Influence of a perpendicular magnetic field on the thermal depinning of a single Abrikosov vortex in a superconducting Josephson junction

The prime interest of the present research is to measure the thermal energy needed for depinning a trapped vortex when an external magnetic field is perpendicular to the plane of the junction, and thus there are Meissner currents flowing along the edge of the film. These currents introduce an additional force and the author wishes to study thermal depinning under the influence of this force. These studies are of interest because Nb junctions are used in a wide range of electronic applications. Such junctions are useful, for instance, in superconducting quantum interference devices (SQUIDs) or in vortex-flow transistors because their performance can be enhanced by tuning the parameters of the individual junctions to optimum operation values. Furthermore gated Josephson junctions can be used as Josephson field-effect transistors (JOFETs)

Threshold temperature for pairwise and many-particle thermal entanglement in the isotropic Heisenberg model

We study the threshold temperature for pairwise thermal entanglement in the spin-1/2 isotropic Heisenberg model up to 11 spins and find that the threshold temperature for odd and even number of qubits approaches the thermal dynamical limit from below and above, respectively. The threshold temperature in the thermodynamical limit is estimated. We investigate the many-particle entanglement in both ground states and thermal states of the system, and find that the thermal state in the four-qubit model is four-particle entangled before a threshold temperature.Comment: 4 pages with 1 fig. More discussions on many-particle ground-state and thermal entanglement in the multiqubit Heisenberg model from 2 to 11 qubits are adde

Thermal and ground-state entanglement in Heisenberg XX qubit rings

We study the entanglement of thermal and ground states in Heisernberg $XX$ qubit rings with a magnetic field. A general result is found that for even-number rings pairwise entanglement between nearest-neighbor qubits is independent on both the sign of exchange interaction constants and the sign of magnetic fields. As an example we study the entanglement in the four-qubit model and find that the ground state of this model without magnetic fields is shown to be a four-body maximally entangled state measured by the $N$-tangle.Comment: Four pages and one figure, small change

Calculating the energy spectra of magnetic molecules: application of real- and spin-space symmetries

The determination of the energy spectra of small spin systems as for instance given by magnetic molecules is a demanding numerical problem. In this work we review numerical approaches to diagonalize the Heisenberg Hamiltonian that employ symmetries; in particular we focus on the spin-rotational symmetry SU(2) in combination with point-group symmetries. With these methods one is able to block-diagonalize the Hamiltonian and thus to treat spin systems of unprecedented size. In addition it provides a spectroscopic labeling by irreducible representations that is helpful when interpreting transitions induced by Electron Paramagnetic Resonance (EPR), Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) or Inelastic Neutron Scattering (INS). It is our aim to provide the reader with detailed knowledge on how to set up such a diagonalization scheme.Comment: 29 pages, many figure

Magnetoelastic sensors in combination with nanometer-scale honeycombed thin film ceramic TiO2 for remote query measurement of humidity

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Recrystallization of high temperature superconductors

Currently one of the most widely used high {Tc} superconductors is the Bi-based compounds Bi{sub 2}Sr{sub 2}CaCu{sub 2}O{sub z} and Bi{sub 2}Sr{sub 2}Ca{sub 2}Cu{sub 3}O{sub z} (known as BSCCO 2212 and 2223 compounds) with {Tc} values of about 85 K and 110 K respectively. Lengths of high performance conductors ranging from 100 to 1000 m long are routinely fabricated and some test magnets have been wound. An additional difficulty here is that although Bi-2212 and Bi-2223 phases exist over a wide range of stoichiometries, neither has been prepared in phase-pure form. So far the most successful method of constructing reliable and robust wires or tapes is the so called powder-in-tube (PIT) technique [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7] in which oxide powder of the appropriate stoichiometry and phase content is placed inside a metal tube, deformed into the desired geometry (round wire or flat tape), and annealed to produce the desired superconducting properties. Intermediate anneals are often incorporated between successive deformation steps. Silver is the metal used in this process because it is the most compatible with the reacting phase. In all of the commercial processes for BSCCO, Ag seems to play a special catalytic role promoting the growth of high performance aligned grains that grow in the first few micrometers near the Ag/BSCCO interface. Adjacent to the Ag, the grain alignment is more perfect and the current density is higher than in the center of the tape. It is known that Ag lowers the melting point of several of the phases but the detailed mechanism for growth of these high performance grains is not clearly understood. The purpose of this work is to study the nucleation and growth of the high performance material at this interface

Crystal growth at a Bi{sub 2}Sr{sub 2}Ca{sub 1}Cu{sub 2}O{sub 8}/Ag interface

Crystal growth at the interface between grains of Bi{sub 2}Sr{sub 2}Ca{sub 1}Cu{sub 2}O{sub 8} and an overlay of 300 nm of Ag has been studied to better understand how new grains grow and why there is such good grain alignment of the c-axis in this part of tape conductors. In 50 torr of oxygen, hillocks grow at temperatures at low as 600 C, and by 800 C have grown to large grains at the interface

Contactless and Vibration-Based Damage Detection in Rectangular Cement Beams Using Magnetoelastic Ribbon Sensors

This study investigated the innovative use of magnetoelastic sensors to detect the formation of single cracks in cement beams under bending vibrations. The detection method involved monitoring changes in the bending mode spectrum when a crack was introduced. The sensors, functioning as strain sensors, were placed on the beams, and their signals were detected non-invasively using a nearby detection coil. The beams were simply supported, and mechanical impulse excitation was applied. The recorded spectra displayed three distinct peaks representing different bending modes. The sensitivity for crack detection was determined to be a 24% change in the sensing signal for every 1% decrease in beam volume due to the crack. Factors influencing the spectra were investigated, including pre-annealing of the sensors, which improved the detection signal. The choice of beam support material was also explored, revealing that steel yielded better results than wood. Overall, the experiments demonstrated that magnetoelastic sensors enabled the detection of small cracks and provided qualitative information about their location