Signature of a chemical bond in the conductance between two metal surfaces

Conductance in monatomic metal contacts is quantized; it increases in discrete steps of one conductance quantum 2e(2)/h. By contrast, in a vacuum barrier between two metal surfaces we find that conductance increases linearly and continuously with the interaction energy between individual atoms. This behavior shows unambiguously that current flow between single atoms is a measure for their chemical interaction. In the controlled environment of a scanning tunneling microscope it should allow us to study the formation of covalent bonds up to the point where these atoms finally jump into contact

Optically driven silicon-based quantum gates with potential for high-temperature operation

We propose a new approach to constructing gates for quantum information processing, exploiting the proper-ties of impurities in silicon. Quantum information, embodied in electron spins bound to deep donors, is coupled via optically induced electronic excitation. Gates are manipulated by magnetic fields and optical light pulses; individual gates are addressed by exploiting spatial and spectroscopic selectivity. Such quantum gates do not rely on small energy scales for operation, so might function at or near room temperature. We show the scheme can produce the classes of gates necessary to construct a universal quantum computer

THEORY OF THE STRUCTURE OF THE SELF-TRAPPED EXCITON IN QUARTZ

Quartz is an insulator with an extremely wide band gap in the vacuum ultra-violet. However, under irradiation from high-energy electrons or X-rays, samples of high purity emit a luminescence band in the blue, corresponding to a Stokes shift of approximately 7 eV. This large Stokes shift has been ascribed to the self-trapping of an exciton in an otherwise perfect lattice owing to the distortion it induces; the authors review the evidence for this assignment, and describe electronic-structure calculations which reveal the structure of the distorted configuration and also explain various experimentally determined properties of the centre. The self-trapping process they postulate is a novel one as it is driven primarily by the electron component of the exciton

DEFECT ELECTRONIC STATES IN BETA-CAROTENE AND LOWER HOMOLOGS

We present semi-empirical calculations of the atomic geometries and electronic charge distributions of beta-carotene homologues of different chain lengths. We find defects in charged and photoexcited chains that are similar to the defects found in the degenerate polymer trans-polyacetylene, and we show how confinement affects these defects as the chains we shortened. Our results exhibit a generalized form of charge-conjugation symmetry in which the properties of a negatively charged defect are related to those of a positive one and vice versa

Avoiding entanglement loss when two-qubit quantum gates are controlled by electronic excitation

A solid-state two-qubit quantum gate was recently proposed that might be made in a silicon fabrication plant in the near future. In this class of device, entanglement between two quantum bits is controlled by a change from a largely unentangled ground electronic state to an excited state in which useful entanglement can be produced. Such gates have potential advantages, both because they exploit known solid-state behaviour and they separate the storage and manipulation of quantum information. It is important that the excitation step does not create decoherence. We analyse a type of gate proposed before, in which the excitation involves a control electron that interacts with the qubit spins in the excited state. The dynamics of an idealized (but fairly general) gate of this type show that it can be operated to produce a standard two-qubit entangling state

THEORY OF DEFECTS IN CONDUCTING POLYMERS .2. APPLICATION TO POLYACETYLENE

We exploit the approach of a previous paper, based on self-consistent quantum-chemical molecular dynamics, to investigate the energetics and dynamics of excitations in conducting polymers. The predictions include the formation energies of solitons and polarons, the phenomenon of doping by alkali atoms, luminescence quenching in cis-polyacetylene, the soliton mobility in trans-polyacetylene and the non-existence of breathers in cis-polyacetylene

Excited states of a phosphorus pair in silicon: Combining valley-orbital interaction and electron-electron interactions

Excitations of impurity complexes in semiconductors cannot only provide a route to fill the terahertz gap in optical technologies but can also play a role in connecting local quantum bits efficiently to scale up solid-state quantum-computing devices. However, taking into account both the interactions among electrons/holes bound at the impurities and the host band structures is challenging. Here we combine first-principles band-structure calculations with quantum-chemistry methodology to evaluate the ground and excited states of a pair of phosphorous (shallow donors) impurities in silicon within a single framework. We account for the electron-electron interaction within a broken-symmetry Hartree-Fock approach, followed by a time-dependent Hartree-Fock method to compute the excited states. We adopt a Hamiltonian for each conduction-band valley including an anisotropic kinetic energy term, which splits the 2 p 0 and 2 p ± transitions of isolated donors by ∼ 4 meV, in good agreement with experiments. Our single-valley calculations show the optical response is a strong function of the optical polarization and suggest the use of valley polarization to control optics and reduce oscillations in exchange interactions. When taking into account all valleys, we have included valley-orbital interactions that split the energy levels further. We find a gap opens between the 1 s → 2 p transition and the low-energy charge-transfer states within 1 s manifolds (which become optically allowed because of interdonor interactions). In contrast to the single-valley case, we also find charge-transfer excited states in the triplet sector, thanks to the extra valley degrees of freedom. Our computed charge-transfer excited states have a qualitatively correct energy as compared with previous experimental findings; additionally, we predict a set of excitations below 20 meV. Calculations based on a statistical average of nearest-neighbor pairs at different separations suggest that THz radiation could be used to excite the donor pairs spin-selectively. Our approach can readily be extended to other types of donors such as arsenic, and more widely to other semiconducting host materials such as germanium, zinc oxides, and gallium nitride, etc

The use of extracorporeal photopheresis in solid organ transplantation—current status and future directions

\ua9 2024 The AuthorsPrevention and management of allograft rejection urgently require more effective therapeutic solutions. Current immunosuppressive therapies used in solid organ transplantation, while effective in reducing the risk of acute rejection, are associated with substantial adverse effects. There is, therefore, a need for agents that can provide immunomodulation, supporting graft tolerance, while minimizing the need for immunosuppression. Extracorporeal photopheresis (ECP) is an immunomodulatory therapy currently recommended in international guidelines as an adjunctive treatment for the prevention and management of organ rejection in heart and lung transplantations. This article reviews clinical experience and ongoing research with ECP for organ rejection in heart and lung transplantations, as well as emerging findings in kidney and liver transplantation. ECP, due to its immunomodulatory and immunosuppressive-sparing effects, offers a potential therapeutic option in these settings, particularly in high-risk patients with comorbidities, infectious complications, or malignancies

Multihole models for deterministically placed acceptor arrays in silicon

In this paper, we compute the electronic structure of acceptor clusters in silicon by using three different methods to take into account electron correlations: the full configuration interaction (full CI calculation), the Heitler-London approximation (HL approximation), and the unrestricted Hartree-Fock method (UHF method). We show that both the HL approach and the UHF method are good approximations to the ground state of the full CI calculation for a pair of acceptors and for finite linear chains along [001], [110], and [111]. The total energies for finite linear chains show the formation of a fourfold-degenerate ground state (lying highest in energy), below which there are characteristic low-lying eightfold and fourfold degeneracies, when there is a long (weak) bond at the end of the chain. We present evidence that this is a manifold of topological edge states. We identify a change in the angular momentum composition of the ground state at a critical pattern of bond lengths, and show that it is related to a crossing in the Fock matrix eigenvalues. We also test the symmetry of the self-consistent mean-field UHF solution and compare it to the full CI; the symmetry is broken under almost all the arrangements by the formation of a magnetic state in UHF, and we find further broken symmetries for some particular arrangements related to crossings (or potential crossings) between the Fock-matrix eigenvalues in the [001] direction. We also compute the charge distributions across the acceptors obtained from the eigenvectors of the Fock matrix; we find that, with weak bonds at the chain ends, two holes are localized at either end of the chain while the others have a nearly uniform distribution over the middle; this also implies the existence of the nontrivial edge states. We also apply the UHF method to treat an infinite linear chain with periodic boundary conditions, where the full CI calculation and the HL approximation cannot easily be used. We find the band structures in the UHF approximation, and compute the Zak phases for the occupied Fock-matrix eigenvalues; however, we find they do not correctly predict the topological edge states formed in this interacting system. On the other hand, we find that direct study of the quantum numbers characterizing the edge states, introduced by Turner et al. [Phys. Rev. B 83, 075102 (2011)], provides a better insight into their topological nature