420 research outputs found
Quantum Transparency of Anderson Insulator Junctions: Statistics of Transmission Eigenvalues, Shot Noise, and Proximity Conductance
We investigate quantum transport through strongly disordered barriers, made
of a material with exceptionally high resistivity that behaves as an Anderson
insulator or a ``bad metal'' in the bulk, by analyzing the distribution of
Landauer transmission eigenvalues for a junction where such barrier is attached
to two clean metallic leads. We find that scaling of the transmission
eigenvalue distribution with the junction thickness (starting from the single
interface limit) always predicts a non-zero probability to find high
transmission channels even in relatively thick barriers. Using this
distribution, we compute the zero frequency shot noise power (as well as its
sample-to-sample fluctuations) and demonstrate how it provides a single number
characterization of non-trivial transmission properties of different types of
disordered barriers. The appearance of open conducting channels, whose
transmission eigenvalue is close to one, and corresponding violent mesoscopic
fluctuations of transport quantities explain at least some of the peculiar
zero-bias anomalies in the Anderson-insulator/superconductor junctions observed
in recent experiments [Phys. Rev. B {\bf 61}, 13037 (2000)]. Our findings are
also relevant for the understanding of the role of defects that can undermine
quality of thin tunnel barriers made of conventional band-insulators.Comment: 9 pages, 8 color EPS figures; one additional figure on mesoscopic
fluctuations of Fano facto
Optimizing the speed of a Josephson junction
We review the application of dynamical mean-field theory to Josephson
junctions and study how to maximize the characteristic voltage IcRn which
determines the width of a rapid single flux quantum pulse, and thereby the
operating speed in digital electronics. We study a wide class of junctions
ranging from SNS, SCmS (where Cm stands for correlated metal), SINIS (where the
insulating layer is formed from a screened dipole layer), and SNSNS structures.
Our review is focused on a survey of the physical results; the formalism has
been developed elsewhere.Comment: (36 pages, 15 figures, to appear in Int. J. Mod. Phys. B
Quest for Rare Events in three-dimensional Mesoscopic Disordered Metals
The study reports on the first large statistics numerical experiment
searching for rare eigenstates of anomalously high amplitudes in
three-dimensional diffusive metallic conductors. Only a small fraction of a
huge number of investigated eigenfunctions generates the far asymptotic tail of
their amplitude distribution function. The relevance of the relationship
between disorder and spectral averaging, as well as of the quantum transport
properties of the investigated mesoscopic samples, for the numerical
exploration of eigenstate statistics is divulged. The quest provides exact
results to serve as a reference point in understanding the limits of
approximations employed in different analytical predictions, and thereby the
physics (quantum vs semiclassical) behind large deviations from the universal
predictions of random matrix theory.Comment: 5 pages, 3 embedded EPS figures, figure 3 replaced with new findings
on spectral vs disorder averagin
Boson-fermion unification, superstrings, and Bohmian mechanics
Bosonic and fermionic particle currents can be introduced in a more unified
way, with the cost of introducing a preferred spacetime foliation. Such a
unified treatment of bosons and fermions naturally emerges from an analogous
superstring current, showing that the preferred spacetime foliation appears
only at the level of effective field theory, not at the fundamental superstring
level. The existence of the preferred spacetime foliation allows an objective
definition of particles associated with quantum field theory in curved
spacetime. Such an objective definition of particles makes the Bohmian
interpretation of particle quantum mechanics more appealing. The superstring
current allows a consistent Bohmian interpretation of superstrings themselves,
including a Bohmian description of string creation and destruction in terms of
string splitting. The Bohmian equations of motion and the corresponding
probabilistic predictions are fully relativistic covariant and do not depend on
the preferred foliation.Comment: 30 pages, 1 figure, revised, to appear in Found. Phy
Spin and Charge Shot Noise in Mesoscopic Spin Hall Systems
Injection of unpolarized charge current through the longitudinal leads of a
four-terminal two-dimensional electron gas with the Rashba spin-orbit (SO)
coupling and/or SO scattering off extrinsic impurities is responsible not only
for the pure spin Hall current in the transverse leads, but also for random
time-dependent current fluctuations. We employ the scattering approach to
current-current correlations in multiterminal nanoscale conductors to analyze
the shot noise of transverse pure spin Hall and zero charge current, or
transverse spin current and non-zero charge Hall current, driven by unpolarized
or spin-polarized longitudinal current, respectively. Since any spin-flip acts
as an additional source of noise, we argue that these shot noises offer a
unique tool to differentiate between intrinsic and extrinsic SO mechanisms
underlying the spin Hall effect in paramagnetic devices.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures (5 embedded EPS files
Typical medium theory of Anderson localization: A local order parameter approach to strong disorder effects
We present a self-consistent theory of Anderson localization that yields a
simple algorithm to obtain \emph{typical local density of states} as an order
parameter, thereby reproducing the essential features of a phase-diagram of
localization-delocalization quantum phase transition in the standard lattice
models of disordered electron problem. Due to the local character of our
theory, it can easily be combined with dynamical mean-field approaches to
strongly correlated electrons, thus opening an attractive avenue for a genuine
{\em non-perturbative} treatment of the interplay of strong interactions and
strong disorder.Comment: 7 pages, 4 EPS figures, revised version to appear in Europhysics
Letter
Per-Core DVFS with Switched-Capacitor Converters for Energy Efficiency in Manycore Processors
Integrating multiple power converters on-chip improves energy efficiency of manycore architectures. Switched-capacitor (SC) dc-dc converters are compatible with conventional CMOS processes, but traditional implementations suffer from limited conversion efficiency. We propose a dynamic voltage and frequency scaling scheme with SC converters that achieves high converter efficiency by allowing the output voltage to ripple and having the processor core frequency track the ripple. Minimum core energy is achieved by hopping between different converter modes and tuning body-bias voltages. A multicore processor model based on a 28-nm technology shows conversion efficiencies of 90% along with over 25% improvement in the overall chip energy efficiency
Dirichlet boundary conditions in type IIB superstring theory and fermionic T-duality
In this article we investigate the relation between consequences of Dirichlet
boundary conditions (momenta noncommutativity and parameters of the effective
theory) and background fields of fermionic T-dual theory. We impose Dirichlet
boundary conditions on the endpoints of the open string propagating in
background of type IIB superstring theory with constant background fields. We
showed that on the solution of the boundary conditions the momenta become
noncommutative, while the coordinates commute. Fermionic T-duality is also
introduced and its relation to noncommutativity is considered. We use compact
notation so that type IIB superstring formally gets the form of the bosonic one
with Grassman variables. Then momenta noncommutativity parameters are fermionic
T-dual fields. The effective theory, the initial theory on the solution of
boundary conditions, is bilinear in the effective coordinates, odd under
world-sheet parity transformation. The effective metric is equal to the initial
one and terms with the effective Kalb-Ramond field vanish
Extrinsic Entwined with Intrinsic Spin Hall Effect in Disordered Mesoscopic Bars
We show that pure spin Hall current, flowing out of a four-terminal
phase-coherent two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) within inversion asymmetric
semiconductor heterostructure, contains contributions from both the extrinsic
mechanisms (spin-orbit dependent scattering off impurities) and the intrinsic
ones (due to the Rashba coupling). While the extrinsic contribution vanishes in
the weakly and strongly disordered limits, and the intrinsic one dominates in
the quasiballistic limit, in the crossover transport regime the spin Hall
conductance, exhibiting sample-to-sample large fluctuations and sign change, is
not simply reducible to either of the two mechanisms, which can be relevant for
interpretation of experiments on dirty 2DEGs [V. Sih et al., Nature Phys. 1, 31
(2005)].Comment: 5 pages, 3 color EPS figure
Edge spin accumulation in semiconductor two-dimensional hole gases
The controlled generation of localized spin densities is a key enabler of
semiconductor spintronics In this work, we study spin Hall effect induced edge
spin accumulation in a two-dimensional hole gas with strong spin orbit
interactions. We argue that it is an intrinsic property, in the sense that it
is independent of the strength of disorder scattering. We show numerically that
the spin polarization near the edge induced by this mechanism can be large, and
that it becomes larger and more strongly localized as the spin-orbit coupling
strength increases, and is independent of the width of the conducting strip
once this exceeds the elastic scattering mean-free-path. Our experiments in
two-dimensional hole gas microdevices confirm this remarkable spin Hall effect
phenomenology. Achieving comparable levels of spin polarization by external
magnetic fields would require laboratory equipment whose physical dimensions
and operating electrical currents are million times larger than those of our
spin Hall effect devices.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figure
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