XPS study of the chemical structure of the nickel/silicon interface

The chemical nature of the Ni/Si, Ni/Ni_(2)Si and Si/Ni_(2)Si interfaces have been investigated using x‐ray photoelectron spectroscopy. Peak position, line shapes, and envelope intensities are used to probe the compositional structure of these systems. Two approaches have been employed: one approach examines the advancing planar silicide front by dynamically monitoring the in situ formation of Ni_(2)Si. This has the advantage of allowing examination of a realistic interface which is bounded on either side by an extended solid. The second approach follows the development of the Si/Ni interface using UHV depositions of thin layers of Ni on Si . ^(4)He^+ backscattering is used to follow the progression of the thin film reaction and to provide quantitative information on atomic composition. These experiments demonstrate that the Ni/Ni_(2)Si interface consists of a Ni‐rich silicide transitional phase while the Si/Ni_(2)Si interface shows a transitional structure which is correspondingly Si‐rich. Intensity analysis indicates that these interfacial regions are at least 22 Å wide for α‐Si substrates and 9–14 Å wide for crystalline Si. The as‐deposited Ni/Si interface cannot be described as a unique single‐phase, but rather as a chemically graded transitional region showing a composition which varies from Si‐rich to Ni‐rich silicides

Defining wilderness: the evolution of Banff National Park

Internationally, Canada is a country known for its iconic, expansive landscapes. Images of the Rocky Mountains and destinations such as Lake Louise and Banff are instantly recognisable, drawing visitors from around the world each year. Wilderness is a term that has become irrevocably linked to Canadian national identity and Canadian culture. Nowhere is the significance of wilderness within Canadian culture and history more visible than in the country’s vast network of provincial and national parks. This article explores the history of Canada’s oldest national park, Banff, and the creation and evolution of its boundaries. It explores how park boundaries act as spatial tools to project legal frameworks and cultural values, creating landscapes and an experience of place rather than simply preserving existing conditions or ecologies. The history of Banff National Park is also used to explore the broader implications that idealised or romanticised notions of wild spaces have had in shaping Canadian cultural values, which in turn have shaped attitudes towards landscapes and the defining of landscapes into industrialised zones and zones of conservation. Fundamentally an architectural study of site, this article explores the evolution of the national park boundaries of Banff through their interactions with industrial interests, cultural landmarks and historical narratives, dissecting their capacities to control intensely layered and contested areas. Through a study of the park boundary and the forces that have shaped it over time, the dynamics of power, exclusion, exploitation and commercialisation inherent to the definition of landscapes and boundaries are investigated

Growing massive black holes through super-critical accretion of stellar-mass seeds

The rapid assembly of the massive black holes that power the luminous quasars observed at $z \sim 6-7$ remains a puzzle. Various direct collapse models have been proposed to head-start black hole growth from initial seeds with masses $\sim 10^5\,\rm M_\odot$, which can then reach a billion solar mass while accreting at the Eddington limit. Here we propose an alternative scenario based on radiatively inefficient super-critical accretion of stellar-mass holes embedded in the gaseous circum-nuclear discs (CNDs) expected to exist in the cores of high redshift galaxies. Our sub-pc resolution hydrodynamical simulations show that stellar-mass holes orbiting within the central 100 pc of the CND bind to very high density gas clumps that arise from the fragmentation of the surrounding gas. Owing to the large reservoir of dense cold gas available, a stellar-mass black hole allowed to grow at super-Eddington rates according to the "slim disc" solution can increase its mass by 3 orders of magnitudes within a few million years. These findings are supported by simulations run with two different hydro codes, RAMSES based on the Adaptive Mesh Refinement technique and GIZMO based on a new Lagrangian Godunov-type method, and with similar, but not identical, sub-grid recipes for star formation, supernova feedback, black hole accretion and feedback. The low radiative efficiency of super-critical accretion flows are instrumental to the rapid mass growth of our black holes, as they imply modest radiative heating of the surrounding nuclear environment.Comment: 12 pages, 8 figures, 2 tables. Accepted for publication in MNRA

The atomic orbitals of the topological atom

The effective atomic orbitals have been realized in the framework of Bader’s atoms in molecules theory for a general wavefunction. This formalism can be used to retrieve from any type of calculation a proper set of orthonormalized numerical atomic orbitals, with occupation numbers that sum up to the respective Quantum Theory of Atoms in Molecules (QTAIM) atomic populations. Experience shows that only a limited number of effective atomic orbitals exhibit significant occupation numbers. These correspond to atomic hybrids that closely resemble the core and valence shells of the atom. The occupation numbers of the remaining effective orbitals are almost negligible, except for atoms with hypervalent character. In addition, the molecular orbitals of a calculation can be exactly expressed as a linear combination of this orthonormalized set of numerical atomic orbitals, and the Mulliken population analysis carried out on this basis set exactly reproduces the original QTAIM atomic populations of the atoms. Approximate expansion of the molecular orbitals over a much reduced set of orthogonal atomic basis functions can also be accomplished to a very good accuracy with a singular value decomposition procedure

Determination of spin polarization in InAs/GaAs self-assembled quantum dots

The spin polarization of electrons trapped in InAs self-assembled quantum dot ensembles is investigated. A statistical approach for the population of the spin levels allows one to infer the spin polarization from the measure values of the addition energies. From the magneto-capacitance spectroscopy data, the authors found a fully polarized ensemble of electronic spins above 10 T when $\mathbf{B}\parallel[001]$ and at 2.8 K. Finally, by including the g-tensor anisotropy the angular dependence of spin polarization with the magnetic field $\mathbf{B}$ orientation and strength could be determined.Comment: 3 pages, 2 figures, Accepted Appl. Phys. Let

Test of Local Scale Invariance from the direct measurement of the response function in the Ising model quenched to and to below TCT_C

In order to check on a recent suggestion that local scale invariance [M.Henkel et al. Phys.Rev.Lett. {\bf 87}, 265701 (2001)] might hold when the dynamics is of Gaussian nature, we have carried out the measurement of the response function in the kinetic Ising model with Glauber dynamics quenched to $T_C$ in $d=4$, where Gaussian behavior is expected to apply, and in the two other cases of the $d=2$ model quenched to $T_C$ and to below $T_C$, where instead deviations from Gaussian behavior are expected to appear. We find that in the $d=4$ case there is an excellent agreement between the numerical data, the local scale invariance prediction and the analytical Gaussian approximation. No logarithmic corrections are numerically detected. Conversely, in the $d=2$ cases, both in the quench to $T_C$ and to below $T_C$, sizable deviations of the local scale invariance behavior from the numerical data are observed. These results do support the idea that local scale invariance might miss to capture the non Gaussian features of the dynamics. The considerable precision needed for the comparison has been achieved through the use of a fast new algorithm for the measurement of the response function without applying the external field. From these high quality data we obtain $a=0.27 \pm 0.002$ for the scaling exponent of the response function in the $d=2$ Ising model quenched to below $T_C$, in agreement with previous results.Comment: 24 pages, 6 figures. Resubmitted version with improved discussions and figure

Dynamic heterogeneities in critical coarsening: Exact results for correlation and response fluctuations in finite-sized spherical models

We study dynamic heterogeneities in the out-of-equilibrium coarsening dynamics of the spherical ferromagnet after a quench from infinite temperature to its critical point. A standard way of probing such heterogeneities is by monitoring the fluctuations of correlation and susceptibility, coarse-grained over mesoscopic regions. We discuss how to define fluctuating coarse-grained correlations (C) and susceptibilities (Chi) in models where no quenched disorder is present. Our focus for the spherical model is on coarse-graining over the whole volume of $N$ spins, which requires accounting for N^{-1/2} non-Gaussian fluctuations of the spin. The latter are treated as a perturbation about the leading order Gaussian statistics. We obtain exact results for these quantities, which enable us to characterise the joint distribution of C and Chi fluctuations. We find that this distribution is qualitatively different, even for equilibrium above criticality, from the spin-glass scenario where C and Chi fluctuations are linked in a manner akin to the fluctuation-dissipation relation between the average C and Chi. Our results show that coarsening at criticality is clearly heterogeneous for d>4 and suggest that, as in other glassy systems, there is a well-defined timescale on which fluctuations across thermal histories are largest. Surprisingly, however, neither this timescale nor the amplitude of the heterogeneities increase with the age of the system, as would be expected from the growing correlation length. For d<4, the strength of the fluctuations varies on a timescale proportional to the age of the system; the corresponding amplitude also grows with age, but does not scale with the correlation volume as might have been expected naively.Comment: 39 pages, 9 figures, version for publication in J. Stat. Mech. Shortened by cutting all technical details in section 6, with minor corrections elsewher

Lande g-tensor in semiconductor nanostructures

Understanding the electronic structure of semiconductor nanostructures is not complete without a detailed description of their corresponding spin-related properties. Here we explore the response of the shell structure of InAs self-assembled quantum dots to magnetic fields oriented in several directions, allowing the mapping of the g-tensor modulus for the s and p shells. We found that the g-tensors for the s and p shells show a very different behavior. The s-state in being more localized allows the probing of the confining potential details by sweeping the magnetic field orientation from the growth direction towards the in-plane direction. As for the p-state, we found that the g-tensor modulus is closer to that of the surrounding GaAs, consistent with a larger delocalization. These results reveal further details of the confining potentials of self-assembled quantum dots that have not yet been probed, in addition to the assessment of the g-tensor, which is of fundamental importance for the implementation of spin related applications.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Oscillating Neutrinos from the Galactic Center

It has recently been demonstrated that the $\gamma$-ray emission spectrum of the EGRET-identified, central Galactic source 2EG J1746-2852 can be well fitted by positing that these photons are generated by the decay of $\pi^0$'s produced in p-p scattering at or near an energizing shock. Such scattering also produces charged pions which decay leptonically.The ratio of $\gamma$-rays to neutrinos generated by the central Galactic source may be accurately determined and a well-defined and potentially-measurable high energy neutrino flux at Earth is unavoidable. An opportunity, therefore, to detect neutrino oscillations over an unprecedented scale is offered by this source. In this paper we assess the prospects for such an observation with the generation of neutrino \v{C}erenkov telescopes now in the planning stage. We determine that the next generation of detectors may find an oscillation signature in the Galactic Center (GC) signal.Comment: 45 pages, LaTeX, uses ApJ style, some minor revisions, this final version to be published in ApJ