2,985 research outputs found
A very low temperature STM for the local spectroscopy of mesoscopic structures
We present the design and operation of a very-low temperature Scanning
Tunneling Microscope (STM) working at in a dilution refrigerator. The
STM features both atomic resolution and micron-sized scanning range at low
temperature. This work is the first experimental realization of a local
spectroscopy of mesoscopic structures at very low temperature. We present
high-resolution current-voltage characteristics of tunnel contacts and the
deduced local density of states of hybrid Superconductor-Normal metal systems.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures, slightly corrected versio
Two philosophies for solving non-linear equations in algebraic cryptanalysis
Algebraic Cryptanalysis [45] is concerned with solving of particular systems of multivariate non-linear equations which occur in cryptanalysis. Many different methods for solving such problems have been proposed in cryptanalytic literature: XL and XSL method, Gröbner bases, SAT solvers, as well as many other. In this paper we survey these methods and point out that the main working principle in all of them is essentially the same. One quantity grows faster than another quantity which leads to a “phase transition” and the problem becomes efficiently solvable. We illustrate this with examples from both symmetric and asymmetric cryptanalysis. In this paper we point out that there exists a second (more) general way of formulating algebraic attacks through dedicated coding techniques which involve redundancy with addition of new variables. This opens numerous new possibilities for the attackers and leads to interesting optimization problems where the existence of interesting equations may be somewhat deliberately engineered by the attacker
A geometric view of cryptographic equation solving
This paper considers the geometric properties of the Relinearisation algorithm and of the XL algorithm used in cryptology for equation solving. We give a formal description of each algorithm in terms of projective geometry, making particular use of the Veronese variety. We establish the fundamental geometrical connection between the two algorithms and show how both algorithms can be viewed as being equivalent to the problem of finding a matrix of low rank in the linear span of a collection of matrices, a problem sometimes known as the MinRank problem. Furthermore, we generalise the XL algorithm to a geometrically invariant algorithm, which we term the GeometricXL algorithm. The GeometricXL algorithm is a technique which can solve certain equation systems that are not easily soluble by the XL algorithm or by Groebner basis methods
Controlling hysteresis in superconducting constrictions with a resistive shunt
We demonstrate control of the thermal hysteresis in superconducting
constrictions by adding a resistive shunt. In order to prevent thermal
relaxation oscillations, the shunt resistor is placed in close vicinity of the
constriction, making the inductive current-switching time smaller than the
thermal equilibration time. We investigate the current-voltage characteristics
of the same constriction with and without the shunt-resistor. The widening of
the hysteresis-free temperature range is explained on the basis of a simple
model.Comment: 6 pages, 7 figures, including Supplementary Informatio
Systematic Construction of Nonlinear Product Attacks on Block Ciphers
A major open problem in block cipher cryptanalysis is discovery of new invariant properties of complex type. Recent papers show that this can be achieved for SCREAM, Midori64, MANTIS-4, T-310 or for DES with modified S-boxes. Until now such attacks are hard to find and seem to happen by some sort of incredible coincidence. In this paper we abstract the attack from any particular block cipher. We study these attacks in terms of transformations on multivariate polynomials. We shall demonstrate how numerous variables including key variables may sometimes be eliminated and at the end two very complex Boolean polynomials will become equal. We present a general construction of an attack where multiply all the polynomials lying on one or several cycles. Then under suitable conditions the non-linear functions involved will be eliminated totally. We obtain a periodic invariant property holding for any number of rounds. A major difficulty with invariant attacks is that they typically work only for some keys. In T-310 our attack works for any key and also in spite of the presence of round constants
Niobium-based superconducting nano-devices fabrication using all-metal suspended masks
We report a novel method for the fabrication of superconducting nanodevices
based on niobium. The well-known difficulties of lithographic patterning of
high-quality niobium are overcome by replacing the usual organic resist mask by
a metallic one. The quality of the fabrication procedure is demonstrated by the
realization and characterization of long and narrow superconducting lines and
niobium-gold-niobium proximity SQUIDs
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