English

Skipping and snake orbits of electrons: singularities and catastrophes

Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics 2015-05-28 v1

Abstract

Near the sample edge, or a sharp magnetic field step the drift of two-dimensional electrons in a magnetic field has the form of skipping/snake orbits. We show that families of skipping/snake orbits of electrons injected at one point inside a 2D metal generically exhibit caustics folds, cusps and cusp triplets, and, in one extreme case, a section of the batterfly bifurcation. Periodic appearance of singularities along the ±B\pm B-interface leads to the magneto-oscillations of nonlocal conductance in multi-terminal electronic devices.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1107.4738,
  title  = {Skipping and snake orbits of electrons: singularities and catastrophes},
  author = {Nathan Davies and Aavishkar A. Patel and Alberto Cortijo and Vadim Cheianov and Francisco Guinea and Vladimir I. Fal'ko},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1107.4738},
  year   = {2015}
}

Comments

4 pages, 3 figures