Stretching magnetism with an electric field in a nitride semiconductor.

The significant inversion symmetry breaking specific to wurtzite semiconductors, and the associated spontaneous electrical polarization, lead to outstanding features such as high density of carriers at the GaN/(Al,Ga)N interface-exploited in high-power/high-frequency electronics-and piezoelectric capabilities serving for nanodrives, sensors and energy harvesting devices. Here we show that the multifunctionality of nitride semiconductors encompasses also a magnetoelectric effect allowing to control the magnetization by an electric field. We first demonstrate that doping of GaN by Mn results in a semi-insulating material apt to sustain electric fields as high as 5 MV cm.

Manipulating Mn-Mgk cation complexes to control the charge- and spin-state of Mn in GaN.

Owing to the variety of possible charge and spin states and to the different ways of coupling to the environment, paramagnetic centres in wide band-gap semiconductors and insulators exhibit a strikingly rich spectrum of properties and functionalities, exploited in commercial light emitters and proposed for applications in quantum information. Here we demonstrate, by combining synchrotron techniques with magnetic, optical and ab initio studies, that the codoping of GaN:Mn with Mg allows to control the Mn(n+) charge and spin state in the range 3≤n≤5 and 2≥S≥1. According to our results, this outstanding degree of tunability arises from the formation of hitherto concealed cation complexes Mn-Mg(k), where the number of ligands k is pre-defined by fabrication conditions.

Interference effects in a double quantum dot system with inter-dot Coulomb correlations.

Electron transport through a double quantum dot system is studied with the use of the Green function formalism based on the equation of motion method, and an interplay between interference and Coulomb blockade effects due to inter-dot correlations is discussed. A double structure with two Fano resonances (or antiresonances) is found in the conductance spectrum. Fano features are weakly influenced by the presence of Coulomb interaction but the conductance is strongly suppressed in the energy region with the Fermi level in the leads close to the aligned levels of both dots.