Transit Time Effect on Voltage Contrast in the Stroboscopic Scanning Electron Microscope

Voltage contrast varies if the specimen voltage changes within the secondary electron transit time through the specimen electric field. This effect would affect the time resolution in stroboscopic scanning electron microscopy. The method to calculate the transit time effect that was described in a previous paper is reviewed. The calculated results agreed well with the experiment in which a specially designed specimen is used to estimate the applied voltage as exactly as possible

Intrinsic Low Temperature Paramagnetism in B-DNA

We present experimental study of magnetization in $\lambda$-DNA in conjunction with structural measurements. The results show the surprising interplay between the molecular structures and their magnetic property. In the B-DNA state, $\lambda$-DNA exhibits paramagnetic behaviour below 20 K that is non-linear in applied magnetic field whereas in the A-DNA state, remains diamagnetic down to 2 K. We propose orbital paramagnetism as the origin of the observed phenomena and discuss its relation to the existence of long range coherent transport in B-DNA at low temperature.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, submitted to Physical Review Letters October 200

Growth of a dynamical correlation length in an aging superspin glass

We report on zero field cooled magnetization relaxation experiments on a concen- trated frozen ferrofluid exhibiting a low temperature superspin glass transition. With a method initially developed for spin glasses, we investigate the field dependence of the relaxations that take place after different aging times. We extract the typical number of correlated spins involved in the aging dynamics. This brings important insights into the dynamical correlation length and its time growth. Our results, consistent with expressions obtained for spin glasses, extend the generality of these behaviours to the class of superspin glasses. Since the typical flipping time is much larger for superspins than for atomic spins, our experiments probe a time regime much closer to that of numerical simulations

Non-generality of the Kadowaki-Woods ratio in correlated oxides

An explicit expression for the Kadowaki-Woods ratio in correlated metals is derived by invoking saturation of the (high-frequency) Fermi-liquid scattering rate at the Mott-Ioffe-Regel limit. Significant deviations observed in a number of oxides are quantitatively explained due to variations in carrier density, dimensionality, unit cell volume and the number of individual sheets in the Brillouin zone. A generic re-scaling of the original Kadowaki-Woods plot is also presented.Comment: 9 pages of text, 1 table, 2 figure

Optical and Thermal-Transport Properties of an Inhomogeneous d-Wave Superconductor

We calculate transport properties of disordered 2D d-wave superconductors from solutions of the Bogoliubov-de Gennes equations, and show that weak localization effects give rise to a finite frequency peak in the optical conductivity similar to that observed in experiments on disordered cuprates. At low energies, order parameter inhomogeneities induce linear and quadratic temperature dependencies in microwave and thermal conductivities respectively, and appear to drive the system towards a quasiparticle insulating phase.Comment: 5 pages,3 figure

Effect of controlled disorder on quasiparticle thermal transport in Bi2_2Sr2_2CaCu2_2O8_8

Low temperature thermal conductivity, $\kappa$, of optimally-doped Bi2212 was studied before and after the introduction of point defects by electron irradiation. The amplitude of the linear component of $\kappa$ remains unchanged, confirming the universal nature of heat transport by zero-energy quasiparticles. The induced decrease in the absolute value of $\kappa$ at finite temperatures allows us to resolve a nonuniversal term in $\kappa$ due to conduction by finite-energy quasiparticles. The magnitude of this term provides an estimate of the quasiparticle lifetime at subkelvin temperatures.Comment: 5 pages including 2 .eps figuer