52,077 research outputs found
Vortex state microwave response in superconducting cuprates and MgB
We investigate the physics of the microwave response in
YBaCuO, SmBaCuO and MgB
in the vortex state. We first recall the theoretical basics of vortex-state
microwave response in the London limit. We then present a wide set of
measurements of the field, temperature, and frequency dependences of the vortex
state microwave complex resistivity in superconducting thin films, measured by
a resonant cavity and by swept-frequency Corbino disk. The combination of these
techniques allows for a comprehensive description of the microwave response in
the vortex state in these innovative superconductors. In all materials
investigated we show that flux motion alone cannot take into account all the
observed experimental features, neither in the frequency nor in the field
dependence. The discrepancy can be resolved by considering the (usually
neglected) contribution of quasiparticles to the response in the vortex state.
The peculiar, albeit different, physics of the superconducting materials here
considered, namely two-band superconductivity in MgB and superconducting
gap with lines of nodes in cuprates, give rise to a substantially increased
contribution of quasiparticles to the field-dependent microwave response. With
careful combined analysis of the data it is possible to extract or infer many
interesting quantities related to the vortex state, such as the
temperature-dependent characteristic vortex frequency and vortex viscosity, the
field dependence of the quasiparticle density, the temperature dependence of
the -band superfluid density in MgBComment: 51 pages, 27 figures, to appear as a book chapter (Nova Science
Surface impedance of superconductive thin films as a function of frequency in microwave range
We report measurements of the complex resistivity in and thin
films over a continuous frequency spectrum in the microwave range, making use
of a Corbino disk geometry. The paper mainly focuses on the extraction of the
resistivity from raw data, displaying data analisys procedure and its limits of
validity. We obtain and show resistivity curves as a function of frequency and
temperature denoting a frequency dependent widening of the superconductive
transition.Comment: 8 pages, Latex, 5 figure
New aspects of microwave properties of Nb in the mixed state
We present a study of the frequency dependence of the vortex dynamics in a
conventional superconductor. We have employed a swept-frequency, Corbino-disk
technique to investigate the temperature (3.6K-Tc) and high-field (from Hc2/2
to Hc2) microwave complex resistivity in Nb thin (20-40 nm) films as a function
of the frequency (1-20 GHz). We have found several previously unnoticed
features: (i) a field-dependent depinning frequency in the GHz range; (ii)
deviations from the accepted frequency dependence, that can be ascribed to some
kind of vortex creep; (iii) the presence of switching phenomena, reminiscent of
vortex instabilities. We discuss the possible origin of the features here
reported.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, presented at VORTEX VI Conference, to appear on
Physica
Microwave properties of Nb/PdNi/Nb trilayers. Observation of flux flow in excess of Bardeen-Stephen theory
We combine wideband (1-20 GHz) Corbino disk and dielectric resonator (8.2
GHz) techniques to study the microwave properties in Nb/PdNi/Nb trilayers,
grown by UHV dc magnetron sputtering, composed by Nb layers of nominal
thickness =15 nm, and a ferromagnetic PdNi layer of thickness = 1, 2,
8 and 9 nm. We focus on the vortex state. Magnetic fields up to were
applied. The microwave resistivity at fixed increases with ,
eventually exceeding the Bardeen Stephen flux flow value.Comment: 6 pages. Submitted to Journal of Superconductivity and Novel
Magnetis
Robustness of the transition against compositional and structural ageing in S/F/S heterostructures
We have studied the temperature induced thermodynamic transition in
Nb/PdNi/Nb Superconductor/Ferromagnetic/Superconductor (SFS) heterostructures
by microwave measurements of the superfluid density. We have observed a shift
in the transition temperature with the ageing of the heterostructures,
suggesting that structural and/or chemical changes took place. Motivated by the
electrodynamics findings, we have extensively studied the local structural
properties of the samples by means of X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy (XAS)
technique, and the compositional profile by Time-of-Flight Secondary Ion Mass
Spectrometry (ToF-SIMS). We found that the samples have indeed changed their
properties, in particular for what concerns the interfaces and the composition
of the ferromagnetic alloy layer. The structural and compositional data are
consistent with the shift of the transition toward the behaviour of
heterostructures with different F layers. An important emerging indication to
the physics of SFS is the weak relevance of the ideality of the interfaces:
even in aged samples, with less-than-ideal interfaces, the temperature-induced
transition is still detectable albeit at a different critical F
thickness.Comment: 11 pages, 9 figures, accepted for publication on Phys. Rev. B,
http://journals.aps.org/prb
Mixed-state microwave response in superconducting cuprates
We report measurements of the magnetic-field induced microwave complex
resistivity in REBaCuO thin films, with RE = Y, Sm.
Measurements are performed at 48 GHz by means of a resonant cavity in the
end-wall-replacement configuration. The magnetic field dependence is
investigated by applying a moderate (0.8 T) magnetic field along the c-axis.
The measured vortex state complex resistivity in
YBaCuO and SmBaCuO is
analyzed within the well-known models for vortex dynamics. It is shown that
attributing the observed response to vortex motion alone leads to
inconsistencies in the as-determined vortex parameters (such as the vortex
viscosity and the pinning constant). By contrast, attributing the entire
response to field-induced pair breaking leads to a nearly quantitative
description of the data.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, to be published in J. Supercond. as proceedings
of 8th HTSHFF (May 26th-29th, 2004, Begur, Spain
Revealing structure and evolution within the corona of the Seyfert galaxy I Zw 1
X-ray spectral timing analysis is presented of XMM-Newton observations of the
narrow line Seyfert 1 galaxy I Zwicky 1 (I Zw 1) taken in 2015 January. After
exploring the effect of background flaring on timing analyses, X-ray time lags
between the reflection-dominated 0.3-1.0keV energy and continuum-dominated
1.0-4.0keV band are measured, indicative of reverberation off the inner
accretion disc. The reverberation lag time is seen to vary as a step function
in frequency; across lower frequency components of the variability, 3e-4 to
1.2e-3Hz a lag of 160s is measured, but the lag shortens to (59 +/- 4)s above
1.2e-3Hz. The lag-energy spectrum reveals differing profiles between these
ranges with a change in the dip showing the earliest arriving photons. The low
frequency signal indicates reverberation of X-rays emitted from a corona
extended at low height over the disc while at high frequencies, variability is
generated in a collimated core of the corona through which luminosity
fluctuations propagate upwards. Principal component analysis of the variability
supports this interpretation, showing uncorrelated variation in the spectral
slope of two power law continuum components. The distinct evolution of the two
components of the corona is seen as a flare passes inwards from the extended to
the collimated portion. An increase in variability in the extended corona was
found preceding the initial increase in X-ray flux. Variability from the
extended corona was seen to die away as the flare passed into the collimated
core leading to a second sharper increase in the X-ray count rate.Comment: 18 pages, 11 figures. Accepted for publication in MNRA
Nonlinear c-axis transport in Bi_2Sr_2CaCu_2O_(8+d) from two-barrier tunneling
Motivated by the peculiar features observed through intrinsic tunneling
spectroscopy of BiSrCaCuO mesas in the normal state,
we have extended the normal state two-barrier model for the c-axis transport
[M. Giura et al., Phys. Rev. B {\bf 68}, 134505 (2003)] to the analysis of
curves. We have found that the purely normal-state model reproduces all
the following experimental features: (a) the parabolic -dependence of
in the high- region (above the conventional pseudogap temperature),
(b) the emergence and the nearly voltage-independent position of the "humps"
from this parabolic behavior lowering the temperature, and (c) the crossing of
the absolute curves at a characteristic voltage . Our
findings indicate that conventional tunneling can be at the origin of most of
the uncommon features of the c axis transport in
BiSrCaCuO. We have compared our calculations to
experimental data taken in severely underdoped and slightly underdoped
BiSrCaCuO small mesas. We have found good agreement
between the data and the calculations, without any shift of the calculated
dI/dV on the vertical scale. In particular, in the normal state (above
) simple tunneling reproduces the experimental dI/dV quantitatively.
Below quantitative discrepancies are limited to a simple rescaling of
the voltage in the theoretical curves by a factor 2. The need for such
modifications remains an open question, that might be connected to a change of
the charge of a fraction of the carriers across the pseudogap opening.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figure
Quantum anisotropic Heisenberg chains with superlattice structure: a DMRG study
Using the density matrix renormalization group technique, we study spin
superlattices composed of a repeated pattern of two spin-1/2 XXZ chains with
different anisotropy parameters. The magnetization curve can exhibit two
plateaus, a non trivial plateau with the magnetization value given by the
relative sizes of the sub-chains and another trivial plateau with zero
magnetization. We find good agreement of the value and the width of the
plateaus with the analytical results obtained previously. In the gapless
regions away from the plateaus, we compare the finite-size spin gap with the
predictions based on bosonization and find reasonable agreement. These results
confirm the validity of the Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid superlattice description
of these systems.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figure
Chemical abundances and kinematics of barium stars
In this paper we present an homogeneous analysis of photospheric abundances
based on high-resolution spectroscopy of a sample of 182 barium stars and
candidates. We determined atmospheric parameters, spectroscopic distances,
stellar masses, ages, luminosities and scale height, radial velocities,
abundances of the Na, Al, -elements, iron-peak elements, and s-process
elements Y, Zr, La, Ce, and Nd. We employed the local-thermodynamic-equilibrium
model atmospheres of Kurucz and the spectral analysis code {\sc moog}. We found
that the metallicities, the temperatures and the surface gravities for barium
stars can not be represented by a single gaussian distribution. The abundances
of -elements and iron peak elements are similar to those of field giants
with the same metallicity. Sodium presents some degree of enrichment in more
evolved stars that could be attributed to the NeNa cycle. As expected, the
barium stars show overabundance of the elements created by the s-process. By
measuring the mean heavy-element abundance pattern as given by the ratio
[s/Fe], we found that the barium stars present several degrees of enrichment.
We also obtained the [hs/ls] ratio by measuring the photospheric abundances of
the Ba-peak and the Zr-peak elements. Our results indicated that the [s/Fe] and
the [hs/ls] ratios are strongly anti-correlated with the metallicity. Our
kinematical analysis showed that 90% of the barium stars belong to the thin
disk population. Based on their luminosities, none of the barium stars are
luminous enough to be an AGB star, nor to become self-enriched in the s-process
elements. Finally, we determined that the barium stars also follow an
age-metallicity relation.Comment: 30 pages, 26 figures, 18 tables, accepted for publication in MNRA
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