Resonant thermal transport in semiconductor barrier structures

I report that thermal single-barrier (TSB) and thermal double-barrier (TDB) structures (formed, for example, by inserting one or two regions of a few Ge monolayers in Si) provide both a suppression of the phonon transport as well as a resonant-thermal-transport effect. I show that high-frequency phonons can experience a traditional double-barrier resonant tunneling in the TDB structures while the formation of Fabry-Perot resonances (at lower frequencies) causes quantum oscillations in the temperature variation of both the TSB and TDB thermal conductances $\sigma_{\text{TSB}}$ and $\sigma_{\text{TDB}}$.Comment: 4 pages. 4 figure.

Theoretical search for Chevrel phase based thermoelectric materials

We investigate the thermoelectric properties of some semiconducting Chevrel phases. Band structure calculations are used to compute thermopowers and to estimate of the effects of alloying and disorder on carrier mobility. Alloying on the Mo site with transition metals like Re, Ru or Tc to reach a semiconducting composition causes large changes in the electronic structure at the Fermi level. Such alloys are expected to have low carrier mobilities. Filling with transition metals was also found to be incompatible with high thermoelectric performance based on the calculated electronic structures. Filling with Zn, Cu, and especially with Li was found to be favorable. The calculated electronic structures of these filled Chevrel phases are consistent with low scattering of carriers by defects associated with the filling. We expect good mobility and high thermopower in materials with the composition close to (Li,Cu)$_4$Mo$_6$Se$_8$, particularly when Li-rich, and recommend this system for experimental investigation.Comment: 4 two-column pages, 4 embedded ps figure

Origin of Intrinsic Josephson Coupling in the Cuprates and Its Relation to Order Parameter Symmetry: An Incoherent Hopping Model

Experiments on the cuprate superconductors demonstrate that these materials may be viewed as a stack of Josephson junctions along the c-direction. In this paper, we present a model which describes this intrinsic Josephson coupling in terms of incoherent quasiparticle hopping along the c-axis arising from wave-function overlap, impurity-assisted hopping, and boson-assisted hopping. We use this model to compute the magnitude and temperature T dependence of the resulting Josephson critical current j_c (T) for s- and d-wave superconductors. Contrary to other approaches, d-wave pairing in this model is compatible with an intrinsic Josephson effect at all hole concentrations and leads to j_c (T) \propto T at low T. By parameterizing our theory with c-axis resistivity data from YBCO, we estimate j_c (T) for optimally doped and underdoped members of this family. Our estimates suggest that further experiments on this compound would be of great help in elucidating the validity of our model in general and the pairing symmetry in particular. We also discuss the implications of our model for LSCO and BSCCO.Comment: 28 pages, REVTEX, 5 compressed PostScript figures. Substantially expanded and revised from the earlier version. To appear in Physica

Effective Field Theory for Dilute Fermions with Pairing

Effective field theory (EFT) methods for a uniform system of fermions with short-range, natural interactions are extended to include pairing correlations, as part of a program to develop a systematic Kohn-Sham density functional theory (DFT) for medium and heavy nuclei. An effective action formalism for local composite operators leads to a free-energy functional that includes pairing by applying an inversion method order by order in the EFT expansion. A consistent renormalization scheme is demonstrated for the uniform system through next-to-leading order, which includes induced-interaction corrections to pairing.Comment: 31 pages, 10 figures, affiliation updated, paper unchange

1/3-Octave Analysis of Core/Combustor-Noise Measurements for the DGEN Aeropropulsion Research Turbofan with Application to Noise Prediction

This work continues the analysis of data obtained during a 2017 NASA DGEN Aeropropulsion Research Turbofan (DART) core/combustor-noise baseline test in the NASA GRC Aero-Acoustic Propulsion Laboratory (AAPL). The DART is a cost-efficient testbed for the study of core-noise physics and mitigation. Acoustic data were simultaneously acquired using the AAPL overhead microphone array in the engine aft-quadrant farfield, a single midfield microphone, and two infinite-tube-probe sensors for unsteady pressures at the core-nozzle exit. The data are here examined on an 1/3-octave basis as a first step in extending and improving core-noise prediction capability

The Structure Of a-Si(1-X)Sn(X)H Thin Films

The doping of a-Si:H with Sn is known to modify the electrical and optical properties of the material. The optical band gap decreases as the doping level is increased, however, there is no insulator-metal transition of the type observed, for example, when transition metals are used as dopants. In order to increase the understanding of the conductivity processes that occur in a-Si:metal:H alloys we have measured the atomic scale structure of a series of a-Si(1-x)Sn(x):H thin-films using EXAFS. Samples were prepared by RF reactive co-sputtering and both Si and Sn K-edge EXAFS examined. The results indicate that the Sn atoms are substituted randomly into the a-Si tetrahedral random network. Both Si and Sn atoms retain fourfold co-ordination over the composition range studied (0-less-than-or-equal-to-x-less-than-or-equal-to-0.18). In contrast to results obtained using transition metal dopants there is no local modification of the tetrahedral random network

Structural Studies Of Amorphous Semiconductor-Metal Alloys

It is well known that a semiconductor to metal transition may be induced in amorphous semiconductor-metal alloys by increasing the metal concentration above a critical limit. However, without a knowledge of the atomic scale structure of the alloy it is difficult to ascribe a mechanism to this process. Three alloy systems (a-Si1?xNix---H, a-Ge1?xAux and a-Si1?xSnx---H) have been prepared as thin films by rf reactive co-sputtering over pertinent composition ranges. The micro-structure of these alloys has been investigated using EXAFS. Both a-Si1?xNix---H and a-Ge1?xAux appear to consist of two separate phases, regions of an amorphous Ni---Si alloy and a crystalline Ge---Au alloy being embedded in an amorphous matrix provided by a-Si and a-Ge, respectively. In contrast, however, Sn atoms are substituted randomly into the a-Si tetrahedral random network