Giant fluctuations of local magnetoresistance of organic spin valves and the non-Hermitian 1D Anderson model.

Motivated by recent experiments, where the tunnel magnetoresitance (TMR) of a spin valve was measured locally, we theoretically study the distribution of TMR along the surface of magnetized electrodes. We show that, even in the absence of interfacial effects (like hybridization due to donor and acceptor molecules), this distribution is very broad, and the portion of area with negative TMR is appreciable even if on average the TMR is positive. The origin of the local sign reversal is quantum interference of subsequent spin-rotation amplitudes in the course of incoherent transport of carriers between the source and the drain.

Localization properties of random-mass Dirac fermions from real-space renormalization group.

Localization properties of random-mass Dirac fermions for a realization of mass disorder, commonly referred to as the Cho-Fisher model, are studied on the D-class chiral network. We show that a simple renormalization group (RG) description captures accurately a rich phase diagram: thermal metal and two insulators with quantized σ(xy), as well as transitions (including critical exponents) between them. Our main finding is that, even with small transmission of nodes, the RG block exhibits a sizable portion of perfect resonances.

Fermi-edge singularity in the vicinity of the resonant scattering condition.

Fermi-edge absorption theory predicting the spectrum A(ω) ∝ ω(-2δ(0)/π+δ(0)92)/π2) relies on the assumption that scattering phase δ(0) is frequency independent. The dependence of δ(0) on ω becomes crucial near the resonant condition, where the phase changes abruptly by π. In this limit, because of the finite time spent by electron on a resonant level, the scattering is dynamic.

Microscopic description of a quantum Hall transition without landau levels.

By restricting the motion of a high-mobility 2D electron gas to a network of channels with smooth confinement, we were able to trace, both classically and quantum mechanically, the interplay of backscattering, and of the bending action of a weak magnetic field. Backscattering limits the mobility, while bending initiates quantization of the Hall conductivity. We demonstrate that, in restricted geometry, electron motion reduces to two Chalker-Coddington networks, with opposite directions of propagation along the links, which are weakly coupled by disorder.

Scattering of plasmons at the intersection of two metallic nanotubes: implications for tunneling.

We study theoretically the plasmon scattering at the intersection of two metallic carbon nanotubes. We demonstrate that, for a small angle of crossing theta<<1, the transmission coefficient is an oscillatory function of lambda/theta, where lambda is the interaction parameter of the Luttinger liquid in an individual nanotube. We calculate the tunnel density of states nu(omega,x) as a function of energy omega and distance x from the intersection.