Coulomb Charging at Large Conduction

We discuss the suppression of Coulomb charging effects on a small metallic island coupled to an electrode by a tunnel junction. At high temperatures the quantum corrections to the classical charging energy $E_c=e^2/2C$, where $C$ is the island capacitance, are evaluated. At low temperatures the large quantum fluctuations of the island charge cause a strong reduction of the effective $E_c$ which is determined explicitly in the limit of a large tunneling conductance.Comment: 4 page

Accuracy of a mechanical single electron shuttle

Motivated by recent experiments, we calculate both the average current and the current fluctuations for a metallic island which oscillates between two symmetric electrodes. Electrons can only tunnel on or off the island when it is close to one of the electrodes. Using a Master equation we investigate the accuracy of such an electron shuttle both analytically and numerically. It is shown that optimum operation is reached when the contact time is much larger than the RC-time.Comment: RevTeX, 8 pages, 5 figure

Appearance of fractional charge in the noise of non-chiral Luttinger liquids

The current noise of a voltage biased interacting quantum wire adiabatically connected to metallic leads is computed in presence of an impurity in the wire. We find that in the weak backscattering limit the Fano factor characterizing the ratio between noise and backscattered current crucially depends on the noise frequency $\omega$ relative to the ballistic frequency $v_F/gL$, where $v_F$ is the Fermi velocity, $g$ the Luttinger liquid interaction parameter, and $L$ the length of the wire. In contrast to chiral Luttinger liquids the noise is not only due to the Poissonian backscattering of fractionally charged quasiparticles at the impurity, but also depends on Andreev-type reflections at the contacts, so that the frequency dependence of the noise needs to be analyzed to extract the fractional charge $e^*=e g$ of the bulk excitations.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, final version, to appear in PR

Static and dynamic image potential for tunneling into a Luttinger liquid

We study electron tunneling from a tip or a lead into an interacting quantum wire described by Luttinger liquid theory. Within a WKB-type approach, the Coulomb interaction between the wire and the tunneling electrons, as well as the finite traversal time are taken into account. Although the static image potential is only logarithmically suppressed against the bare Coulomb interaction, the dynamic image potential is not strong enough to alter power-law exponents entering the tunneling density of states.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure

Statistics of the polariton condensate

The influence of polariton-polariton scattering on the statistics of the polariton condensate in a non-resonantly excited semiconductor quantum well embedded in a CdTe semiconductor microcavity is discussed. Taking advantage of the existence of a bottleneck in the polariton dispersion curve, the polariton states are separated into two domains: reservoir polaritons inside the bottleneck and active polaritons with wave vector q whose energy lies below the bottleneck. In the framework of the master equation formalism, the non-equilibrium stationary reduced density matrix is calculated and the statistics of polaritons in the condensate at q=0 is determined. The anomalous correlations between the polaritons in the condensate and those with wave vectors q, -q leads to an enhancement of the noise in the condensate. As a consequence, the second order correlation function of the condensate does not show the full coherence that is characteristic of laser emission.Comment: 35 pages, 5 figure

Phase diffusion and charging effects in Josephson junctions

The supercurrent of a Josephson junction is reduced by phase diffusion. For ultrasmall capacitance junctions the current may be further decreased by Coulomb blockade effects. We calculate the Cooper pair current by means of time-dependent perturbation theory to all orders in the Josephson coupling energy and obtain the current-voltage characteristic in closed form in a range of parameters of experimental interest. The results comprehend phase diffusion of the coherent Josephson current in the classical regime as well as the supercurrent peak due to incoherent Cooper pair tunneling in the strong Coulomb blockade regime.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, RevTe

Is the dynamics of open quantum systems always linear?

We study the influence of the preparation of an open quantum system on its reduced time evolution. In contrast to the frequently considered case of an initial preparation where the total density matrix factorizes into a product of a system density matrix and a bath density matrix the time evolution generally is no longer governed by a linear map nor is this map affine. Put differently, the evolution is truly nonlinear and cannot be cast into the form of a linear map plus a term that is independent of the initial density matrix of the open quantum system. As a consequence, the inhomogeneity that emerges in formally exact generalized master equations is in fact a nonlinear term that vanishes for a factorizing initial state. The general results are elucidated with the example of two interacting spins prepared at thermal equilibrium with one spin subjected to an external field. The second spin represents the environment. The field allows the preparation of mixed density matrices of the first spin that can be represented as a convex combination of two limiting pure states, i.e. the preparable reduced density matrices make up a convex set. Moreover, the map from these reduced density matrices onto the corresponding density matrices of the total system is affine only for vanishing coupling between the spins. In general, the set of the accessible total density matrices is nonconvex.Comment: 19 pages, 3 figures, minor changes to improve readability, discussion on Mori's linear regime and references adde

Development of high Tc (greater than 110K) Bi, Tl and Y-based materials as superconducting circuit elements

This report is presented in two parts. Part 1 deals primarily with Bi-based materials and a small amount of work on a Y-based composition while Part 2 covers work on Tl-based materials. In Part 1, a reliable and reproducible process for producing bulk bismuth-based superconductors has been developed. It is noted however, that a percentage of the tapecast material experiences curling and fracturing after a 30 hour sintering period and is thus in need of further examination. The Bi-Sr-Ca-Cu-O (BSCCO) material has been characterized by critical temperature data, X-ray diffraction data, and surface morphology. In the case of T sub c, it is not critical to anneal the material. It appears that the BSCCO material has the possibility of producing a better grounding strap than that of the 123 material. Attempts to reproduce near room temperature superconductors in the Y-Ba-Cu-O system were unsuccessful. In Part 2, several methods of processing the high temperature superconductor Tl2Ba2Ca2Cu3O10 were investigated; i.e., different precursor compositions were sintered at various sintering times and temperatures. The highest superconductig temperature was found to be 117.8K when fired at 900 C for three hours. Higher sintering temperatures produced a melted sample which was nonsuperconducting at liquid nitrogen temperature. Also, a preliminary study found Li2O substitutions for copper appeared to increase the transition temperature and create fluxing action upon sintering. It was suggested that lower sintering temperatures might be obtained with lithium additions to produce reliable Tl2Ba2Ca2Cu3O10 processing methods

Fractional charge in the noise of Luttinger liquid systems

The current noise of a voltage biased interacting quantum wire adiabatically connected to metallic leads is computed in presence of an impurity in the wire. We find that in the weak backscattering limit the Fano factor characterizing the ratio between shot noise and backscattering current crucially depends on the noise frequency relative to the ballistic frequency v_F/gL, where v_F is the Fermi velocity, g the Luttinger liquid interaction parameter, and L the length of the wire. In contrast to chiral Luttinger liquids, the noise is not only due to the Poissonian backscattering of fractionally charged quasiparticles at the impurity, but also depends on Andreev-type reflections of plasmons at the contacts, so that the frequency dependence of the noise needs to be analyzed to extract the fractional charge e*=e g of the bulk excitations. We show that the frequencies needed to see interaction effects in the Fano factor are within experimental reach.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures, conference proceedings of Fluctuations and Noise 2005, Austin, Texa