240 research outputs found
Photoexcited electron dynamics in Kondo insulators and heavy fermions
We have studied the photoexcited carrier relaxation dynamics in the Kondo
insulator SmB6 and the heavy fermion metal YbAgCu4 as a function of temperature
and excitation level. The dynamic response is found to be both strongly
temperature dependent and nonlinear. The data are analyzed with a
Rothwarf-Taylor bottleneck model, where the dynamics are governed by the
presence of a narrow gap in the density of states near the Fermi level. The
remarkable agreement with the model suggests that carrier relaxation in a broad
class of heavy electron systems (both metals and insulators) is governed by the
presence of a (weakly temperature dependent) hybridization gap.Comment: accepted for publication in Physical Review Letter
Theory of ultrafast quasiparticle dynamics in high-temperature superconductors: Pump fluence dependence
We present a theory for the time-resolved optical spectroscopy of
high-temperature superconductors at high excitation densities with strongly
anisotropic electron-phonon coupling. A signature of the strong coupling
between the out-of-plane, out-of-phase O buckling mode () and
electronic states near the antinode is observed as a higher-energy peak in the
time-resolved optical conductivity and Raman spectra, while no evidence of the
strong coupling between the in-plane Cu-O breathing mode and nodal electronic
states is observed. More interestingly, it is observed that under appropriate
conditions of pump fluence, this signature exhibits a re-entrant behavior with
time delay, following the fate of the superconducting condensate.Comment: 5 pages, 3 embedded eps figures, to appear in PR
Thermal tunability in terahertz metamaterials fabricated on strontium titanate single crystal substrates
We report an experimental demonstration of thermal tuning of resonance
frequency in a planar terahertz metamaterial consisting of a gold split-ring
resonator array fabricated on a bulk single crystal strontium titanate (SrTiO3)
substrate. Cooling the metamaterial starting from 409 K down to 150 K causes
about 50% shift in resonance frequency as compare to its room temperature
resonance, and there is very little variation in resonance strength. The
resonance shift is due to the temperature-dependent refractive index (or the
dielectric constant) of the strontium titanate. The experiment opens up avenues
for designing tunable terahertz devices by exploiting the temperature sensitive
characteristic of high dielectric constant substrates and complex metal oxide
materials.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, accepted at Optics Letter
Unveiling Stability Criteria of DNA-Carbon Nanotubes Constructs by Scanning Tunneling Microscopy and Computational Modeling
We present a combined approach that relies on computational simulations and scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) measurements to reveal morphological properties and stability criteria of carbon nanotube-DNA (CNT-DNA) constructs. Application of STM allows direct observation of very stable CNT-DNA hybrid structures with the well-defined DNA wrapping angle of 63.4° and a coiling period of 3.3 nm. Using force field simulations, we determine how the DNA-CNT binding energy depends on the sequence and binding geometry of a single strand DNA. This dependence allows us to quantitatively characterize the stability of a hybrid structure with an optimal π-stacking between DNA nucleotides and the tube surface and better interpret STM data. Our simulations clearly demonstrate the existence of a very stable DNA binding geometry for (6,5) CNT as evidenced by the presence of a well-defined minimum in the binding energy as a function of an angle between DNA strand and the nanotube chiral vector. This novel approach demonstrates the feasibility of CNT-DNA geometry studies with subnanometer resolution and paves the way towards complete characterization of the structural and electronic properties of drug-delivering systems based on DNA-CNT hybrids as a function of DNA sequence and a nanotube chirality
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