Interdisciplinary Environmental Doctoral Studies ‘Physical, Chemical and Biophysical Foundations of Advanced Materials Technology and Engineering’ (PCB) - B. Rzeszotarski
Project title
Interdisciplinary Environmental Doctoral Studies ‘Physical, Chemical and Biophysical Foundations of Advanced Materials Technology and Engineering’ (PCB)
Name of Beneficiary/Beneficiaries
Faculty of Physics and Applied Computer Science, AGH University of Science and Technology
Name of programme
Operational Programme Knowledge Education Development
Competition
Interdisciplinary Doctoral Curriculums - Interdisciplinary Environmental Doctoral Studies ‘Physical, Chemical and Biophysical Foundations of Advanced Materials Technology and Engineering’ (PCB)
Project value
PLN 10 123 883.00 per 75 beneficiaries
Funding value
PLN 134 895.00 per one doctoral student
Project delivery period
from 1/09/2017 until 31/08/2022 (extended until 31/10/2023)
Get to know our team
Bartłomiej Rzeszotarski, PhD, Eng.
Prof. Bartłomiej Szafran, PhD, DSc, Eng.
Prof. Andrzej Koleżyński, PhD, DSc, Eng.
Alina Mreńca-Kolasińska, PhD, Eng.
See the outcome of our work
All Bartłomiej Rzeszotarski's research results have been published in reputable international scientific journals included in the list of scientific journals of the Ministry of Education and Science with a score of 140.
The most important publications:
B. Rzeszotarski, B. Szafran, Phys. Rev. B 98, 075417 (2018)
B. Rzeszotarski, A. Mreńca-Kolasińska, B. Szafran, Phys. Rev. B 99,
165426 (2019)
B. Rzeszotarski, A. Mreńca-Kolasińska, B. Szafran, Phys. Rev. B 101,
115308 (2020)
B. Rzeszotarski, A. Mreńca-Kolasińska, F. M. Peeters, B. Szafran, Sci.
Rep. 11, 19892 (2021)
Bartłomiej Rzeszotarski is a laureate of the A. Piekara Award of Polish Physical Society for the best master's thesis in physics, then of the Diamond Grant programme and a recipient of the NCN Etude scholarship. He was awarded a scholarship by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education for outstanding young researchers and PhD students. He is currently employed at the Institute of Physics of the Jagiellonian University as a post-doc in the OPUS project.
What problem does our project solve?
As part of the doctoral thesis, the transport properties of charge and spin in silicene-based nano-systems were investigated. Particular attention was given to the study of the topological insulator phase induced by the embedded spin-orbit interaction. The control of the transition from the trivial phase to the topological transport phase (quantum spin Hall effect) was based on the introduction of an external electric field perpendicular to the structure, which can, inter alia, be implemented by gating the band region. In the theoretical model used, based on the tight-binding Hamiltonian for silicene, the interaction of the external magnetic field with the structure was taken into account. All calculations were performed at the atomic resolution.
The doctoral student demonstrated that, by exploiting the topological transport phase in silicide, it is possible to reverse spin polarised in the plane of the strip over a very short distance of the order of a few nanometres, which is very important in terms of applications in new spintronic devices. It is also shown how the spin precession rate can be easily controlled by the potential of the control gate (by selecting an appropriate Fermi level) and a design for the experimental measurement of spin reversal is proposed.
One of the systems studied was a topological phase state detector, implemented in the geometry of the classical Young experiment. The results obtained for the Aharonov-Bohm interference in the magnetic field identify the mixing of the spin current, indicating a trivial transport state, while the sharp resonance peaks in the measured conductance reveal the binding of the spin-polarised current on the cut-out region (separation of the strip channels) denoting the topological phase. It is shown that in such a case there is no interference of the electron wave on the quantum equivalent of the double slit.
The final results included in the doctoral thesis concerned the determination of the effective Landé g* factor for a point contact geometry completed in silicene. The anisotropic nature of g* was demonstrated and the influence of spin-orbital interactions on its values was presented.
Who will benefit from the outcomes of the project?
As a part of our research, a theoretical model of a spin transistor for silicene is presented, which can be used as a component in the field of spintronics and quantum engineering. The systems that we designed for the detection of the topological insulator phase and the resistive measurement of Aharonov-Bohm interference can be used by experimental groups investigating topological properties in silicene, as well as other 2D materials with similar characteristics (e.g. germanene, stanene) exhibiting strong Kane-Mele type spin-orbit interactions.