23,949 research outputs found
Strain-stress study of AlxGa1-xN/AlN heterostructures on c-plane sapphire and related optical properties
This work presents a systematic study of stress and strain of AlxGa1-xN/AlN
with composition ranging from GaN to AlN, grown on a c-plane sapphire by
metal-organic chemical vapor deposition, using synchrotron radiation
high-resolution X-ray diffraction and reciprocal space mapping. The c-plane of
the AlxGa1-xN epitaxial layers exhibits compressive strain, while the a-plane
exhibits tensile strain. The biaxial stress and strain are found to increase
with increasing Al composition, although the lattice mismatch between the
AlxGa1-xN and the buffer layer AlN gets smaller. A reduction in the lateral
coherence lengths and an increase in the edge and screw dislocations are seen
as the AlxGa1-xN composition is varied from GaN to AlN, exhibiting a clear
dependence of the crystal properties of AlxGa1-xN on the Al content. The
bandgap of the epitaxial layers is slightly lower than predicted value due to a
larger tensile strain effect on the a-axis compared to the compressive strain
on the c-axis. Raman characteristics of the AlxGa1-xN samples exhibit a shift
in the phonon peaks with the Al composition. The effect of strain is also
discussed on the optical phonon energies of the epitaxial layers. The
techniques discussed here can be used to study other similar materials.Comment: 14 pages, 5 figures, 2 table
Carrier-mediated antiferromagnetic interlayer exchange coupling in diluted magnetic semiconductor multilayers GaMnAs/GaAs:Be
We use neutron reflectometry to investigate the interlayer exchange coupling
between GaMnAs ferromagnetic semiconductor layers separated
by non-magnetic Be-doped GaAs spacers. Polarized neutron reflectivity measured
below the Curie temperature of GaMnAs reveals a
characteristic splitting at the wave vector corresponding to twice the
multilayer period, indicating that the coupling between the ferromagnetic
layers are antiferromagnetic (AFM). When the applied field is increased to
above the saturation field, this AFM coupling is suppressed. This behavior is
not observed when the spacers are undoped, suggesting that the observed AFM
coupling is mediated by charge carriers introduced via Be doping. The behavior
of magnetization of the multilayers measured by DC magnetometry is consistent
with the neutron reflectometry results.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Comparison of chemical profiles and effectiveness between Erxian decoction and mixtures of decoctions of its individual herbs : a novel approach for identification of the standard chemicals
Acknowledgements This study was partially supported by grants from the Seed Funding Programme for Basic Research (Project Number 201211159146 and 201411159213), the University of Hong Kong. We thank Mr Keith Wong and Ms Cindy Lee for their technical assistances.Peer reviewedPublisher PD
Capacitive Spring Softening in Single-Walled Carbon Nanotube Nanoelectromechanical Resonators
We report the capacitive spring softening effect observed in single-walled
carbon nanotube (SWNT) nanoelectromechanical (NEM) resonators. The nanotube
resonators adopt dual-gate configuration with both bottom-gate and side-gate
capable of tuning the resonance frequency through capacitive coupling.
Interestingly, downward resonance frequency shifting is observed with
increasing side-gate voltage, which can be attributed to the capacitive
softening of spring constant. Furthermore, in-plane vibrational modes exhibit
much stronger spring softening effect than out-of-plan modes. Our dual-gate
design should enable the differentiation between these two types of vibrational
modes, and open up new possibility for nonlinear operation of nanotube
resonators.Comment: 12 pages/ 3 figure
Drying Characteristics and Product Quality of Lemon Slices Dried with Hot Air Circulation Oven and Hybrid Heatpump Dryers
In this research, drying characteristics and product quality of Coulomb-force-assisted heatpump and oven dried lemon slices were studied. Lemon slices with 3 mm thickness each, were dried using oven and Coulomb-force-assisted-heatpump dryer with and without auxiliary heater at different drying conditions. It was found that the drying rate of the lemon slices dried by all drying methods showed only falling rate states, which indicates the drying kinetics were controlled by internal moisture diffusion. Oven drying of lemon slices at 60°C showed the highest drying rate among all, followed by oven dried slices at 50°C, Coulomb-force-heater-assisted-heatpump (CF-HT-HP) dried slices at 31°C, Coulomb-force-assisted-heatpump (CF-HP) dried slices at 22°C, oven dried slices at 40°C and heatpump dried slices at 22°C. The average effective moisture diffusivity value for the slices dried with these drying methods was found in the range of 16.2 to 63.8´10-4 mm2min-1. In terms of quality assessment, CF-HP dried lemon slices retained the highest amount of Vitamin C as compared to the lemon slices dried by other drying methods. However, it retained relatively lower amount of total phenolic content (TPC) as compared to oven dried products. Among of all, CF-HP drying method produced dried lemon slices with the highest Vitamin C (6.74 mg AA / g dry weight) whereas oven dried lemon slices at 50°C preserved most of the TPC in the dried slices, which recorded as 13.76 mg GA / g dry weight
Multiple Scattering of Fractionally-Charged Quasiparticles
We employ shot noise measurements to characterize the effective charge of
quasiparticles, at filling factor nu=1/3 of the fractional quantum Hall regime,
as they scatter from an array of identical weak backscatterers. Upon
scattering, quasiparticles are known to bunch, e.g., only three e/3 charges, or
'electrons' are found to traverse a rather opaque potential barrier. We find
here that the effective charge scattered by an array of scatterers is
determined by the scattering strength of an individual scatterer and not by the
combined scattering strength of the array, which can be very small. Moreover,
we also rule out intra-edge equilibration of e/3 quasiparticles over length
scale of hundreds microns.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Spin Dynamics of the Spin-1/2 Kagome Lattice Antiferromagnet ZnCu_3(OH)_6Cl_2
We have performed thermodynamic and neutron scattering measurements on the
S=1/2 kagome lattice antiferromagnet Zn Cu_3 (OH)_6 Cl_2. The susceptibility
indicates a Curie-Weiss temperature of ~ -300 K; however, no magnetic order is
observed down to 50 mK. Inelastic neutron scattering reveals a spectrum of low
energy spin excitations with no observable gap down to 0.1 meV. The specific
heat at low-T follows a power law with exponent less than or equal to 1. These
results suggest that an unusual spin-liquid state with essentially gapless
excitations is realized in this kagome lattice system.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures; v2: Updates to authors list and references; v3:
Updated version; v4: Published versio
Parallel updating cellular automaton models of driven diffusive Frenkel-Kontorova-type systems
Three cellular automaton (CA) models of increasing complexity are introduced
to model driven diffusive systems related to the generalized Frenkel-Kontorova
(FK) models recently proposed by Braun [Phys.Rev.E58, 1311 (1998)]. The models
are defined in terms of parallel updating rules. Simulation results are
presented for these models. The features are qualitatively similar to those
models defined previously in terms of sequentially updating rules. Essential
features of the FK model such as phase transitions, jamming due to atoms in the
immobile state, and hysteresis in the relationship between the fraction of
atoms in the running state and the bias field are captured. Formulating in
terms of parallel updating rules has the advantage that the models can be
treated analytically by following the time evolution of the occupation on every
site of the lattice. Results of this analytical approach are given for the two
simpler models. The steady state properties are found by studying the stable
fixed points of a closed set of dynamical equations obtained within the
approximation of retaining spatial correlations only upto two nearest
neighboring sites. Results are found to be in good agreement with numerical
data.Comment: 26 pages, 4 eps figure
Spin-lattice instability to a fractional magnetization state in the spinel HgCr2O4
Magnetic systems are fertile ground for the emergence of exotic states when
the magnetic interactions cannot be satisfied simultaneously due to the
topology of the lattice - a situation known as geometrical frustration.
Spinels, AB2O4, can realize the most highly frustrated network of
corner-sharing tetrahedra. Several novel states have been discovered in
spinels, such as composite spin clusters and novel charge-ordered states. Here
we use neutron and synchrotron X-ray scattering to characterize the fractional
magnetization state of HgCr2O4 under an external magnetic field, H. When the
field is applied in its Neel ground state, a phase transition occurs at H ~ 10
Tesla at which each tetrahedron changes from a canted Neel state to a
fractional spin state with the total spin, Stet, of S/2 and the lattice
undergoes orthorhombic to cubic symmetry change. Our results provide the
microscopic one-to-one correspondence between the spin state and the lattice
distortion
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