754 research outputs found
Emergence of half-metallicity in suspended NiO chains
Contrary to the antiferromagnetic and insulating character of bulk NiO,
one-dimensional chains of this material can become half-metallic due to the
lower coordination of their atoms. Here we present ab initio electronic
structure and quantum transport calculations of ideal infinitely long NiO
chains and of more realistic short ones suspended between Ni electrodes. While
infinite chains are insulating, short suspended chains are half-metallic
minority-spin conductors which display very large magnetoresistance and a
spin-valve behaviour controlled by a single atom.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures; accepted version; minor changes in introduction
and reference
Transport in magnetically ordered Pt nanocontacts
Pt nanocontacts, like those formed in mechanically controlled break
junctions, are shown to develop spontaneous local magnetic order. Our density
functional calculations predict that a robust local magnetic order exists in
the atoms presenting low coordination, i. e., those forming the atom-sized
neck. In contrast to previous work, we thus find that the electronic transport
can be spin-polarized, although the net value of the conductance still agrees
with available experimental information. Experimental implications of the
formation of this new type of nanomagnet are discussed.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure
Early recognition by Ball and Hooker in 1878 of plant back-colonization (boomerang) events from Macaronesia to Africa
Recent work in island biogeography has shown that back-colonization (‘boomerang’ events) from islands to continents have occurred more frequently than previously understoodWe report possibly the earliest inference of this pattern, by John Ball and Joseph Dalton Hooker in a book published in 1878
Single exciton spectroscopy of semimagnetic quantum dots
A photo-excited II-VI semiconductor nanocrystal doped with a few Mn spins is
considered. The effects of spin-exciton interactions and the resulting
multi-spin correlations on the photoluminescence are calculated by numerical
diagonalization of the Hamiltonian, including exchange interaction between
electrons, holes and Mn spins, as well as spin-orbit interaction. The results
provide a unified description of recent experiments of photoluminesnce of dots
with one and many Mn atoms as well as optically induced ferromagnetism in
semimagnetic nanocrystals.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure
The determinants of the quality of Sales-Marketing Interface in a Multinational Customer Brand Focused Company: The Latin American Branches
Customer evolution and changes in consumers, determine the fact that the quality of the interface between marketing and sales may represent a true competitive advantage for the firm. Building on multidimensional theoretical and empirical models developed in Europe and on social network analysis, the organizational interface between the marketing and sales departments of a multinational high-growth company with operations in Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay is studied. Both, attitudinal and social network measures of information exchange are used to make operational the nature and quality of the interface and its impact on performance. Results show the existence of a positive relationship of formalization, joint planning, teamwork, trust and information transfer on interface quality, as well as a positive relationship between interface quality and business performance. We conclude that efficient design and organizational management of the exchange network are essential for the successful performance of consumer goods companies that seek to develop distinctive capabilities to adapt to markets that experience vertiginous change
Electronic Structure of gated graphene and graphene ribbons
We study the electronic structure of gated graphene sheets. We consider both
infinite graphene and finite width ribbons. The effect of Coulomb interactions
between the electrically injected carriers and the coupling to the external
gate are computed self-consistently in the Hartree approximation. We compute
the average density of extra carriers, , the number of occupied
subbands and the density profiles as a function of the gate potential . We
discuss quantum corrections to the classical capacitance and we calculate the
threshold above which semiconducting armchair ribbons conduct. We find
that the ideal conductance of perfectly transmitting wide ribbons is
proportional to the square root of the gate voltage.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figure
Hydrogenated Graphene Nanoribbons for Spintronics
We show how hydrogenation of graphene nanoribbons at small concentrations can
open new venues towards carbon-based spintronics applications regardless of any
especific edge termination or passivation of the nanoribbons. Density
functional theory calculations show that an adsorbed H atom induces a spin
density on the surrounding orbitals whose symmetry and degree of
localization depends on the distance to the edges of the nanoribbon. As
expected for graphene-based systems, these induced magnetic moments interact
ferromagnetically or antiferromagnetically depending on the relative adsorption
graphene sublattice, but the magnitude of the interactions are found to
strongly vary with the position of the H atoms relative to the edges. We also
calculate, with the help of the Hubbard model, the transport properties of
hydrogenated armchair semiconducting graphene nanoribbons in the diluted regime
and show how the exchange coupling between H atoms can be exploited in the
design of novel magnetoresistive devices
Coherent transport in graphene nanoconstrictions
We study the effect of a structural nanoconstriction on the coherent
transport properties of otherwise ideal zig-zag-edged infinitely long graphene
ribbons. The electronic structure is calculated with the standard one-orbital
tight-binding model and the linear conductance is obtained using the Landauer
formula. We find that, since the zero-bias current is carried in the bulk of
the ribbon, this is very robust with respect to a variety of constriction
geometries and edge defects. In contrast, the curve of zero-bias conductance
versus gate voltage departs from the staircase of the ideal case
as soon as a single atom is removed from the sample. We also find that
wedge-shaped constrictions can present non-conducting states fully localized in
the constriction close to the Fermi energy. The interest of these localized
states in regards the formation of quantum dots in graphene is discussed.Comment: 9 pages, 9 figure
Magnetic and orbital blocking in Ni nanocontacts
We address the fundamental question of whether magneto-resistance (MR) of
atomic-sized contacts of Nickel is very large because of the formation of a
domain wall (DW) at the neck. Using {\em ab initio} transport calculations we
find that, as in the case of non-magnetic electrodes, transport in Ni
nanocontacts depends very much on the orbital nature of the electrons. Our
results are in agreement with several experiments in the average value of the
conductance. On the other hand, contrary to existing claims, DW scattering does
{\em not} account for large MR in Ni nanocontacts.Comment: 5 pages, 3 Figure
Electronic structure and transport properties of atomic NiO spinvalves
Ab-initio quantum transport calculations show that short NiO chains suspended
in Ni nanocontacts present a very strong spin-polarization of the conductance.
The generalized gradient approximation we use here predicts a similiar
polarization of the conductance as the one previously computed with non-local
exchange, confirming the robustness of the result. Their use as nanoscopic
spinvalves is proposed.Comment: 2 pages, 1 figure; accepted in JMMM (Proceedings of ICM'06, Kyoto
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