543 research outputs found
Observation of a two-dimensional spin-lattice in non-magnetic semiconductor heterostructures
Tunable magnetic interactions in high-mobility nonmagnetic semiconductor
heterostructures are centrally important to spin-based quantum technologies.
Conventionally, this requires incorporation of "magnetic impurities" within the
two-dimensional (2D) electron layer of the heterostructures, which is achieved
either by doping with ferromagnetic atoms, or by electrostatically printing
artificial atoms or quantum dots. Here we report experimental evidence of a
third, and intrinsic, source of localized spins in high-mobility GaAs/AlGaAs
heterostructures, which are clearly observed in the limit of large setback
distance (=80 nm) in modulation doping. Local nonequilibrium transport
spectroscopy in these systems reveals existence of multiple spins, which are
located in a quasi-regular manner in the 2D Fermi sea, and mutually interact at
temperatures below 100 milliKelvin via the Ruderman-Kittel-Kasuya-Yosida (RKKY)
indirect exchange. The presence of such a spin-array, whose microscopic origin
appears to be disorder-bound, simulates a 2D lattice-Kondo system with
gate-tunable energy scales.Comment: 7 pages + 4 figs. To appear in Nature Physics. This is the original
submitted version. Final version will be posted six months after publication.
The Supplementary Information can be downloaded from:
http://www.physics.iisc.ernet.in/~arindam/Supplementary_Information_NPHYS-2006-08-0
0812B.pd
The KELT-South Telescope
The Kilodegree Extremely Little Telescope (KELT) project is a survey for new
transiting planets around bright stars. KELT-South is a small-aperture,
wide-field automated telescope located at Sutherland, South Africa. The
telescope surveys a set of 26 degree by 26 degree fields around the southern
sky, and targets stars in the range of 8 < V < 10 mag, searching for transits
by Hot Jupiters. This paper describes the KELT-South system hardware and
software and discusses the quality of the observations. We show that KELT-South
is able to achieve the necessary photometric precision to detect transits of
Hot Jupiters around solar-type main-sequence stars.Comment: 26 pages, 13 figure
Transport Through an Electrostatically Defined Quantum Dot Lattice in a Two-Dimensional Electron Gas
Quantum dot lattices (QDLs) have the potential to allow for the tailoring of
optical, magnetic and electronic properties of a user-defined artificial solid.
We use a dual gated device structure to controllably tune the potential
landscape in a GaAs/AlGaAs two-dimensional electron gas, thereby enabling the
formation of a periodic QDL. The current-voltage characteristics, I(V), follow
a power law, as expected for a QDL. In addition, a systematic study of the
scaling behavior of I(V) allows us to probe the effects of background disorder
on transport through the QDL. Our results are particularly important for
semiconductor-based QDL architectures which aim to probe collective phenomena.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure
Thermoelectric Properties of Electrostatically Tunable Antidot Lattices
We report on the fabrication and characterization of a device which allows
the formation of an antidot lattice (ADL) using only electrostatic gating. The
antidot potential and Fermi energy of the system can be tuned independently.
Well defined commensurability features in magnetoresistance as well as
magnetothermopower are obsereved. We show that the thermopower can be used to
efficiently map out the potential landscape of the ADL.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures; to appear in Appl. Phys. Let
Thermal stability and topological protection of skyrmions in nanotracks
Magnetic skyrmions are hailed as a potential technology for data storage and
other data processing devices. However, their stability against thermal
fluctuations is an open question that must be answered before skyrmion-based
devices can be designed. In this work, we study paths in the energy landscape
via which the transition between the skyrmion and the uniform state can occur
in interfacial Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya finite-sized systems. We find three
mechanisms the system can take in the process of skyrmion nucleation or
destruction and identify that the transition facilitated by the boundary has a
significantly lower energy barrier than the other energy paths. This clearly
demonstrates the lack of the skyrmion topological protection in finite-sized
magnetic systems. Overall, the energy barriers of the system under
investigation are too small for storage applications at room temperature, but
research into device materials, geometry and design may be able to address
this
MOBSTER – III. HD 62658: a magnetic Bp star in an eclipsing binary with a non-magnetic ‘identical twin’
HD 62658 (B9p V) is a little-studied chemically peculiar star. Light curves obtained by the Kilodegree Extremely Little Telescope (KELT) and Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) show clear eclipses with a period of about 4.75 d, as well as out-of-eclipse brightness modulation with the same 4.75 d period, consistent with synchronized rotational modulation of surface chemical spots. High-resolution ESPaDOnS circular spectropolarimetry shows a clear Zeeman signature in the line profile of the primary; there is no indication of a magnetic field in the secondary. PHOEBE modelling of the light curve and radial velocities indicates that the two components have almost identical masses of about 3 M_⊙. The primary’s longitudinal magnetic field〈B_z〉 varies between about +100 and −250 G, suggesting a surface magnetic dipole strength B_d = 850 G. Bayesian analysis of the Stokes V profiles indicates B_d = 650 G for the primary and B_d < 110 G for the secondary. The primary’s line profiles are highly variable, consistent with the hypothesis that the out-of-eclipse brightness modulation is a consequence of rotational modulation of that star’s chemical spots. We also detect a residual signal in the light curve after removal of the orbital and rotational modulations, which might be pulsational in origin; this could be consistent with the weak line profile variability of the secondary. This system represents an excellent opportunity to examine the consequences of magnetic fields for stellar structure via comparison of two stars that are essentially identical with the exception that one is magnetic. The existence of such a system furthermore suggests that purely environmental explanations for the origin of fossil magnetic fields are incomplete
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