27 research outputs found
Piezoelectric nanoelectromechanical resonators based on aluminum nitride thin films
We demonstrate piezoelectrically actuated, electrically tunable nanomechanical resonators based on multilayers containing a 100-nm-thin aluminum nitride (AlN) layer. Efficient piezoelectric actuation of very high frequency fundamental flexural modes up to ~80 MHz is demonstrated at room temperature. Thermomechanical fluctuations of AlN cantilevers measured by optical interferometry enable calibration of the transduction responsivity and displacement sensitivities of the resonators. Measurements and analyses show that the 100 nm AlN layer employed has an excellent piezoelectric coefficient, d_(31)=2.4 pm/V. Doubly clamped AlN beams exhibit significant frequency tuning behavior with applied dc voltage
Giant and reversible extrinsic magnetocaloric effects in La0.7Ca0.3MnO3 films due to strain
Large thermal changes driven by a magnetic field have been proposed for
environmentally friendly energy efficient refrigeration, but only a few
materials which suffer hysteresis show these giant magnetocaloric effects. Here
we create giant and reversible extrinsic magnetocaloric effects in epitaxial
films of the ferromagnetic manganite La0.7Ca0.3MnO3 using strain mediated
feedback from BaTiO3 substrates near a first-order structural phase transition.
Our findings should inspire the discovery of giant magnetocaloric effects in a
wide range of magnetic materials, and the parallel development of
nanostructured bulk samples for practical applications.Comment: 32 pages, 1 Table, 5 figures, supplementary informatio
Searching for transits in the Wide Field Camera Transit Survey with difference-imaging light curves
The Wide Field Camera Transit Survey is a pioneer program aiming at for searching extra-solar planets in the near-infrared. The images from the survey are processed by a data reduction pipeline, which uses aperture photometry to construct the light curves. We produce an alternative set of light curves using the difference-imaging method for the most complete field in the survey and carry out a quantitative comparison between the photometric precision achieved with both methods. The results show that differencephotometry light curves present an important improvement for stars with J > 16. We report an implementation on the box-fitting transit detection algorithm, which performs a trapezoid-fit to the folded light curve, providing more accurate results than the boxfitting model. We describe and optimize a set of selection criteria to search for transit candidates, including the V-shape parameter calculated by our detection algorithm. The optimized selection criteria are applied to the aperture photometry and difference-imaging light curves, resulting in the automatic detection of the best 200 transit candidates from a sample of ~475 000 sources. We carry out a detailed analysis in the 18 best detections and classify them as transiting planet and eclipsing binary candidates. We present one planet candidate orbiting a late G-type star. No planet candidate around M-stars has been found, confirming the null detection hypothesis and upper limits on the occurrence rate of short-period giant planets around M-dwarfs presented in a prior study. We extend the search for transiting planets to stars with J ≤ 18, which enables us to set a stricter upper limit of 1.1%. Furthermore, we present the detection of five faint extremely-short period eclipsing binaries and three M-dwarf/M-dwarf binary candidates. The detections demonstrate the benefits of using the difference-imaging light curves, especially when going to fainter magnitudes.Peer reviewe
A new measurement of the structure functions and in virtual Compton scattering at 0.33 (GeV/c)
The cross section of the reaction has been measured at
(GeV/c). The experiment was performed using the electron beam
of the MAMI accelerator and the standard detector setup of the A1
Collaboration. The cross section is analyzed using the low-energy theorem for
virtual Compton scattering, yielding a new determination of the two structure
functions P_LL}-P_{TT}/epsilon and which are linear combinations of
the generalized polarizabilities of the proton. We find somewhat larger values
than in the previous investigation at the same . This difference, however,
is purely due to our more refined analysis of the data. The results tend to
confirm the non-trivial -evolution of the generalized polarizabilities and
call for more measurements in the low- region ( 1 (GeV/c)).Comment: 9 pages, 10 figures. EPJA version. slight revisions in the text and
figure
Beam-helicity asymmetry in photon and pion electroproduction in the Delta(1232) resonance region at Q^2= 0.35 (GeV/c)^2
The beam-helicity asymmetry has been measured simultaneously for the
reactions (e p \to e p \gamma) and (e p \to e p \pi^0) in the
resonance region at 0.35 (GeV/c). The experiment was performed at
MAMI with a longitudinally polarized beam and an out-of-plane detection of the
proton. The results are compared with calculations based on Dispersion
Relations for virtual Compton scattering and with the MAID model for pion
electroproduction. There is an overall good agreement between experiment and
theoretical calculations. The remaining discrepancies may be ascribed to an
imperfect parametrization of some multipoles, mainly
contributing to the non-resonant background. The beam-helicity asymmetry in
both channels ( and ) shows a good sensitivity to these
multipoles and should allow future improvement in their parametrization.Comment: 7 pages, 8 figures, version to appear in EPJ
Planetary transit candidates in CoRoT-LRc01 field
Copyright © The European Southern Observatory (ESO)Aims. We present here the list of planetary transit candidates detected in the first long run observed by CoRoT: LRc01, towards the galactic center in the direction of Aquila, which lasted from May to October 2007.
Methods. we analyzed 3719 (33%) sources in the chromatic bands and 7689 in the monochromatic band. Instrumental noise and the stellar variability were treated with several detrending tools, on which subsequently several transit search algorithms were applied.
Results. Forty two sources were classified as planetary transit candidates and up to now 26 cases have been solved. One planet (CoRoT-2b) and one brown-dwarf (CoRoT-3b) have been the subjects of detailed publications
Ferroelectric properties of PZT thin films until 40 GHz
International audienc
"Lateral Field Excitation of thickness shear modes in an AlN membrane"
International audienc
Bias controlled electrostrictive longitudinal resonance in X-cut lithium niobate thin films resonator
International audienceIn this letter, we show that a longitudinal acoustic wave can be generated in X-cut LiNbO(3) (LNO) thin films when a voltage bias is superimposed to the radio frequency signal. Although there is normally no coupling of this wave in X-cut LNO, its electrostrictive behavior combined with bias reaching 3.9 MV/cm induces an electromechanical coupling around 11%. This experiment was performed without acoustic isolation with the LNO substrate (high overtone bulk acoustic resonator configuration)