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arXiv:2210.14696 · Physical review. B./Physical review. B

Quantum Monte Carlo study of semiconductor artificial graphene nanostructures

Gökhan Öztarhan, E. Bulut Kul, Emre Okcu, Alev Devrim Güçlü

Published Oct 30, 2023• 4 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Semiconductor artificial graphene nanostructures where the Hubbard model parameter $U/t$ can be of the order of 100, provide a highly controllable platform to study strongly correlated quantum many-particle phases. We use accurate variational and diffusion Monte Carlo methods to demonstrate a transition from antiferromagnetic to metallic phases for an experimentally accessible lattice constant $a=50$ nm in terms of lattice site radius $\ensuremath{\rho}$, for finite-sized artificial honeycomb structures nanopatterned on GaAs quantum wells containing up to 114 electrons. By analyzing spin-spin correlation functions for hexagonal flakes with armchair edges and triangular flakes with zigzag edges, we show that edge type, geometry, and charge nonuniformity affect the steepness and the crossover $\ensuremath{\rho}$ value of the phase transition. For triangular structures, the metal-insulator transition is accompanied with a smoother edge polarization transition.

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.108.l161114

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We describe here a quantum simulator of extended bipartite Hubbard model with broken sublattice symmetry. The simulator consists of a structured lateral gate confining two-dimensional electrons in a quantum well into artificial minima arranged in a hexagonal lattice. The sublattice symmetry breaking is generated by forming an artificial triangular graphene quantum dot (ATGQD) with zigzag edges. The resulting extended Hubbard model generates tunable ratio of tunneling strength to electron-electron interactions and of sublattice symmetry with control over shape. The validity of the simulator is confirmed for small systems using mean-field and exact diagonalization many-body approaches which show that the ground state changes from a metallic to an antiferromagnetic (AF) phase by varying the distance between sites or depth of the confining potential. The one-electron spectrum of these triangular dots contains a macroscopically degenerate shell at the Fermi level. The shell persists at the mean-field level for weak interactions (metallic phase) but disappears for strong interactions in the AF phase. We determine the effects of electron-electron interactions on the ground state, the total spin, and the excitation spectrum as a function of filling of the ATGQD. We find that the half-filled charge neutral shell leads to a partially spin-polarized state in both metallic and AF regimes in accordance with Lieb's theorem. In both regimes a relatively large gap separates the spin-polarized ground state to the first excited many-body state at half-filling of the degenerate shell. By adding or removing an electron, this gap drops dramatically, and alternate total spin states emerge with energies nearly degenerate to a spin-polarized ground state.
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A spin liquid is a novel quantum state of matter with no conventional order parameter where a finite charge gap exists even though the band theory would predict metallic behavior. Finding a stable spin liquid in two or higher spatial dimensions is one of the most challenging and debated issues in condensed matter physics. Very recently, it has been reported that a model of graphene, i.e., the Hubbard model on the honeycomb lattice, can show a spin liquid ground state in a wide region of the phase diagram, between a semi-metal (SM) and an antiferromagnetic insulator (AFMI). Here, by performing numerically exact quantum Monte Carlo simulations, we extend the previous study to much larger clusters (containing up to 2592 sites), and find, if any, a very weak evidence of this spin liquid region. Instead, our calculations strongly indicate a direct and continuous quantum phase transition between SM and AFMI.
The Hubbard model encapsulates the physics of strongly correlated quantum systems in its most basic form. It has been studied intensively in the context of the high-temperature superconductivity. A number of novel phases were recently proposed for Hubbard-like models on the honeycomb lattice, the structure of graphene. We analyzed the Hubbard model of spin- 12\frac{1}{2}21​ fermions on the honeycomb lattice at half-filling using large-scale quantum Monte Carlo simulations. We find that the weak coupling semimetal and the antiferromagnetic Mott insulator at strong interaction are separated by an extended gapped phase in an intermediate coupling regime. Exploring excitation gaps, various correlation functions as well as probing for flux quantization, we conclude that a quantum spin liquid, lacking any conventional order, emerges with local charge and spin correlations, best described by a resonating valence bonds state.
The many-body correlation between electrons is the origin of many fascinating phenomena in condensed matter systems, such as high temperature superconductivity, superfluidity, fractional quantum Hall effect, and Mott insulator. Strongly correlated systems have been an important subject of condensed matter physics for several decades, especially after the discovery of high temperature cuprate superconductors. In this thesis, we apply first principles quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) method to several representative systems to study the electron correlations in transition metal oxides (vanadium dioxide) and low dimensional electronic systems (graphene and graphene-like two dimensional systems). Vanadium dioxide (VO2) is a paradigmatic example of a strongly correlated system that undergoes a metal-insulator transition at a structural phase transition. To date, this transition has necessitated significant post-hoc adjustments to theory in order to be described properly. We apply first principles quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) to study the structural dependence of the properties of VO2. Using this technique, we simulate the interactions between electrons explicitly, which allows for the metal-insulator transition to naturally emerge, importantly without ad-hoc adjustments. The QMC calculations show that the structural transition directly causes the metal-insulator transition and a change in the coupling of vanadium spins. This change in the spin coupling results in a prediction of a momentum-independent magnetic excitation in the insulating state. While two-body correlations are important to set the stage for this transition, they do not change significantly when VO2 becomes an insulator. These results show that it is now possible to account for electron correlations in a quantitatively accurate way that is also specific to materials. Electron correlation in graphene is unique because of the interplay of the Dirac cone dispersion of pi electrons with long range Coulomb interaction. The random phase approximation predicts no metallic screening at long distances and low energies because of the zero density of states at Fermi level. It is thus interesting to see how screening takes place in graphene at different length scales. We addressed this problem by computing the structure factor S(q) and S(q, ω) of freestanding graphene using ab initio fixed-node diffusion Monte Carlo and the random phase approximation. The X-ray measured structure factor is reproduced very accurately using both techniques, provided that sigma-bonding electrons are included in the simulations. Strong dielectric screening from sigma electrons are observed, which redshifts the pi plasmons resonance frequency at long distance and reduces the effective interactions between pi electrons at short distance. The short distance screening makes suspended graphene a weakly correlated semimetal which otherwise would be an insulator. The third piece of works is dedicated to studying the low energy excitation of many-body systems using extended Koopmans' theorem (EKT). The EKT provides a straight forward way to compute charge excitation spectra, such as ionization potentials, electron affinities from any level of theory. We implemented the EKT within the QMC framework, and performed systematic benchmark studies of ionization potentials of the second- and third-row atoms, and closed- and open-shell molecules. We also applied it to compute the quasiparticle band structure of solids (graphene). For complex correlated systems, identifying relevant low energy physics degrees of freedom is extremely important to understanding the system's collective behavior at different length scales. In this sense, bridging the realistic systems to lower energy effective lattice models that involve fewer but important degrees of freedom is significant to understanding correlated systems. We have formulated three ab initio density matrix based downfolding (AIDMD) methods to downfold the ab initio systems into effective lattice models. We have demonstrated the successfulness of these methods by applying them to molecules (H2) and periodic systems (hydrogen chain and graphene).