97 research outputs found
Electrical and ultraviolet characterization of 4H-SiC Schottky photodiodes
Fabrication and electrical and optical characterization of 4H-SiC Schottky UV photodetectors with nickel silicide interdigitated contacts is reported. Dark capacitance and current measurements as a function of applied voltage over the temperature range 20 °C – 120 °C are presented. The results show consistent performance among devices. Their leakage current density, at the highest investigated temperature (120 °C), is in the range of nA/cm2 at high internal electric field. Properties such as barrier height and ideality factor are also computed as a function of temperature. The responsivities of the diodes as functions of applied voltage were measured using a UV spectrophotometer in the wavelength range 200 nm - 380 nm and compared with theoretically calculated values. The devices had a mean peak responsivity of 0.093 A/W at 270 nm and −15 V reverse bias
Deformation and Depinning of Superconducting Vortices from Artificial Defects: A Ginzburg-Landau Study
Using Ginzburg-Landau theory, we have performed detailed studies of vortices
in the presence of artificial defect arrays, for a thin film geometry. We show
that when a vortex approaches the vicinity of a defect, an abrupt transition
occurs in which the vortex core develops a ``string'' extending to the defect
boundary, while simultaneously the supercurrents and associated magnetic flux
spread out and engulf the defect. Current induced depinning of vortices is
shown to be dominated by the core string distortion in typical experimental
situations. Experimental consequences of this unusual depinning behavior are
discussed.Comment: 10 pages,9 figure
Numerical Study of the Spin-Flop Transition in Anisotropic Spin-1/2 Antiferromagnets
Magnetization processes of the spin-1/2 antiferromagnetic model in two
and three spatial dimensions are studied using quantum Monte Carlo method based
on stochastic series expansions. Recently developed operator-loop algorithm
enables us to show a clear evidence of the first-order phase transition in the
presence of an external magnetic field. Phase diagrams of closely related
systems, hard core bosons with nearest-neighbor repulsions, are also discussed
focusing on possibilities of phase-separated and supersolid phases.Comment: 4 pages, Revtex version 4, with 4 figures embedded, To appear in
Phys. Rev.
Can Short-Range Interactions Mediate a Bose Metal Phase in 2D?
We show here based on a 1-loop scaling analysis that short-range interactions
are strongly irrelevant perturbations near the insulator-superconductor (IST)
quantum critical point. The lack of any proof that short-range interactions
mediate physics which is present only in strong coupling leads us to conclude
that short-range interactions are strictly irrelevant near the IST quantum
critical point. Hence, we argue that no new physics, such as the formation of a
uniform Bose metal phase can arise from an interplay between on-site and
nearest-neighbour interactions.Comment: 3 pages, 1 .eps file. SUbmitted to Phys. Rev.
Disordered Boson Systems: A Perturbative Study
A hard-core disordered boson system is mapped onto a quantum spin 1/2
XY-model with transverse random fields. It is then generalized to a system of
spins with an arbitrary magnitude S and studied through a 1/S expansion. The
first order 1/S expansion corresponds to a spin-wave theory. The effect of weak
disorder is studied perturbatively within such a first order 1/S scheme. We
compute the reduction of the speed of sound and the life time of the Bloch
phonons in the regime of weak disorder. Generalizations of the present study to
the strong disordered regime are discussed.Comment: 27 pages, revte
Plasma Driven Exsolution for Nanoscale Functionalization of Perovskite Oxides
Perovskite oxides with dispersed nanoparticles on their surface are considered instrumental in energy conversion and catalytic processes. Redox exsolution is an alternative method to the conventional deposition techniques for directly growing well-dispersed and anchored nanoarchitectures from the oxide support through thermochemical or electrochemical reduction. Herein, a new method for such nanoparticle nucleation through the exposure of the host perovskite to plasma is shown. The applicability of this new method is demonstrated by performing catalytic tests for CO2 hydrogenation over Ni exsolved nanoparticles prepared by either plasma or conventional H2 reduction. Compared to the conventional thermochemical H2 reduction, there are plasma conditions that lead to the exsolution of a more than ten times higher Ni amount from a lanthanum titanate perovskite, which is similar to the reported values of the electrochemical method. Unlike the electrochemical method, however, plasma does not require the integration of the material in an electrochemical cell, and is thus applicable to a wide range of microstructures and physical forms. Additionally, when N2 plasma is employed, the nitrogen species are stripping out oxygen from the perovskite lattice, generating a key chemical intermediate, such as NO, rendering this technology even more appealing.</p
Nature of the quantum phase transitions in the two-dimensional hardcore boson model
We use two Quantum Monte Carlo algorithms to map out the phase diagram of the
two-dimensional hardcore boson Hubbard model with near () and next near
() neighbor repulsion. At half filling we find three phases: Superfluid
(SF), checkerboard solid and striped solid depending on the relative values of
, and the kinetic energy. Doping away from half filling, the
checkerboard solid undergoes phase separation: The superfluid and solid phases
co-exist but not as a single thermodynamic phase. As a function of doping, the
transition from the checkerboard solid is therefore first order. In contrast,
doping the striped solid away from half filling instead produces a striped
supersolid phase: Co-existence of density order with superfluidity as a single
phase. One surprising result is that the entire line of transitions between the
SF and checkerboard solid phases at half filling appears to exhibit dynamical
O(3) symmetry restoration. The transitions appear to be in the same
universality class as the special Heisenberg point even though this symmetry is
explicitly broken by the interaction.Comment: 10 pages, 14 eps figures, include
Simultaneous Diagonal and Off Diagonal Order in the Bose--Hubbard Hamiltonian
The Bose-Hubbard model exhibits a rich phase diagram consisting both of
insulating regimes where diagonal long range (solid) order dominates as well as
conducting regimes where off diagonal long range order (superfluidity) is
present. In this paper we describe the results of Quantum Monte Carlo
calculations of the phase diagram, both for the hard and soft core cases, with
a particular focus on the possibility of simultaneous superfluid and solid
order. We also discuss the appearance of phase separation in the model. The
simulations are compared with analytic calculations of the phase diagram and
spin wave dispersion.Comment: 28 pages plus 24 figures, uuencoded Revtex+postscript file
Destruction of diagonal and off-diagonal long range order by disorder in two-dimensional hard core boson systems
We use quantum Monte Carlo simulations to study the effect of disorder, in
the form of a disordered chemical potential, on the phase diagram of the hard
core bosonic Hubbard model in two dimensions. We find numerical evidence that
in two dimensions, no matter how weak the disorder, it will always destroy the
long range density wave order (checkerboard solid) present at half filling and
strong nearest neighbor repulsion and replace it with a bose glass phase. We
study the properties of this glassy phase including the superfluid density,
energy gaps and the full Green's function. We also study the possibility of
other localized phases at weak nearest neighbor repulsion, i.e. Anderson
localization. We find that such a phase does not truly exist: The disorder must
exceed a threshold before the bosons (at weak nn repulsion) are localized. The
phase diagram for hard core bosons with disorder cannot be obtained easily from
the soft core phase diagram discussed in the literature.Comment: 7 pages, 10 eps figures include
On the existence of a Bose Metal at T=0
This paper aims to justify, at a microscopic level, the existence of a
two-dimensional Bose metal, i.e. a metallic phase made out of Cooper pairs at
T=0. To this end, we consider the physics of quantum phase fluctuations in
(granular) superconductors in the absence of disorder and emphasise the role of
two order parameters in the problem, viz. phase order and charge order. We
focus on the 2-d Bose Hubbard model in the limit of very large fillings, i.e. a
2-d array of Josephson junctions. We find that the algebra of phase
fluctuations is that of the Euclidean group in this limit, and show
that the model is equivalent to two coupled XY models in (2+1)-d, one
corresponding to the phase degrees of freedom, and the other the charge degrees
of freedom. The Bose metal, then, is the phase in which both these degrees of
freedom are disordered(as a result of quantum frustration). We analyse the
model in terms of its topological excitations and suggest that there is a
strong indication that this state represents a surface of critical points, akin
to the gapless spin liquid states. We find a remarkable consistency of this
scenario with certain low-T_c thin film experiments.Comment: 16 pages, 2 figure
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