The Hall effect in the variable-range-hopping regime

Mid-Infrared Intraband Photodetector via High Carrier Mobility HgSe Colloidal Quantum Dots

In this work, a room-temperature mixed-phase ligand exchange method is developed to obtain a relatively high carrier mobility (∼1 cm²/(V s)) on HgSe intraband colloidal quantum dot solids without any observable trap state. What is more, the doping from 1S_e to 1P_e state in the conduction band could be precisely controlled by additional salts during this method, proved by optical and transport experiments. The high mobility and controllable doping benefit the mid-infrared photodetector utilizing the 1S_e to 1P_e transition, with a 1000-fold improvement in response speed, which is several μs, a 55-fold increase in responsivity, which is 77 mA/W, and a 10-fold increase in specific detectivity, which is above 1.7 × 10⁹ Jones at 80 K. The high-performance photodetector could serve as an intraband infrared camera for thermal imaging, as well as a CO₂ gas sensor with a range from 0.25 to 2000 ppm.

Anderson transition in stoichiometric Fe2VAl: high thermoelectric performance from impurity bands

Discovered more than 200 years ago in 1821, thermoelectricity is nowadays of global interest as it enables direct interconversion of thermal and electrical energy via the Seebeck/Peltier effect. In their seminal work, Mahan and Sofo mathematically derived the conditions for ’the best thermoelectric’—a delta-distribution-shaped electronic transport function, where charge carriers contribute to transport only in an infinitely narrow energy interval. So far, however, only approximations to this concept were expected to exist in nature. Here, we propose the Anderson transition in a narrow impurity band as a physical realisation of this seemingly unrealisable scenario. An innovative approach of continuous disorder tuning allows us to drive the Anderson transition within a single sample: variable amounts of antisite defects are introduced in a controlled fashion by thermal quenching from high temperatures. Consequently, we obtain a significant enhancement and dramatic change of the thermoelectric properties from p-type to n-type in stoichiometric Fe₂VAl, which we assign to a narrow region of delocalised electrons in the energy spectrum near the Fermi energy. Based on our electronic transport and magnetisation experiments, supported by Monte-Carlo and density functional theory calculations, we present a novel strategy to enhance the performance of thermoelectric materials.

The mathematical conditions for the best thermoelectric is well known but never realised in real materials. Here, the authors propose the Anderson transition in a narrow impurity band as a physical realisation of this seemingly unrealisable scenario.

A cantilever torque magnetometry method for the measurement of Hall conductivity of highly resistive samples

We present the first measurements of Hall conductivity utilizing a torque magnetometry method. A Corbino disk exhibits a magnetic dipole moment proportional to Hall conductivity when voltage is applied across a test material. This magnetic dipole moment can be measured through torque magnetometry. The symmetry of this contactless technique allows for the measurement of Hall conductivity in previously inaccessible materials. Finally, we calculate a low-temperature noise bound, demonstrate the lack of systematic errors, and measure the Hall conductivity of sputtered indium tin oxide.

Mechanisms of charge transfer and electronic properties of Cu2ZnGeS4 from investigations of the high-field magnetotransport

Recent development of the thin film solar cells, based on quaternary compounds, has been focused on the Ge contain compounds and their solid solutions. However, for effective utilization of Cu₂ZnGeS₄, deeper investigations of its transport properties are required. In the present manuscript, we investigate resistivity, ρ (T), magnetoresistance and Hall effect in p-type Cu₂ZnGeS₄ single crystals in pulsed magnetic fields up to 20 T. The dependence of ρ (T) in zero magnetic field is described by the Mott type of the variable-range hopping (VRH) charge transfer mechanism within a broad temperature interval of ~100-200 K. Magnetoresistance contains the positive and negative components, which are interpreted by the common reasons of doped semiconductors. On the other hand, a joint analysis of the resistivity and magnetoresistance data has yielded series of important electronic parameters and permitted specification of the Cu₂ZnGeS₄ conductivity mechanisms outside the temperature intervals of the Mott VRH conduction. The Hall coefficient is negative, exhibiting an exponential dependence on temperature, which is quite close to that of ρ(T). This is typical of the Hall effect in the domain of the VRH charge transfer.

Dispersion in porous media, continuous-time random walks, and percolation

A promising approach to the modeling of anomalous (non-Gaussian) dispersion in flow through heterogeneous porous media is the continuous-time random walk (CTRW) method. In such a formula on the waiting time distribution ψ(t) is usually assumed to be given by ψ(t)∼t-1-α, with α fitted to the experimental data. The exponent α is also related to the power-law growth of the mean-square displacement of the solute with the time t <R2(t)> ∼ tζ. Invoking percolation and using a scaling analysis, we relate α to the geometrical exponents of percolation (ν, β, and βB) as well as the exponents μ and e that characterize the power-law behavior of the effective conductivity and permeability of porous media near the percolation threshold. We then explain the cause of the nonuniversality of α in terms of the nonuniversality of μ and e in continuum systems, and in percolation models with long-range correlations, and propose bounds for it. The results are consistent with the experimental data, both at the laboratory and field scales.

Anomalous Hall effect in ferromagnetic semiconductors in the hopping transport regime

We present a theory of the anomalous Hall effect in ferromagnetic (Ga,Mn)As in the regime when conduction is due to phonon-assisted hopping of holes between localized states in the impurity band. We show that the microscopic origin of the anomalous Hall conductivity in this system can be attributed to a phase that a hole gains when hopping around closed-loop paths in the presence of spin-orbit interactions and background magnetization of the localized Mn moments. Mapping the problem to a random resistor network, we derive an analytic expression for the macroscopic anomalous Hall conductivity sigma(AH)(xy). We show that sigma(AH)(xy) is proportional to the first derivative of the density of states varrho(epsilon) and thus can be expected to change sign as a function of impurity band filling. We also show that sigma(AH)(xy) depends on temperature as the longitudinal conductivity sigma(xx) within logarithmic accuracy.