Nonreciprocal Transport Research Articles

Optomechanically induced Faraday and splitting effects in a double-cavity optomechanical system

We demonstrate the optomechanically induced Faraday and splitting effects caused by optical mode conversion in a double-cavity optomechanical system. In the scheme, the polarization states of propagating light fields can be arbitrarily tailored to achieve optical Faraday rotation successfully via optomechanical interaction. Meanwhile, the energy-level splitting of the degenerate optical modes leads to the separation of two orthogonal polarization optical modes and the manipulation of spin angular momentum of photons. Moreover, the polarized output component orthogonal to the control field can be manipulated by properly choosing the tunneling interaction between two optical cavities, which enables the complete polarization control of the probe field. Using the polarized control field and optical gain in the auxiliary cavity, we can effectively improve the efficiency of optical Faraday rotation. Finally, we study how to achieve different optical control for different polarization states, which provides an effective method for the implementation of optical isolators in cavity optomechanical systems. Our scheme may benefit future realization of flexible controllability for the vector properties and spin angular momentum of photons, and can promote potential applications in optical nonreciprocal transport, routers, isolators, and circulators.

Nonreciprocity and Quantum Correlations of Light Transport in Hot Atoms via Reservoir Engineering.

The breaking of reciprocity is a topic of great interest in fundamental physics and optical information processing applications. We demonstrate nonreciprocal light transport in a quantum system of hot atoms by engineering the dissipative atomic reservoir. Our scheme is based on the phase-sensitive light transport in a multichannel photon-atom interaction configuration, where the phase of collective atomic excitations is tunable through external driving fields. Remarkably, we observe interchannel quantum correlations that originate from interactions with the judiciously engineered reservoir. The nonreciprocal transport in a quantum optical atomic system constitutes a new paradigm for atom-based nonreciprocal optics and offers opportunities for quantum simulations with coupled optical channels.

Nonreciprocal electronic transport in PdCrO2 : Implication of spatial inversion symmetry breaking

Noncollinear spin structures, such as helimagnetic structures, have been gathering attention because of their nontrivial magnetic transport induced by topological effects. For a precise determination of spin structure, in addition to traditional neutron diffraction measurements, the time-reversal-odd rectification of electronic transport, which is referred to as nonreciprocal electronic transport, provides useful information because of the symmetry sensitivity. We observed nonreciprocal electronic transport below the N\'eel temperature in an itinerant antiferromagnet, $\mathrm{Pd}\mathrm{Cr}{\mathrm{O}}_{2}$, with a ${120}^{\ensuremath{\circ}}$ spin structure. This implies breaking of spatial inversion symmetry owing to the magnetic ordering. Possible spin structures are discussed based on the magnetic field dependence of nonreciprocal transport.

Thermoelectric Origin of Giant Nonreciprocal Charge Transport in NbAs Nanobelts

Recently, nonreciprocal charge transport has emerged as an important experimental tool for detecting symmetry breaking in noncentrosymmetric crystals. Despite extensive studies on systems with intrinsic symmetry breaking from crystal structures or interfaces, nonreciprocal transport induced by extrinsic mechanisms, such as the asymmetric design of device geometry, remains largely unexplored. Here, we show that a giant nonreciprocal resistance arises extrinsically from the thermoelectric effect due to nonuniform current heating in mesoscopic devices. Taking $\mathrm{Nb}\mathrm{As}$ nanobelts as an example, we observe giant second-harmonic resistances induced by the Seebeck and Nernst effects, with a nonreciprocal coefficient value up to 5.4 \ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{} ${10}^{\ensuremath{-}6}\phantom{\rule{0.25em}{0ex}}{\mathrm{cm}}^{2}/\mathrm{A}$, which is higher than that of most noncentrosymmetric crystals. The symmetry of second-harmonic resistance in magnetic fields can be further controlled by designing the electrode geometry and is decoupled from that of the first-harmonic resistance or the crystal symmetry. We show that such thermoelectric related nonreciprocal resistances also exist in macroscopic samples up to hundreds of microns. Our results not only introduce a simple yet effective approach to probe the thermoelectric effect, but also reveal a previously underestimated mechanism that strongly modifies the second-order transport coefficients.

Symmetry Breaking and Nonlinear Electric Transport in van der Waals Nanostructures

The recent development of artificially fabricated van der Waals nanostructures makes it possible to design and control the symmetry of solids and to find novel physical properties and related functionalities. A characteristic physical property reflecting such symmetry breaking is the nonlinear response, which is typically studied as the second harmonic generation of light, although studies have recently expanded to include various transport phenomena. An important aspect of nonlinear transport for modern condensed matter physics is that it is not only a unique functionality of noncentrosymmetric systems but also an emergent property reflecting underlying physics such as spin–orbit interaction, superconductivity, magnetism, and band geometry/topology. In this article, we review the nonlinear electrical transport in noncentrosymmetric van der Waals nanostructures obtained by exfoliation, nano-structure fabrication, or the application of an electric field, in particular, nonreciprocal transport resulting from inversion symmetry breaking and the bulk photovoltaic effect in nanomaterials without conventional p- n junctions.

Nonreciprocity of spin waves in the conical helix state

Nonreciprocity emerges in nature and in artificial objects from various physical origins, being widely utilized in contemporary technologies as exemplified by diode elements in electronics. While most of the nonreciprocal phenomena are realized by employing interfaces where the inversion symmetry is trivially lifted, nonreciprocal transport of photons, electrons, magnons, and possibly phonons also emerge in bulk crystals with broken space inversion and time reversal symmetries. Among them, directional propagation of bulk magnons (i.e., quanta of spin wave excitation) is attracting much attention nowadays for its potentially large nonreciprocity suitable for spintronic and spin-caloritronic applications. Here, we demonstrate nonreciprocal propagation of spin waves for the conical spin helix state in Cu2OSeO3 due to a combination of dipole and Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interactions. The observed nonreciprocal spin dispersion smoothly connects to the hitherto known magnetochiral nonreciprocity in the field-induced collinear spin state; thus, all the spin phases show diode characteristics in this chiral insulator.

Multi-band unidirectional reflectionlessness of single photons via intermode backscattering

Nonreciprocal light transport is of great importance due to its potential applications in optical communication. We investigate theoretically the unidirectional reflectionlessness behaviors of single photons in a waveguide system coupled with whispering-gallery-mode microresonators. Numerical results show that multi-band unidirectional reflectionlessness can be effectively implemented at the exceptional points by adjusting asymmetric intermode backscatterings of the coupled resonators, and reflectionless frequency-band number increased by multiplication with coupled resonators is also predicted. This suggests a novel multi-band device to effectively perform single-photon unidirectional reflectionlessness, which provides possible applications in quantum communication for designing high-efficiency optical filters, diodes, and so on.

Nonreciprocal charge transport up to room temperature in bulk Rashba semiconductor \u03b1-GeTe

Nonmagnetic Rashba systems with broken inversion symmetry are expected to exhibit nonreciprocal charge transport, a new paradigm of unidirectional magnetoresistance in the absence of ferromagnetic layer. So far, most work on nonreciprocal transport has been solely limited to cryogenic temperatures, which is a major obstacle for exploiting the room-temperature two-terminal devices based on such a nonreciprocal response. Here, we report a nonreciprocal charge transport behavior up to room temperature in semiconductor α-GeTe with coexisting the surface and bulk Rashba states. The combination of the band structure measurements and theoretical calculations strongly suggest that the nonreciprocal response is ascribed to the giant bulk Rashba spin splitting rather than the surface Rashba states. Remarkably, we find that the magnitude of the nonreciprocal response shows an unexpected non-monotonical dependence on temperature. The extended theoretical model based on the second-order spin–orbit coupled magnetotransport enables us to establish the correlation between the nonlinear magnetoresistance and the spin textures in the Rashba system. Our findings offer significant fundamental insight into the physics underlying the nonreciprocity and may pave a route for future rectification devices.

Physical Observation of a Robust Acoustic Pumping in Waveguides with Dynamic Boundary

Research on breaking time-reversal symmetry to realize one-way wave propagation is a growing area in photonic and phononic crystals and metamaterials. In this Letter, we present physical realization of an acoustic waveguide with spatiotemporally modulated boundary conditions to realize nonreciprocal transport and acoustic topological pumping. The modulated waveguide inspired by a water wheel consists of a helical tube rotating around a slotted tube at a controllable speed. The rotation of the helical tube creates moving boundary conditions for the exposed waveguide sections at a constant speed. We experimentally demonstrate acoustic nonreciprocity and topologically robust bulk-edge correspondences for this system, which is in good agreement with analytical and numerical predictions. The nonreciprocal waveguide is a one-dimensional analog to the two-dimensional quantum Hall effect for acoustic circulators and is characterized by a robust integer-valued Chern number. These findings provide insight into practical implications of topological modes in acoustics and the implementation of higher-dimensional topological acoustics where time serves as a synthetic dimension.

Bottom-up design of spin-split and reshaped electronic band structures in antiferromagnets without spin-orbit coupling: Procedure on the basis of augmented multipoles

We propose an efficient microscopic design procedure of electronic band structures having intrinsic spin and momentum dependences in spin-orbit-coupling free antiferromagnets. Our bottom-up design approach to creating desired spin-split and reshaped electronic band structures could result in further findings of practical spin-orbit-coupling free materials exhibiting a giant spin-dependent and/or nonreciprocal transport, magnetoelectric and elastic responses, and so on, as a consequence of such band structures. We establish a systematic guideline to construct symmetric/antisymmetric spin-split and antisymmetrically deformed spin-independent band structures in spin-orbit-coupling free systems by using two polar multipole degrees of freedom, i.e., electric and magnetic toroidal multipoles. The two polar multipoles constitute a complete set and describe arbitrary degrees of freedom in the hopping Hamiltonian, whose onsite and offsite degrees of freedom in a cluster are described as the so-called cluster and bond multipoles, respectively, and another degree of freedom connecting between clusters is expressed as momentum multipoles. By using these multipole descriptions, we elucidate simple microscopic conditions to realize intrinsic band deformations in magnetically ordered states: The symmetric spin splitting is realized in collinear magnets when cluster and bond multipoles contain the same symmetry of multipoles. The antisymmetric spin splitting occurs in noncollinear antiferromagnets when a bond-type magnetic toroidal multipole is present. Furthermore, the antisymmetric band deformation with spin degeneracy is realized in noncoplanar antiferromagnets. We exemplify three lattice systems formed by a triangle unit, triangular, kagome, and breathing kagome structures, to demonstrate the band deformations under the magnetic ordering. On the basis of the proposed procedure, we list up various candidate materials showing intrinsic band deformations in accordance with MAGNDATA, magnetic structures database.

Strongly parity-mixed superconductivity in the Rashba-Hubbard model

Heterostructures containing strongly correlated electron systems provide a platform to clarify interplay of electron correlation and Rashba spin-orbit coupling in unconventional superconductors. Motivated by recent fabrication of artificially-engineered heavy fermion superlattices and high-temperature cuprate superconductors, we conduct a thorough study on superconductivity in Rashba-Hubbard model. In contrast to previous weak coupling approaches, we employ fluctuation-exchange approximation to describe quantum critical magnetic fluctuations and resulting superconductivity. As a result, robust Fermi surfaces against magnetic fluctuations, incommensurate spin fluctuations, and a strongly parity-mixed superconducting phase are demonstrated in a wide range of electron filling from type-II van Hove singularity to half-filling. We also clarify impacts of type-II van Hove singularity on magnetic fluctuations and superconductivity. Whereas the $d_{x^2-y^2}$-wave pairing always dominant, subdominant spin-triplet pairing with either $p$-wave or $f$-wave symmetry shows a comparable magnitude, especially near the type-II van Hove singularity. Our results resolve unsettled issues on strongly correlated Rashba systems and uncover candidate systems of nonreciprocal transport and topological superconductivity.

One-dimensional antilocalization of electrons from spin disorder probed by nonlinear Hall effect

In recent years, nonreciprocal transport measurement has emerged as a probe of spin orbit interaction, spin texture, superconductivity, and other fundamental properties of materials. Here, we study the nonlinear Hall effect (NLHE) in ${\mathrm{Bi}}_{2}{\mathrm{Se}}_{3}/\mathrm{CoFeB}$ heterostructures measured by second harmonic voltage method. Magneto-optical Kerr effect measurements demonstrate the origin of the NLHE to be the asymmetric magnon scattering mechanism. Moreover, a linear relation between the nonlinear Hall resistance and the electron phase coherence length of ${\mathrm{Bi}}_{2}{\mathrm{Se}}_{3}$ is observed between 5 and 50 K. We propose a phenomenological model that explains the enhancement of the NLHE below 50 K as a result of one-dimensional antilocalization of electrons from spin disorder, enabled by spin-momentum locking and conservation of angular momentum.

Nonreciprocal Transport of Exciton Polaritons in a Non-Hermitian Chain.

We consider exciton polaritons in a zigzag chain of coupled elliptical micropillars subjected to incoherent excitation. The driven-dissipative nature of the system along with the naturally present polarization splitting inside the pillars gives rise to nonreciprocal dynamics, which eventually leads to the non-Hermitian skin effect, where all the modes of the system collapse to one edge. As a result, the polaritons propagate only in one direction along the chain, independent of the excitation position, and the propagation in the opposite direction is suppressed. The system shows robustness against disorder and, using the bistable nature of polaritons to encode information, we show one-way information transfer. This paves the way for compact and robust feedback-free one-dimensional polariton transmission channels without the need for external magnetic field, which are compatible with proposals for polaritonic circuits.

Dissipation engineering of nonreciprocal quantum dot circuits: An input-output approach

Nonreciprocal effects in nanoelectronic devices offer unique possibilities for manipulating electron transport and engineering quantum electronic circuits for information processing purposes. However, a lack of rigorous theoretical tools is hindering this development. Here, we provide a general input-output description of nonreciprocal transport in solid-state quantum dot architectures, based on quantum optomechanical analogs. In particular, we break reciprocity between coherently-coupled quantum dots by dissipation-engineering in which these (so-called) primary dots are mutually coupled to auxiliary, damped quantum dots. We illustrate the general framework in two representative multiterminal noninteracting models, which can be used as building blocks for larger circuits. Importantly, the identified optimal conditions for nonreciprocal behavior hold even in the presence of additional dissipative effects that result from local electron-phonon couplings. Besides the analysis of the scattering matrix, we show that a nonreciprocal coupling induces unidirectional electron flow in the resonant transport regime. Altogether, our analysis provides the formalism and working principles towards the realization of nonreciprocal nanoelectronic devices.

Nonreciprocal Transport Based on Cavity Floquet Modes in Optomechanics

Directional transport is obtained in various multimode systems by driving multiple, nonreciprocally interfering interactions between individual bosonic modes. However, systems sustaining the required number of modes become physically complex. In our microwave-optomechanical experiment, we show how to configure nonreciprocal transport between frequency components of a single superconducting cavity coupled to two drumhead oscillators. The frequency components are promoted to Floquet modes and generate the missing dimension to realize an isolator and a directional amplifier. A second cavity left free by this arrangement is used to cool the mechanical oscillators and bring the transduction noise close to the quantum limit. We furthermore uncover a new type of instability specific to nonreciprocal coupling. Our approach is generic and can greatly simplify quantum signal processing and the design of topological lattices from low-dimensional systems.

Non-Hermitian physics

A review is given on the foundations and applications of non-Hermitian classical and quantum physics. First, key theorems and central concepts in non-Hermitian linear algebra, including Jordan normal form, biorthogonality, exceptional points, pseudo-Hermiticity and parity-time symmetry, are delineated in a pedagogical and mathematically coherent manner. Building on these, we provide an overview of how diverse classical systems, ranging from photonics, mechanics, electrical circuits, acoustics to active matter, can be used to simulate non-Hermitian wave physics. In particular, we discuss rich and unique phenomena found therein, such as unidirectional invisibility, enhanced sensitivity, topological energy transfer, coherent perfect absorption, single-mode lasing, and robust biological transport. We then explain in detail how non-Hermitian operators emerge as an effective description of open quantum systems on the basis of the Feshbach projection approach and the quantum trajectory approach. We discuss their applications to physical systems relevant to a variety of fields, including atomic, molecular and optical physics, mesoscopic physics, and nuclear physics with emphasis on prominent phenomena/subjects in quantum regimes, such as quantum resonances, superradiance, continuous quantum Zeno effect, quantum critical phenomena, Dirac spectra in quantum chromodynamics, and nonunitary conformal field theories. Finally, we introduce the notion of band topology in complex spectra of non-Hermitian systems and present their classifications by providing the proof, firstly given by this review in a complete manner, as well as a number of instructive examples. Other topics related to non-Hermitian physics, including nonreciprocal transport, speed limits, nonunitary quantum walk, are also reviewed.

Anomalous electrical magnetochiral effect by chiral spin-cluster scattering

The non-collinear spin configurations give rise to many nontrivial phenomena related to the Berry phase. They are often related to the vector and scalar spin chiralities. The scalar spin chirality leads to the topological Hall effect in metals, while the vector spin chirality to the ferroelectricity of spin origin, i.e., multiferroics in insulators. However, the role of the vector spin chirality in conducting systems has not yet been elucidated. Here we show theoretically that the spin correlation with vector spin chirality in chiral magnets scatters electrons asymmetrically, resulting in nonreciprocal transport phenomena, i.e., electrical magnetochiral effect (eMCE). This asymmetric scattering appears in the leading-order scattering term, implying a large nonreciprocity in the charge and spin currents. We find that the temperature and magnetic field dependence of the eMCE reproduces that observed in MnSi. Our results reveal the microscopic mechanism of eMCE and its potential in producing a large nonreciprocal response.

Spontaneous antisymmetric spin splitting in noncollinear antiferromagnets without spin-orbit coupling

We propose a realization of an antisymmetric spin-split band structure through magnetic phase transitions without spin-orbit coupling. It enables us to utilize for a variety of magnetic-order-driven cross-correlated and nonreciprocal transport phenomena as similar to those in the spin-orbit-coupling oriented systems. We unveil its general condition as an emergence of a bond-type magnetic toroidal multipole (polar tensor) in the triangular unit with the noncollinear 120$^{\circ}$-AFM structures. By using the concept of augmented multipoles, we systematically analyze the phenomena in terms of an effective multipole coupling. Our multipole description is ubiquitously applied to any trigonal and hexagonal structures including the triangular, kagome, and breathing kagome structures, which provides how to design and engineer materials with a giant antisymmetric spin splitting and its physical responses even without the spin-orbit coupling.

Quantum and classical ratchet motions of vortices in a two-dimensional trigonal superconductor

Dynamical behavior of vortices plays central roles in the quantum phenomena of two-dimensional (2D) superconductors. Quantum metallic state, for example, showing an anomalous temperature-independent resistive state down to low-temperatures, has been a common subject in recently developed 2D crystalline superconductors, whose microscopic origin is still under debate. Here, we unveil a new aspect of the vortex dynamics in a noncentrosymmetric 2D crystalline superconductor of MoS$_{2}$ through the nonreciprocal transport measurement. The second harmonic resistance $R^{2w}$ at low temperature with high current indicates the classical vortex flow accompanying the ratchet motion. Furthermore, we found that $R^{2w}$ is substantially suppressed in the quantum metallic state with low current region, allowing identification of the quantum and classical ratchet motions of vortices by the magnitude of the second harmonic generation. This suggests that nonreciprocal transport measurement can be a powerful tool to probe the vortex dynamics in noncentrosymmetric 2D superconductors.

Nonreciprocal transport in gate-induced polar superconductor SrTiO3.

Polar conductors/superconductors with Rashba-type spin-orbit interaction are potential material platforms for quantum transport and spintronic functionalities. One of their inherent properties is the nonreciprocal transport, where the rightward and leftward currents become inequivalent, reflecting spatial inversion/time-reversal symmetry breaking. Such a rectification effect originating from the polar symmetry has been recently observed at interfaces or bulk Rashba semiconductors, while its mechanism in a polar superconductor remains elusive. Here, we report the nonreciprocal transport in gate-induced two-dimensional superconductor SrTiO3, which is a Rashba superconductor candidate. In addition to the gigantic enhancement of nonreciprocal signals in the superconducting fluctuation region, we found kink and sharp peak structures around critical temperatures, which reflect the crossover behavior from the paraconductivity origin to the vortex origin, based on a microscopic theory. The present result proves that the nonreciprocal transport is a powerful tool for investigating the interfacial/polar superconductors without inversion symmetry, where rich exotic features are theoretically prognosticated.