20,481 research outputs found
Spin transport in ferromagnet-InSb nanowire quantum devices
Signatures of Majorana zero modes (MZMs), which are the building blocks for
fault-tolerant topological quantum computing, have been observed in
semiconductor nanowires (NW) with strong spin-orbital-interaction (SOI), such
as InSb and InAs NWs with proximity-induced superconductivity. Realizing
topological superconductivity and MZMs in this most widely-studied platform
also requires eliminating spin degeneracy, which is realized by applying a
magnetic field to induce a helical gap. However, the applied field can
adversely impact the induced superconducting state in the NWs and also places
geometric restrictions on the device, which can affect scaling of future
MZM-based quantum registers. These challenges could be circumvented by
integrating magnetic elements with the NWs. With this motivation, in this work
we report the first experimental investigation of spin transport across InSb
NWs, which are enabled by devices with ferromagnetic (FM) contacts. We observe
signatures of spin polarization and spin-dependent transport in the
quasi-one-dimensional ballistic regime. Moreover, we show that electrostatic
gating tunes the observed magnetic signal and also reveals a transport regime
where the device acts as a spin filter. These results open an avenue towards
developing MZM devices in which spin degeneracy is lifted locally, without the
need of an applied magnetic field. They also provide a path for realizing
spin-based devices that leverage spin-orbital states in quantum wires.Comment: 30 pages, 12 figure
Adaptive pre-filtering techniques for colour image analysis
One important step in the process of colour image
segmentation is to reduce the errors caused by image
noise and local colour inhomogeneities. This can be
achieved by filtering the data with a smoothing
operator that eliminates the noise and the weak
textures. In this regard, the aim of this paper is to
evaluate the performance of two image smoothing
techniques designed for colour images, namely
bilateral filtering for edge preserving smoothing and
coupled forward and backward anisotropic diffusion
scheme (FAB). Both techniques are non-linear and
have the purpose of eliminating the image noise,
reduce weak textures and artefacts and improve the
coherence of colour information. A quantitative
comparison between them will be evaluated and also
the ability of such techniques to preserve the edge
information will be investigated
High-ISO long-exposure image denoising based on quantitative blob characterization
Blob detection and image denoising are fundamental, sometimes related tasks in computer vision. In this paper, we present a computational method to quantitatively measure blob characteristics using normalized unilateral second-order Gaussian kernels. This method suppresses non-blob structures while yielding a quantitative measurement of the position, prominence and scale of blobs, which can facilitate the tasks of blob reconstruction and blob reduction. Subsequently, we propose a denoising scheme to address high-ISO long-exposure noise, which sometimes spatially shows a blob appearance, employing a blob reduction procedure as a cheap preprocessing for conventional denoising methods. We apply the proposed denoising methods to real-world noisy images as well as standard images that are corrupted by real noise. The experimental results demonstrate the superiority of the proposed methods over state-of-the-art denoising methods
Quantum well states and amplified spin-dependent Friedel oscillations in thin films
Electrons mediate many of the interactions between atoms in a solid. Their
propagation in a material determines its thermal, electrical, optical, magnetic
and transport properties. Therefore, the constant energy contours
characterizing the electrons, in particular the Fermi surface, have a prime
impact on the behavior of materials. If anisotropic, the contours induce strong
directional dependence at the nanoscale in the Friedel oscillations surrounding
impurities. Here we report on giant anisotropic charge density oscillations
focused along specific directions with strong spin-filtering after scattering
at an oxygen impurity embedded in the surface of a ferromagnetic thin film of
Fe grown on W(001). Utilizing density functional theory, we demonstrate that by
changing the thickness of the Fe films, we control quantum well states confined
to two dimensions that manifest as multiple flat energy contours, impinging and
tuning the strength of the induced charge oscillations which allow to detect
the oxygen impurity at large distances ( 50nm).Comment: This paper has an explanatory supplemen
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