Schottky barrier and contact resistance of InSb nanowire field effect transistors

Understanding of the electrical contact properties of semiconductor nanowire (NW) field effect transistors (FETs) plays a crucial role in employing semiconducting NWs as building blocks for future nanoelectronic devices and in the study of fundamental physics problems. Here, we report on a study of the contact properties of Ti/Au, a widely used contact metal combination, to individual InSb NWs via both two-probe and four-probe transport measurements. We show that a Schottky barrier of height $\Phi_{\rm{SB}}\sim20\ \rm{meV}$ is present at the metal-InSb NW interfaces and its effective height is gate tunable. The contact resistance ($R_{\rm{c}}$) in the InSb NWFETs is also analyzed by magnetotransport measurements at low temperatures. It is found that $R_{\rm{c}}$ at on-state exhibits a pronounced magnetic field dependent feature, namely it is increased strongly with increasing magnetic field after an onset field $B_{\rm{c}}$. A qualitative picture that takes into account magnetic depopulation of subbands in the NWs is provided to explain the observation. Our results provide a solid experimental evidence for the presence of a Schottky barrier at Ti/Au-InSb NW interfaces and can be used as a basis for design and fabrication of novel InSb NW based nanoelectronic devices and quantum devices.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figure

Curvature corrections in DGP brane cosmology

We consider a DGP inspired brane scenario where the action on the brane is augmented by a function of the Ricci scalar, ${\cal L}(R)$. The cosmological implications that such a scenario entails are examined for $R^{n}$ and shown to be consistent with a universe expanding with power-law acceleration. It is shown that two classes of solutions exist for the usual FRW metric and small Hubble radii. When the Hubble radius becomes larger, we either have a transition to a fully 5D regime or to a self-inflationary solution which produces a late accelerated expansion such that the radius becomes a function of $n$.Comment: 11 pages, 2 figure

Locking Local Oscillator Phase to the Atomic Phase via Weak Measurement

We propose a new method to reduce the frequency noise of a Local Oscillator (LO) to the level of white phase noise by maintaining (not destroying by projective measurement) the coherence of the ensemble pseudo-spin of atoms over many measurement cycles. This scheme uses weak measurement to monitor the phase in Ramsey method and repeat the cycle without initialization of phase and we call, "atomic phase lock (APL)" in this paper. APL will achieve white phase noise as long as the noise accumulated during dead time and the decoherence are smaller than the measurement noise. A numerical simulation confirms that with APL, Allan deviation is averaged down at a maximum rate that is proportional to the inverse of total measurement time, tau^-1. In contrast, the current atomic clocks that use projection measurement suppress the noise only down to the level of white frequency, in which case Allan deviation scales as tau^-1/2. Faraday rotation is one of the possible ways to realize weak measurement for APL. We evaluate the strength of Faraday rotation with 171Yb+ ions trapped in a linear rf-trap and discuss the performance of APL. The main source of the decoherence is a spontaneous emission induced by the probe beam for Faraday rotation measurement. One can repeat the Faraday rotation measurement until the decoherence become comparable to the SNR of measurement. We estimate this number of cycles to be ~100 cycles for a realistic experimental parameter.Comment: 18 pages, 7 figures, submitted to New Journal of Physic

Application of quasi-Monte Carlo methods to PDEs with random coefficients -- an overview and tutorial

This article provides a high-level overview of some recent works on the application of quasi-Monte Carlo (QMC) methods to PDEs with random coefficients. It is based on an in-depth survey of a similar title by the same authors, with an accompanying software package which is also briefly discussed here. Embedded in this article is a step-by-step tutorial of the required analysis for the setting known as the uniform case with first order QMC rules. The aim of this article is to provide an easy entry point for QMC experts wanting to start research in this direction and for PDE analysts and practitioners wanting to tap into contemporary QMC theory and methods.Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1606.0661

A systematic review of associations between environmental exposures and development of asthma in children aged up to 9 years

Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://group.bmj.com/group/rights-licensing/permissions.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Optical excitations in hexagonal nanonetwork materials

Optical excitations in hexagonal nanonetwork materials, for example, Boron-Nitride (BN) sheets and nanotubes, are investigated theoretically. The bonding of BN systems is positively polarized at the B site, and is negatively polarized at the N site. There is a permanent electric dipole moment along the BN bond, whose direction is from the B site to the N site. When the exciton hopping integral is restricted to the nearest neighbors, the flat band of the exciton appears at the lowest energy. The higher optical excitations have excitation bands similar to the electronic bands of graphene planes and carbon nanotubes. The symmetry of the flat exciton band is optically forbidden, indicating that the excitons related to this band will show quite long lifetime which will cause strong luminescence properties.Comment: 4 pages; 3 figures; proceedings of "XVIth International Winterschool on Electronic Properties of Novel Materials (IWEPNM2002)

Fragmentation pathways of nanofractal structures on surface

We present a detailed systematical theoretical analysis of the post-growth processes occurring in nanofractals grown on surface. For this study we developed a method which accounts for the internal dynamics of particles in a fractal. We demonstrate that particle diffusion and detachment controls the shape of the emerging stable islands on surface. We consider different scenarios of fractal post-growth relaxation and analyze the time evolution of the island's morphology. The results of our calculations are compared with available experimental observations, and experiments in which the post-growth relaxation of deposited nanostructures can be probed are suggested.Comment: 34 pages, 11 figure

One pot ‘click’ reactions: tandem enantioselective biocatalytic epoxide ring opening and [3+2] azide alkyne cycloaddition

Halohydrin dehalogenase (HheC) can perform enantioselective azidolysis of aromatic epoxides to 1,2-azido alcohols which are subsequently ligated to alkynes producing chiral hydroxy triazoles in a one-pot procedure with excellent enantiomeric excess.