Related papers: Multifaceted impact of a surface step on supercond…
This paper reviews the confinement-driven phase transitions, and the prediction of superfluid phases with broken time-reversal or translational symmetry in thin films. The new phases are a result of particle-hole coherent Andreev scattering…
When a quantum mechanical system undergoes an adiabatic cyclic evolution it acquires a geometrical phase factor in addition to the dynamical one. This effect has been demonstrated in a variety of microscopic systems. Advances in…
This paper investigates faceting mechanisms induced by electromigration in the regime where atomic steps are transparent. For this purpose we study several vicinal orientations by means of in-situ (optical diffraction, electronic…
In this thesis, we have studied the evolution of superconductivity in amorphous Molybdenum Germanium ($\textit{a}$-MoGe) thin films. The work can be broken down into two parts. In the first part, we investigate the effect of decreasing…
The melting of ultrathin lubricant film by friction between atomically flat surfaces is studied. The additive noises of the elastic shear stress and strain, and the temperature are introduced for building a phase diagram with the domains of…
A first-principles-derived approach is developed to study the effects of uncompensated depolarizing electric fields on the properties of Pb(Zr,Ti)O$_3$ ultrathin films for different mechanical boundary conditions. A rich variety of…
Quantum confinement of the perpendicular motion of electrons in single-crystalline metallic superconducting nanofilms splits the conduction band into a series of single-electron subbands. A distinctive feature of such a nanoscale multi-band…
Antiferroelectrics have received blooming interests because of a wide range of potential applications in energy storage, solid-state cooling, thermal switch, transducer, actuation, and memory devices. Many of those applications are the most…
This work presents the study of some new anomalous electromagnetic effects in graphite-like thin carbon films. These are: The fast switching (1nanosecond) of electrical conductivity The detection of microwave radiation and its temperature…
The interplay of bulk and boundary scattering is explored in a regime where quantum size effects modify mesoscopic transport in a degenerate Fermi liquid film of $^3$He on a rough surface. We discuss mass transport and the momentum…
Here we present a structural study of pentacene (Pn) thin films on vicinal Ag(111) surfaces by He atom diffraction measurements and density functional theory (DFT) calculations supplemented with van der Waals (vdW) interactions. Our He atom…
Recently, a logarithmic decrease of conductivity has been observed in topological insulators at low temperatures, implying a tendency of localization of surface electrons. Here, we report quantum transport experiments on the topological…
As a superconducting thin film becomes disordered and subject to an increasing magnetic field, a point is reached when it undergoes a transition from a superconducting to an insulating state. We use the Bogoliubov-De-Gennes equations and a…
We have studied the electronic transport properties of homogeneously disordered superconducting tantalum thin films in magnetic fields. The films exhibit three distinct transport regimes in the zero temperature limit which we identify as…
Recent studies suggests that in disordered ultrathin films superconducting (SC) state may be intrinsically inhomogeneous. Here we investigate the nature of SC state in ultrathin Nb films, of thickness $d$ ranging from 1.2 nm to 20 nm, which…
We study noncentrosymmetric superconductors with the tetrahedral $T_d$, tetragonal $C_{4v}$, and cubic point group $O$. The order parameter is computed self-consistently in the bulk and near a surface for several different singlet to…
Quasi-one dimensional electron systems have been created using a suspended helium film on a structured substrate. The electron mobility along the channel is calculated by taking into account the essential scattering processes of electrons…
Layered quasi-two-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs), which can be readily made in ultrathin films, offer excellent opportunities for studying how dimensionality affects electronic structure and physical properties. Among…
When the electron density of highly crystalline thin films is tuned by chemical doping or ionic liq- uid gating, interesting effects appear including unconventional superconductivity, sizeable spin-orbit coupling, competition with…
We describe very fast electron dynamics for a graphene nanoribbon driven by a control electromagnetic field in the terahertz regime. The mobility as a function of bias possesses a large threshold value when entering a nonlinear transport…