3,912 research outputs found
Magnetic susceptibility of ultra-small superconductor grains
For assemblies of superconductor nanograins, the magnetic response is
analyzed as a function of both temperature and magnetic field. In order to
describe the interaction energy of electron pairs for a huge number of
many-particle states, involved in calculations, we develop a simple
approximation, based on the Richardson solution for the reduced BCS Hamiltonian
and applicable over a wide range of the grain sizes and interaction strengths
at arbitrary distributions of single-electron energy levels in a grain. Our
study is focused upon ultra-small grains, where both the mean value of the
nearest-neighbor spacing of single-electron energy levels in a grain and
variations of this spacing from grain to grain significantly exceed the
superconducting gap in bulk samples of the same material. For these ultra-small
superconductor grains, the overall profiles of the magnetic susceptibility as a
function of magnetic field and temperature are demonstrated to be qualitatively
different from those for normal grains. We show that the analyzed signatures of
pairing correlations are sufficiently stable with respect to variations of the
average value of the grain size and its dispersion over an assembly of
nanograins. The presence of these signatures does not depend on a particular
choice of statistics, obeyed by single-electron energy levels in grains.Comment: 40 pages, 12 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev. B, E-mail addresses:
[email protected], [email protected], [email protected]
A flexible flight display research system using a ground-based interactive graphics terminal
Requirements and research areas for the air transportation system of the 1980 to 1990's were reviewed briefly to establish the need for a flexible flight display generation research tool. Specific display capabilities required by aeronautical researchers are listed and a conceptual system for providing these capabilities is described. The conceptual system uses a ground-based interactive graphics terminal driven by real-time radar and telemetry data to generate dynamic, experimental flight displays. These displays are scan converted to television format, processed, and transmitted to the cockpits of evaluation aircraft. The attendant advantages of a Flight Display Research System (FDRS) designed to employ this concept are presented. The detailed implementation of an FDRS is described. The basic characteristics of the interactive graphics terminal and supporting display electronic subsystems are presented and the resulting system capability is summarized. Finally, the system status and utilization are reviewed
Ratchet Cellular Automata
In this work we propose a ratchet effect which provides a general means of
performing clocked logic operations on discrete particles, such as single
electrons or vortices. The states are propagated through the device by the use
of an applied AC drive. We numerically demonstrate that a complete logic
architecture is realizable using this ratchet. We consider specific
nanostructured superconducting geometries using superconducting materials under
an applied magnetic field, with the positions of the individual vortices in
samples acting as the logic states. These devices can be used as the building
blocks for an alternative microelectronic architecture.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure
Flux pinning properties of superconductors with an array of blind holes
We performed ac-susceptibility measurements to explore the vortex dynamics
and the flux pinning properties of superconducting Pb films with an array of
micro-holes (antidots) and non-fully perforated holes (blind holes). A lower
ac-shielding together with a smaller extension of the linear regime for the
lattice of blind holes indicates that these centers provide a weaker pinning
potential than antidots. Moreover, we found that the maximum number of flux
quanta trapped by a pinning site, i.e. the saturation number ns, is lower for
the blind hole array.Comment: 6 figures, 6 page
Periodic and Quasi-Periodic Compensation Strategies of Extreme Outages caused by Polarization Mode Dispersion and Amplifier Noise
Effect of birefringent disorder on the Bit Error Rate (BER) in an optical
fiber telecommunication system subject to amplifier noise may lead to extreme
outages, related to anomalously large values of BER. We analyze the Probability
Distribution Function (PDF) of BER for various strategies of Polarization Mode
Dispersion (PMD) compensation. A compensation method is proposed that is
capable of more efficient extreme outages suppression, which leads to
substantial improvement of the fiber system performance.Comment: 3 pages, 1 figure, Submitted to IEEE Photonics Letter
Stable vortex-antivortex molecules in mesoscopic superconducting triangles
A thermodynamically stable vortex-antivortex pattern has been revealed in
mesoscopic type I superconducting triangles, contrary to type II
superconductors where similar patterns are unstable. The stable
vortex-antivortex "molecule" appears due to the interplay between two factors:
a repulsive vortex-antivortex interaction in type I superconductors and the
vortex confinement in the triangle.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, E-mail addresses: [email protected],
[email protected], [email protected], [email protected]
Superconducting properties of the In-substituted topological crystalline insulator, SnTe
We report detailed investigations of the properties of a superconductor obtained by substituting In at the Sn site in the topological crystalline insulator (TCI), SnTe. Transport, magnetization and heat capacity measurements have been performed on crystals of SnInTe, which is shown to be a bulk superconductor with at ~K and at ~K. The upper and lower critical fields are estimated to be ~T and ~mT respectively, while indicates this material is a strongly type II superconductor
Magnetic levitation on a type-I superconductor as a practical demonstration experiment for students
We describe and discuss an experimental set-up which allows undergraduate and
graduate students to view and study magnetic levitation on a type-I
superconductor. The demonstration can be repeated many times using one readily
available 25 liter liquid helium dewar. We study the equilibrium position of a
magnet that levitates over a lead bowl immersed in a liquid hand-held helium
cryostat. We combine the measurement of the position of the magnet with simple
analytical calculations. This provides a vivid visualization of magnetic
levitation from the balance between pure flux expulsion and gravitation. The
experiment contrasts and illustrates the case of magnetic levitation with high
temperature type-II superconductors using liquid nitrogen, where levitation
results from partial flux expulsion and vortex physics
Weak inter-band coupling in MgB: a specific heat analysis
The superconducting state of MgB is investigated by specific
heat measurements in detail. The specific heat in the normal state is analyzed
using a recently developed computer code. This allows for an extraction of the
electronic specific heat in the superconducting state with high accuracy and a
fair determination of the main lattice features. One of the two investigated
samples shows a hump in the specific heat at low temperatures within the
superconducting state, accompanied by an unusual low value of the small gap,
, pointing to a very weak inter-band coupling. This
sample allows for a detailed analysis of the contribution from the -band
to the electronic specific heat in the superconducting state. Therefore the
usual analysis method is modified, to include the individual conservation of
entropy of both bands. From analyzing the deviation function of
MgB, the theoretically predicted weak inter-band coupling scenario is
confirmed.Comment: major revision
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