5,090 research outputs found
Fate of the spin-\frac{1}{2} Kondo effect in the presence of temperature gradients
We consider a strongly interacting quantum dot connected to two leads held at
quite different temperatures. Our aim is to study the behavior of the Kondo
effect in the presence of large thermal biases. We use three different
approaches, namely, a perturbation formalism based on the Kondo Hamiltonian, a
slave-boson mean-field theory for the Anderson model at large charging energies
and a truncated equation-of-motion approach beyond the Hartree-Fock
approximation. The two former formalisms yield a suppression of the Kondo peak
for thermal gradients above the Kondo temperature, showing a remarkably good
agreement despite their different ranges of validity. The third technique
allows us to analyze the full density of states within a wide range of
energies. Additionally, we have investigated the quantum transport properties
(electric current and thermocurrent) beyond linear response. In the
voltage-driven case, we reproduce the split differential conductance due to the
presence of different electrochemical potentials. In the temperature-driven
case, we observe a strongly nonlinear thermocurrent as a function of the
applied thermal gradient. Depending on the parameters, we can find nontrivial
zeros in the electric current for finite values of the temperature bias.
Importantly, these thermocurrent zeros yield direct access to the system's
characteristic energy scales (Kondo temperature and charging energy).Comment: 14 pages, 11 figures, revised versio
Kramers polarization in strongly correlated carbon nanotube quantum dots
Ferromagnetic contacts put in proximity with carbon nanotubes induce spin and
orbital polarizations. These polarizations affect dramatically the Kondo
correlations occurring in quantum dots formed in a carbon nanotube, inducing
effective fields in both spin and orbital sectors. As a consequence, the carbon
nanotube quantum dot spectral density shows a four-fold split SU(4) Kondo
resonance. Furthermore, the presence of spin-orbit interactions leads to the
occurrence of an additional polarization among time-reversal electronic states
(polarization in the time-reversal symmetry or Kramers sector). Here, we
estimate the magnitude for the Kramer polarization in realistic carbon nanotube
samples and find that its contribution is comparable to the spin and orbital
polarizations. The Kramers polarization generates a new type of effective field
that affects only the time-reversal electronic states. We report new splittings
of the Kondo resonance in the dot spectral density which can be understood only
if Kramers polarization is taken into account. Importantly, we predict that the
existence of Kramers polarization can be experimentally detected by performing
nonlinear differential conductance measurements. We also find that, due to the
high symmetry required to build SU(4) Kondo correlations, its restoration by
applying an external field is not possible in contrast to the compensated SU(2)
Kondo state observed in conventional quantum dots.Comment: 8 pages, 4figure
Rashba interaction in quantum wires with in-plane magnetic fields
We analyze the spectral and transport properties of ballistic quasi
one-dimensional systems in the presence of spin-orbit coupling and in-plane
agnetic fields. Our results demonstrate that Rashba precession and intersubband
coupling must be treated on equal footing for wavevectors near the magnetic
field induced gaps. We find that intersubband coupling limits the occurrence of
negative effective masses at the gap edges and modifies the linear conductance
curves in the strong coupling limit. The effect of the magnetic field on the
spin textured orientation of the wire magnetization is discussed.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figures; new figures, discussion extende
Cotunneling drag effect in Coulomb-coupled quantum dots
In Coulomb drag, a current flowing in one conductor can induce a voltage
across an adjacent conductor via the Coulomb interaction. The mechanisms
yielding drag effects are not always understood, even though drag effects are
sufficiently general to be seen in many low-dimensional systems. In this
Letter, we observe Coulomb drag in a Coulomb-coupled double quantum dot
(CC-DQD) and, through both experimental and theoretical arguments, identify
cotunneling as essential to obtaining a correct qualitative understanding of
the drag behavior.Comment: Main text: 5 pages, 5 figures; SM: 11 pages, 5 figures, 1 tabl
Observing and modelling phytoplankton community structure in the North Sea
© Author(s) 2017. CC Attribution 3.0 License. Phytoplankton form the base of the marine food chain, and knowledge of phytoplankton community structure is fundamental when assessing marine biodiversity. Policy makers and other users require information on marine biodiversity and other aspects of the marine environment for the North Sea, a highly productive European shelf sea. This information must come from a combination of observations and models, but currently the coastal ocean is greatly under-sampled for phytoplankton data, and outputs of phytoplankton community structure from models are therefore not yet frequently validated. This study presents a novel set of in situ observations of phytoplankton community structure for the North Sea using accessory pigment analysis. The observations allow a good understanding of the patterns of surface phytoplankton biomass and community structure in the North Sea for the observed months of August 2010 and 2011. Two physical-biogeochemical ocean models, the biogeochemical components of which are different variants of the widely used European Regional Seas Ecosystem Model (ERSEM), were then validated against these and other observations. Both models were a good match for sea surface temperature observations, and a reasonable match for remotely sensed ocean colour observations. However, the two models displayed very different phytoplankton community structures, with one better matching the in situ observations than the other. Nonetheless, both models shared some similarities with the observations in terms of spatial features and inter-annual variability. An initial comparison of the formulations and parameterizations of the two models suggests that diversity between the parameter settings of model phytoplankton functional types, along with formulations which promote a greater sensitivity to changes in light and nutrients, is key to capturing the observed phytoplankton community structure. These findings will help inform future model development, which should be coupled with detailed validation studies, in order to help facilitate the wider application of marine biogeochemical modelling to user and policy needs
Designed asymmetric coordination helicates with bis-β-diketonate ligands.
A new bis-(β-diketone) ligand featuring built-up structural asymmetry yields non-symmetric Fe(iii) and Ga(iii) dinuclear, triple-stranded helicates by design. Their structural properties have been studied, both in solid state and in solution, and compared with their corresponding symmetric analogues. The robustness observed shows the potential of this synthetic strategy to develop non-symmetric helicoidal motifs with specific functional groups
Kondo effect in spin-orbit mesoscopic interferometers
We consider a flux-threaded Aharonov-Bohm ring with an embedded quantum dot
coupled to two normal leads. The local Rashba spin-orbit interaction acting on
the dot electrons leads to a spin-dependent phase factor in addition to the
Aharonov-Bohm phase caused by the external flux. Using the numerical
renormalization group method, we find a splitting of the Kondo resonance at the
Fermi level which can be compensated by an external magnetic field. To fully
understand the nature of this compensation effect, we perform a scaling
analysis and derive an expression for the effective magnetic field. The
analysis is based on a tight-binding model which leads to an effective Anderson
model with a spin-dependent density of states for the transformed lead states.
We find that the effective field originates from the combined effect of Rashba
interaction and magnetic flux and that it contains important corrections due to
electron-electron interactions. We show that the compensating field is an
oscillatory function of both the spin-orbit and the Aharonov-Bohm phases.
Moreover, the effective field never vanishes due to the particle-hole symmetry
breaking independently of the gate voltage.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figure
From Coulomb blockade to the Kondo regime in a Rashba dot
We investigate the electronic transport in a quantum wire with localized
Rashba interaction. The Rashba field forms quasi-bound states which couple to
the continuum states with an opposite spin direction. The presence of this
Rashba dot causes Fano-like antiresonances and dips in the wire's linear
conductance. The Fano lineshape arises from the interference between the direct
transmission channel along the wire and the hopping through the Rashba dot. Due
to the confinement, we predict the observation of large charging energies in
the local Rashba region which lead to Coulomb-blockade effects in the transport
properties of the wire. Importantly, the Kondo regime can be achieved with a
proper tuning of the Rashba interaction, giving rise to an oscillating linear
conductance for a fixed occupation of the Rashba dot.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures; presentation improved, discussions extended.
Published versio
Brick Shaped Antenna Module for Microwave Brain Imaging Systems
In this letter, we describe and validate a microwave antenna designed for an imaging device for the diagnosis and monitoring of cerebrovascular pathologies. The antenna consists of a printed monopole immersed in a parallelepipedic block of semiflexible material with custom-permittivity, which allows to avoid the use of liquid coupling media and enables a simple array arrangement. The “brick” is built with a mixture of urethane rubber and graphite powder. The -10 dB frequency band of the antenna is 800 MHz-1.2 GHz, in agreement with the device requirements. The designed brick antenna is assessed in terms of power penetration, reflection, and transmission coefficients. To show the performance of the antenna in the relevant application scenario, an experiment has been carried out on an anthropomorphic head phantom, measuring the differential signals between healthy state and hemorrhagic stroke mimicking condition for different antennas positions
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