2,454 research outputs found
Experimental realization of SQUIDs with topological insulator junctions
We demonstrate topological insulator (BiTe) dc SQUIDs, based on
superconducting Nb leads coupled to nano-fabricated Nb-BiTe-Nb
Josephson junctions. The high reproducibility and controllability of the
fabrication process allows the creation of dc SQUIDs with parameters that are
in agreement with design values. Clear critical current modulation of both the
junctions and the SQUID with applied magnetic fields have been observed. We
show that the SQUIDs have a periodicity in the voltage-flux characteristic of
, of relevance to the ongoing pursuit of realizing interferometers for
the detection of Majorana fermions in superconductor- topological insulator
structures
Transport and thermoelectric properties of the LaAlO/SrTiO interface
The transport and thermoelectric properties of the interface between
SrTiO and a 26-monolayer thick LaAlO-layer grown at high
oxygen-pressure have been investigated at temperatures from 4.2 K to 100 K and
in magnetic fields up to 18 T. For 4.2 K, two different electron-like
charge carriers originating from two electron channels which contribute to
transport are observed. We probe the contributions of a degenerate and a
non-degenerate band to the thermoelectric power and develop a consistent model
to describe the temperature dependence of the thermoelectric tensor. Anomalies
in the data point to an additional magnetic field dependent scattering.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figure
Evidence of two-dimensional macroscopic quantum tunneling of a current-biased DC-SQUID
The escape probability out of the superconducting state of a hysteretic
DC-SQUID has been measured at different values of the applied magnetic flux. At
low temperature, the escape current and the width of the probability
distribution are temperature independent but they depend on flux. Experimental
results do not fit the usual one-dimensional (1D) Macroscopic Quantum Tunneling
(MQT) law but are perfectly accounted for by the two-dimensional (2D) MQT
behaviour as we propose here. Near zero flux, our data confirms the recent MQT
observation in a DC-SQUID \cite{Li02}.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures Accepted to PR
Gate-tunable band structure of the LaAlO-SrTiO interface
The 2-dimensional electron system at the interface between LaAlO and
SrTiO has several unique properties that can be tuned by an externally
applied gate voltage. In this work, we show that this gate-tunability extends
to the effective band structure of the system. We combine a magnetotransport
study on top-gated Hall bars with self-consistent Schr\"odinger-Poisson
calculations and observe a Lifshitz transition at a density of
cm. Above the transition, the carrier density of one
of the conducting bands decreases with increasing gate voltage. This surprising
decrease is accurately reproduced in the calculations if electronic
correlations are included. These results provide a clear, intuitive picture of
the physics governing the electronic structure at complex oxide interfaces.Comment: 14 pages, 4 figure
Rotational and translational self-diffusion in concentrated suspensions of permeable particles
In our recent work on concentrated suspensions of uniformly porous colloidal
spheres with excluded volume interactions, a variety of short-time dynamic
properties were calculated, except for the rotational self-diffusion
coefficient. This missing quantity is included in the present paper. Using a
precise hydrodynamic force multipole simulation method, the rotational
self-diffusion coefficient is evaluated for concentrated suspensions of
permeable particles. Results are presented for particle volume fractions up to
45%, and for a wide range of permeability values. From the simulation results
and earlier results for the first-order virial coefficient, we find that the
rotational self-diffusion coefficient of permeable spheres can be scaled to the
corresponding coefficient of impermeable particles of the same size. We also
show that a similar scaling applies to the translational self-diffusion
coefficient considered earlier. From the scaling relations, accurate analytic
approximations for the rotational and translational self-diffusion coefficients
in concentrated systems are obtained, useful to the experimental analysis of
permeable-particle diffusion. The simulation results for rotational diffusion
of permeable particles are used to show that a generalized
Stokes-Einstein-Debye relation between rotational self-diffusion coefficient
and high-frequency viscosity is not satisfied.Comment: 4 figure
Optimizing the Majorana character of SQUIDs with topologically non-trivial barriers
We have modeled SQUIDs with topologically non-trivial superconducting
junctions and performed an optimization study on the Majorana fermion
detection. We find that the SQUID parameters beta_L, and beta_C can be used to
increase the ratio of Majorana tunneling to standard Cooper pair tunneling by
more than two orders of magnitude. Most importantly, we show that dc SQUIDs
including topologically trivial components can still host strong signatures of
the Majorana fermion. This paves the way towards the experimental verification
of the theoretically predicted Majorana fermion.Comment: accepted by Physical Review
Non-local signatures of the chiral magnetic effect in Dirac semimetal BiSb
The field of topological materials science has recently been focussing on
three-dimensional Dirac semimetals, which exhibit robust Dirac phases in the
bulk. However, the absence of characteristic surface states in accidental Dirac
semimetals (DSM) makes it difficult to experimentally verify claims about the
topological nature using commonly used surface-sensitive techniques. The chiral
magnetic effect (CME), which originates from the Weyl nodes, causes an
-dependent chiral charge polarization, which
manifests itself as negative magnetoresistance. We exploit the extended
lifetime of the chirally polarized charge and study the CME through both local
and non-local measurements in Hall bar structures fabricated from single
crystalline flakes of the DSM BiSb. From the non-local
measurement results we find a chiral charge relaxation time which is over one
order of magnitude larger than the Drude transport lifetime, underlining the
topological nature of BiSb.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figures + 7 pages of supplemental materia
Coronal density diagnostics with Helium-like triplets: CHANDRA--LETGS observations of Algol, Capella, Procyon, Eps Eri, Alpha Cen A&B, UX Ari, AD Leo, YY Gem, and HR1099
We present an analysis of ten cool stars (Algol, Capella, Procyon, Eps Eri,
Alpha Cen A&B, UX Ari, AD Leo, YY Gem, and HR1099) observed with the Low Energy
Transmission Grating Spectrometer (LETGS) on board the Chandra X-ray
Observatory. This sample contains all cools stars observed with the LETGS
presently available to us with integration times sufficiently long to warrant a
meaningful spectral analysis. Our sample comprises inactive, moderately active,
and hyperactive stars and samples the bulk part of activity levels encountered
in coronal X-ray sources. We use the LETGS spectra to carry out density and
temperature diagnostics with an emphasis on the H-like and the He-like ions. We
find a correlation between line flux ratios of the Lyman-Alpha and He-like
resonance lines with the mean X-ray surface flux. We determine densities using
the He-like triplets. For active stars we find no significant deviations from
the low-density limit for the ions of Ne, Mg, and Si, while the measured line
ratios for the ions of C, N, and O do show evidence for departures from the
low-density limit in the active stars, but not in the inactive stars. Best
measurements can be made for the OVII triplet where we find significant
deviations from the low-density limit for the stars Algol, Procyon, YY Gem, Eps
Eri, and HR1099. We discuss the influence of radiation fields on the
interpretation of the He-like triplet line ratios in the low-Z ions, which is
relevant for Algol, and the influence of dielectronic satellite lines, which is
relevant for Procyon. For the active stars YY Gem, Eps Eri, and HR1099 the low
f/i ratios can unambiguously be attributed to high densties in the range 1--3
10^10 cm^-3 at OVII temperatures. We find our LETGS spectra to be an extremely
useful tool for plasma diagnostics of stellar coronae.Comment: 17 pages, Latex2e, 12 figures. accepted for A&A under MS262
- …