37 research outputs found
Dirty-boson physics with magnetic insulators
We review recent theoretical and experimental efforts aimed at the
investigation of the physics of interacting disordered bosons (so-called dirty
bosons) in the context of quantum magnetism. The physics of dirty bosons is
relevant to a wide variety of condensed matter systems, encompassing Helium in
porous media, granular superconductors and ultracold atoms in disordered
optical potentials, to cite a few. Nevertheless, the understanding of the
transition from a localized, Bose-glass phase to an ordered, superfluid
condensate phase still represents a fundamentally open problem. Still to be
constructed is also a quantitative description of the highly inhomogeneous and
strongly correlated phases connected by the transition. We discuss how
disordered magnetic insulators in a strong magnetic field can provide a well
controlled realization of the above transition. Combining numerical simulations
with experiments on real materials can shed light on some fundamental
properties of the critical behavior, such as the scaling of the critical
temperature to condensation close to the quantum critical point
Optical size control in growth of gallium nanoparticles
We report that a low level of optical excitation provides a substantial influence on the size distribution of gallium nanoparticles grown from the atomic beam on a cryogenic substrate, thus providing a new way of achieving tailored films of nanoparticles with given characteristics. The growth experiments, performed in situ in the vacuum chamber of a scanning electron microscope (SEM) equipped with an inverted effusion cell, revealed that the median diameter of the nanoparticles decreases with increasing irradiating optical power, with 0.1, 0.2 and 0.4 mW average power resulting in 70, 50 and 45 nm particles, respectively
Phase-change memory functionality in gallium nanoparticles
We report that the structural phase of gallium nanoparticles can be switched by optical excitation and read via their cathodoluminescence (CL) when excited by a scanning electron beam. This opens a new paradigm in developing high-density phase change optical memory elements. A film of gallium nanoparticles was sputtered at the end face of an optical fiber, through which the reflectivity at 195 K was monitored by a 1.31 µm laser. By launching a single pulse from a 1.55 µm laser (17 mW, 1 µs) to the sample, a solid-to-liquid phase transition was observed as an immediate change of reflectivity from 10.0 to 10.5 %. CL spectra were measured immediately before and after the phase transition. The spectra show that gallium nanoparticles luminesce in the range of 400-650 nm, in which there at 520 nm is a 10 % difference of emission before and after the phase transition, due to a difference in optical properties. In future continuation of this first demonstration of electron beam read-out of the phase of nanoparticles, it is likely that the electron beam itself can change the phase of individual nanoparticles in the film, and that this phase furthermore can be read out at lower power by its cathode luminescence response with the same electron beam
Universal Behavior of One-Dimensional Gapped Antiferromagnets in Staggered Magnetic Field
We study the properties of one-dimensional gapped Heisenberg antiferromagnets
in the presence of an arbitrary strong staggered magnetic field. For these
systems we predict a universal form for the staggered magnetization curve. This
function, as well as the effect the staggered field has on the energy gaps in
longitudinal and transversal excitation spectra, are determined from the
universal form of the effective potential in O(3)-symmetric 1+1--dimensional
field theory. Our theoretical findings are in excellent agreement with recent
neutron scattering data on R_2 Ba Ni O_5 (R = magnetic rare earth) linear-chain
mixed spin antiferromagnets.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure
Nonlinear graphene metamaterial
We demonstrate that the broadband nonlinear optical response of graphene can
be resonantly enhanced by more than an order of magnitude through hybridization
with a plasmonic metamaterial,while retaining an ultrafast nonlinear response
time of ~1 ps. Transmission modulation close to ~1% is seen at a pump uence of
~0.03 mJ/cm^2 at the wavelength of ~1600 nm. This approach allows to engineer
and enhance graphene's nonlinearity within a broad wavelength range enabling
applications in optical switching, mode-locking and pulse shaping.Comment: The following article has been submitted to Applied Physics Letters.
After it is published, it will be found at http://apl.aip.org