15,770 research outputs found
Impurities, Quantum Interference and Quantum Phase Transitions in s-wave superconductors
We study the effects of quantum interference in impurity structures
consisting of two or three magnetic impurities that are located on the surface
of an s-wave superconductor. By using a self-consistent Bogoliubov-de Gennes
formalism, we show that quantum interference leads to characteristic signatures
not only in the local density of states (LDOS), but also in the spatial form of
the superconducting order parameter. We demonstrate that the signatures of
quantum interference in the LDOS are qualitatively, and to a large extent
quantitatively unaffected by the suppression of the superconducting order
parameter near impurities, which illustrates the robustness of quantum
interference phenomena. Moreover, we show that by changing the interimpurity
distance, or the impurities' scattering strength, the s-wave superconductor can
be tuned through a series of first order quantum phase transitions in which the
spin polarization of its ground state changes. In contrast to the single
impurity case, this transition is not necessarily accompanied by a -phase
shift of the order parameter, and can in certain cases even lead to its
enhancement. Our results demonstrate that the superconductor's LDOS, its spin
state, and the spatial form of the superconducting order parameter are
determined by a subtle interplay between the relative positions of the
impurities and their scattering strength
Nano granular metallic Fe - oxygen deficient TiO composite films: A room temperature, highly carrier polarized magnetic semiconductor
Nano granular metallic iron (Fe) and titanium dioxide (TiO) were
co-deposited on (100) lanthanum aluminate (LaAlO) substrates in a low
oxygen chamber pressure using a pulsed laser ablation deposition (PLD)
technique. The co-deposition of Fe and TiO resulted in 10 nm
metallic Fe spherical grains suspended within a TiO matrix. The
films show ferromagnetic behavior with a saturation magnetization of 3100 Gauss
at room temperature. Our estimate of the saturation magnetization based on the
size and distribution of the Fe spheres agreed well with the measured value.
The film composite structure was characterized as p-type magnetic semiconductor
at 300 K with a carrier density of the order of . The
hole carriers were excited at the interface between the nano granular Fe and
TiO matrix similar to holes excited in the metal/n-type
semiconductor interface commonly observed in Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor (MOS)
devices. From the large anomalous Hall effect directly observed in these films
it follows that the holes at the interface were strongly spin polarized.
Structure and magneto transport properties suggested that these PLD films have
potential nano spintronics applications.Comment: 6 pages in Latex including 8 figure
Iron Nanoparticle-induced activation of plasma membrane H+-ATPase Promotes Stomatal Opening in Arabidopsis thaliana
Engineered nanomaterials (ENMs) enable the control and exploration of intermolecular interactions inside microscopic systems, but the potential environmental impacts of their inevitable release remain largely unknown. Plants exposed to ENMs display effects, such as increase in biomass and chlorophyll, distinct from those induced by exposure to their bulk counterparts, but few studies have addressed the mechanisms underlying such physiological results. The current investigation found that exposure of Arabidopsis thaliana to nano zerovalent iron (nZVI) triggered high plasma membrane H+-ATPase activity. The increase in activity caused a decrease in apoplastic pH, an increase in leaf area, and also wider stomatal aperture. Analysis of gene expression indicated that the levels of the H+-ATPase isoform responsible for stomatal opening, AHA2, were 5-fold higher in plants exposed to nZVI than in unexposed control plants. This is the first study to show that nZVI enhances stomatal opening by inducing the activation of plasma membrane H+-ATPase, leading to the possibility of increased CO2 uptake.X112119Ysciescopu
Relativistic Generalization of the Gamow Factor for Fermion Pair Production or Annihilation
In the production or annihilation of a pair of fermions, the initial-state or
final-state interactions often lead to significant effects on the reaction
cross sections. For Coulomb-type interactions, the Gamow factor has been
traditionally used to take into account these effects. However the Gamow factor
needs to be modified when the magnitude of the coupling constant or the
relative velocity of two particles increases. We obtain the relativistic
generalization of the Gamow factor in terms of the overlap of the Feynman
amplitude with the relativistic wave function of two fermions with an
attractive Coulomb-type interaction. An explicit form of the corrective factor
is presented for the spin-singlet S-wave state. While the corrective factor
approaches the Gamow factor in the non-relativistic limit, we found that the
Gamow factor significantly over-estimates the effects when the coupling
constant or the velocity is large.Comment: 16 pages, 4 figures in LaTe
Singularity Structures in Coulomb-Type Potentials in Two Body Dirac Equations of Constraint Dynamics
Two Body Dirac Equations (TBDE) of Dirac's relativistic constraint dynamics
have been successfully applied to obtain a covariant nonperturbative
description of QED and QCD bound states. Coulomb-type potentials in these
applications lead naively in other approaches to singular relativistic
corrections at short distances that require the introduction of either
perturbative treatments or smoothing parameters. We examine the corresponding
singular structures in the effective potentials of the relativistic
Schroedinger equation obtained from the Pauli reduction of the TBDE. We find
that the relativistic Schroedinger equation lead in fact to well-behaved wave
function solutions when the full potential and couplings of the system are
taken into account. The most unusual case is the coupled triplet system with
S=1 and L={(J-1),(J+1)}. Without the inclusion of the tensor coupling, the
effective S-state potential would become attractively singular. We show how
including the tensor coupling is essential in order that the wave functions be
well-behaved at short distances. For example, the S-state wave function becomes
simply proportional to the D-state wave function and dips sharply to zero at
the origin, unlike the usual S-state wave functions. Furthermore, this behavior
is similar in both QED and QCD, independent of the asymptotic freedom behavior
of the assumed QCD vector potential. Light- and heavy-quark meson states can be
described well by using a simplified linear-plus-Coulomb-type QCD potential
apportioned appropriately between world scalar and vector potentials. We use
this potential to exhibit explicitly the origin of the large pi-rho splitting
and effective chiral symmetry breaking. The TBDE formalism developed here may
be used to study quarkonia in quark-gluon plasma environments.Comment: 23 pages, 4 figure
High Fidelity Tape Transfer Printing Based On Chemically Induced Adhesive Strength Modulation
Transfer printing, a two-step process (i.e. picking up and printing) for heterogeneous integration, has been widely exploited for the fabrication of functional electronics system. To ensure a reliable process, strong adhesion for picking up and weak or no adhesion for printing are required. However, it is challenging to meet the requirements of switchable stamp adhesion. Here we introduce a simple, high fidelity process, namely tape transfer printing(TTP), enabled by chemically induced dramatic modulation in tape adhesive strength. We describe the working mechanism of the adhesion modulation that governs this process and demonstrate the method by high fidelity tape transfer printing several types of materials and devices, including Si pellets arrays, photodetector arrays, and electromyography (EMG) sensors, from their preparation substrates to various alien substrates. High fidelity tape transfer printing of components onto curvilinear surfaces is also illustrated
Cosmic-Ray Proton and Helium Spectra from the First CREAM Flight
Cosmic-ray proton and helium spectra have been measured with the
balloon-borne Cosmic Ray Energetics And Mass experiment flown for 42 days in
Antarctica in the 2004-2005 austral summer season. High-energy cosmic-ray data
were collected at an average altitude of ~38.5 km with an average atmospheric
overburden of ~3.9 g cm. Individual elements are clearly separated with
a charge resolution of ~0.15 e (in charge units) and ~0.2 e for protons and
helium nuclei, respectively. The measured spectra at the top of the atmosphere
are represented by power laws with a spectral index of -2.66 0.02 for
protons from 2.5 TeV to 250 TeV and -2.58 0.02 for helium nuclei from 630
GeV/nucleon to 63 TeV/nucleon. They are harder than previous measurements at a
few tens of GeV/nucleon. The helium flux is higher than that expected from the
extrapolation of the power law fitted to the lower-energy data. The relative
abundance of protons to helium nuclei is 9.1 0.5 for the range from 2.5
TeV/nucleon to 63 TeV/nucleon. This ratio is considerably smaller than the
previous measurements at a few tens of GeV/nucleon.Comment: 20 pages, 4 figure
Electronic structures of ZnCoO using photoemission and x-ray absorption spectroscopy
Electronic structures of ZnCoO have been investigated using
photoemission spectroscopy (PES) and x-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS). The
Co 3d states are found to lie near the top of the O valence band, with a
peak around eV binding energy. The Co XAS spectrum provides
evidence that the Co ions in ZnCoO are in the divalent Co
() states under the tetrahedral symmetry. Our finding indicates that the
properly substituted Co ions for Zn sites will not produce the diluted
ferromagnetic semiconductor property.Comment: 3 pages, 2 figure
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