70 research outputs found
Quantum interference structures in the conductance plateaus of gold nanojunctions
The conductance of breaking metallic nanojunctions shows plateaus alternated
with sudden jumps, corresponding to the stretching of stable atomic
configurations and atomic rearrangements, respectively. We investigate the
structure of the conductance plateaus both by measuring the voltage dependence
of the plateaus' slope on individual junctions and by a detailed statistical
analysis on a large amount of contacts. Though the atomic discreteness of the
junction plays a fundamental role in the evolution of the conductance, we find
that the fine structure of the conductance plateaus is determined by quantum
interference phenomenon to a great extent.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Strong Electron-Phonon Coupling in Superconducting MgB: A Specific Heat Study
We report on measurements of the specific heat of the recently discovered
superconductor MgB in the temperature range between 3 and 220 K. Based on a
modified Debye-Einstein model, we have achieved a rather accurate account of
the lattice contribution to the specific heat, which allows us to separate the
electronic contribution from the total measured specific heat. From our result
for the electronic specific heat, we estimate the electron-phonon coupling
constant to be of the order of 2, significantly enhanced compared to
common weak-coupling values . Our data also indicate that the
electronic specific heat in the superconducting state of MgB can be
accounted for by a conventional, s-wave type BCS-model.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Creation of NOON states by double Fock-state/Bose-Einstein condensates
NOON states (states of the form where and
are single particle states) have been used for predicting violations of
hidden-variable theories (Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger violations) and are
valuable in metrology for precision measurements of phase at the Heisenberg
limit. We show theoretically how the use of two Fock state/Bose-Einstein
condensates as sources in a modified Mach Zender interferometer can lead to the
creation of the NOON state in which and refer to arms of the
interferometer and is the total number of particles in the two condensates.
The modification of the interferometer involves making conditional ``side''
measurements of a few particles near the sources. These measurements put the
remaining particles in a superposition of two phase states, which are converted
into NOON states by a beam splitter. The result is equivalent to the quantum
experiment in which a large molecule passes through two slits. The NOON states
are combined in a final beam splitter and show interference. Attempts to detect
through which ``slit'' the condensates passed destroys the interference.Comment: 8 pages 5 figure
Calibration of the length of a chain of single gold atoms
Using a scanning tunneling microscope or mechanically controllable break
junctions it has been shown that it is possible to control the formation of a
wire made of single gold atoms. In these experiments an interatomic distance
between atoms in the chain of ~3.6 Angstrom was reported which is not
consistent with recent theoretical calculations. Here, using precise
calibration procedures for both techniques, we measure length of the atomic
chains. Based on the distance between the peaks observed in the chain length
histogram we find the mean value of the inter-atomic distance before chain
rupture to be 2.6 +/- 0.2 A . This value agrees with the theoretical
calculations for the bond length. The discrepancy with the previous
experimental measurements was due to the presence of He gas, that was used to
promote the thermal contact, and which affects the value of the work function
that is commonly used to calibrate distances in scanning tunnelling microscopy
and mechanically controllable break junctions at low temperatures.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figure
A first-principles study of MgB2 (0001) surfaces
We report self-consistent {\it ab initio} calculations of structural and
electronic properties for the B- and Mg-terminated MgB (0001) surfaces.
We employ ultra-soft pseudopotentials and plane wave basis sets within the
generalized gradient approximation. The surface relaxations are found to be
small for both B- and Mg-terminated surfaces. For the B-terminated surface,
both B and surface bands appear, while only one B
surface band exists near the Fermi level for the Mg-terminated surface. The
superconductivity of the MgB surfaces is discussed. The work function is
predicted to be 5.95 and 4.25 eV for the B- and Mg-terminated surfaces
respectively. The simulated scanning tunneling microscopy images of the
surfaces are not sensitive to the sign and value of the bias voltages, but
depend strongly on the tip-sample distance. An image reversal is predicted for
the Mg-terminated surface.Comment: 3 pages, 4 figures, Revte
Proximity effect and strong coupling superconductivity in nanostructures built with an STM
We present high resolution tunneling spectroscopy data at very low
temperatures on superconducting nanostructures of lead built with an STM. By
applying magnetic fields, superconductivity is restricted to length scales of
the order of the coherence length. We measure the tunneling conductance and
analyze the phonon structure and the low energy DOS. We demonstrate the
influence of the geometry of the system on the magnetic field dependence of the
tunneling density of states, which is gapless in a large range of fields. The
behavior of the features in the tunneling conductance associated to phonon
modes are explained within current models.Comment: 4 figures, 4 page
Surface effects in multiband superconductors. Application to MgB
Metals with many bands at the Fermi level can have different band dependent
gaps in the superconducting state. The absence of translational symmetry at an
interface can induce interband scattering and modify the superconducting
properties. We dicuss the relevance of these effects to recent experiments in
MgB
Surface and Image-Potential States on the MgB_2(0001) Surfaces
We present a self-consistent pseudopotential calculation of surface and
image-potential states on for both -terminated () and
-terminated () surfaces. We find a variety of very clear surface and
subsurface states as well as resonance image-potential states n=1,2 on both
surfaces. The surface layer DOS at is increased by 55% at and by
90% at the surface compared to DOS in the corresponding bulk layers.Comment: 3 pages, 6 figure
Towards unified understanding of conductance of stretched monatomic contacts
When monatomic contacts are stretched, their conductance behaves in
qualitatively different ways depending on their constituent atomic elements.
Under a single assumption of resonance formation, we show that various
conductance behavior can be understood in a unified way in terms of the
response of the resonance to stretching. This analysis clarifies the crucial
roles played by the number of valence electrons, charge neutrality, and orbital
shapes.Comment: 2 figure
Electronic structure of MgB: X-ray emission and absorption studies
Measurements of x-ray emission and absorption spectra of the constituents of
MgB are presented. The results obtained are in good agreement with
calculated x-ray spectra, with dipole matrix elements taken into account. The
comparison of x-ray emission spectra of graphite, AlB, and MgB in the
binding energy scale supports the idea of charge transfer from to
bands, which creates holes at the top of the bonding bands and
drives the high-TComment: final version as published in PR
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