mediated energy transport in 1-dimensional electron systems, in agreement with a theoretical model. Our versatile nonlocal noise thermometry allows new experiments probing energy transport in emergent states of matter and devices in low dimensions., Comment: Authors' revision. Main text: 11 pages, 4 figures. Supplementary information: 26 pages, 11 figures. Methods and references included. Published in Nature Nanotechnology

We develop Johnson noise thermometry applicable to mesoscopic devices with variable source impedance with high bandwidth for fast data acquisition. By implementing differential noise measurement and two-stage impedance matching, we demonstrate noise measurement in the frequency range 120-250 MHz with a wide sample resistance range 30 {\Omega}-100 k{\Omega} tuned by gate voltages and temperature. We employ high-frequency, single-ended low noise amplifiers maintained at a constant cryogenic temperature in order to maintain the desired low noise temperature. We achieve thermometer calibration with temperature precision up to 650 mK on a 10 K background with 30 s of averaging. Using this differential noise thermometry technique, we measure thermal conductivity on a bilayer graphene sample spanning the metallic and semiconducting regimes in a wide resistance range, and we compare it to the electrical conductivity., Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures; submitted to Review of Scientific Instruments

In most materials, transport can be described by the motion of distinct species of quasiparticles, such as electrons and phonons. Strong interactions between quasiparticles, however, can lead to collective behaviour, including the possibility of viscous hydrodynamic flow. In the case of electrons and phonons, an electron-phonon fluid is expected to exhibit strong phonon-drag transport signatures and an anomalously low thermal conductivity. The Dirac semi-metal PtSn4 has a very low resistivity at low temperatures and shows a pronounced phonon drag peak in the low temperature thermopower; it is therefore an excellent candidate for hosting a hydrodynamic electron-phonon fluid. Here we report measurements of the temperature and magnetic field dependence of the longitudinal and Hall electrical resistivities, the thermopower and the thermal conductivity of PtSn4. We confirm a phonon drag peak in the thermopower near 14 K and observe a concurrent breakdown of the Lorenz ratio below the Sommerfeld value. Both of these facts are expected for an electron-phonon fluid with a quasi-conserved total momentum. A hierarchy between momentum-conserving and momentum-relaxing scattering timescales is corroborated through measurements of the magnetic field dependence of the electrical and Hall resistivity and of the thermal conductivity. These results show that PtSn4 exhibits key features of hydrodynamic transport.

In the half-filled zero-energy Landau level of bilayer graphene, competing phases with spontaneously broken symmetries and an intriguing quantum critical behavior have been predicted. Here we investigate signatures of these broken-symmetry phases in thermal transport measurements. To this end we calculate the spectrum of spin and valley waves in the $\nu=0$ quantum Hall state of bilayer graphene. The presence of Goldstone modes enables heat transport even at low temperatures, which can serve as compelling evidence for spontaneous symmetry breaking. By varying external electric and magnetic fields it is possible to determine the nature of the symmetry breaking and temperature-dependent measurements may yield additional information about gapped modes., Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, plus supplementary material

One of the defining properties of electrons is their mutual Coulombic repulsion. In solids, however, this basic property may change. A famous example is that of superconductors, where coupling to lattice vibrations make electrons attract each other and leads to the formation of bound pairs. But what if all degrees of freedom are electronic? Is it still possible to make electrons attractive via their repulsion from other electrons? Such a mechanism, termed 'excitonic', was proposed fifty years ago by W. A. Little, aiming to achieve stronger and more exotic superconductivity, yet despite many experimental efforts, direct evidence for such 'excitonic' attraction is still lacking. Here, we demonstrate this unique attraction by constructing, from the bottom up, the fundamental building block of this mechanism. Our experiments are based on quantum devices made from pristine carbon nanotubes, combined with cryogenic precision manipulation. Using this platform we demonstrate that two electrons can be made to attract using an independent electronic system as the binding glue. Owing to its large tunability, our system offers crucial insights into the underlying physics, such as the dependence of the emergent attraction on the underlying repulsion and the origin of the pairing energy. We also demonstrate transport signatures of 'excitonic' pairing. This experimental demonstration of 'excitonic' pairing paves the way for the design of exotic states of matter., Comment: News and views: Nature 535, 362-363 (21 July 2016) doi:10.1038/535362a

Recent years have seen the development of several experimental systems capable of tuning local parameters of quantum Hamiltonians. Examples include ultracold atoms, trapped ions, superconducting circuits, and photonic crystals. By design, these systems possess negligible disorder, granting them a high level of tunability. Conversely, electrons in conventional condensed matter systems exist inside an imperfect host material, subjecting them to uncontrollable, random disorder, which often destroys delicate correlated phases and precludes local tunability. The realization of a condensed matter system that is disorder-free and locally-tunable thus remains an outstanding challenge. Here, we demonstrate a new technique for deterministic creation of locally-tunable, ultra-low-disorder electron systems in carbon nanotubes suspended over circuits of unprecedented complexity. Using transport experiments we show that electrons can be localized at any position along the nanotube and that the confinement potential can be smoothly moved from location to location. Nearly perfect mirror symmetry of transport characteristics about the centre of the nanotube establishes the negligible effects of electronic disorder, thus allowing experiments in precision engineered one-dimensional potentials. We further demonstrate the ability to position multiple nanotubes at chosen separations, generalizing these devices to coupled one-dimensional systems. These new capabilities open the door to a broad spectrum of new experiments on electronics, mechanics, and spins in one dimension., Comment: Updated version. Supplementary information included