761 research outputs found
Parity forbidden excitations of Sr2CuO2Cl2 revealed by optical third-harmonic spectroscopy
We present the first study of nonlinear optical third harmonic generation in
the strongly correlated charge-transfer insulator Sr2CuO2Cl2. For fundamental
excitation in the near-infrared, the THG spectrum reveals a strongly resonant
response for photon energies near 0.7 eV. Polarization analysis reveals this
novel resonance to be only partially accounted for by three-photon excitation
to the optical charge-transfer exciton, and indicates that an even-parity
excitation at 2 eV, with a_1g symmetry, participates in the third harmonic
susceptibility.Comment: Requires RevTeX v4.0beta
Photon-energy dissipation caused by an external electric circuit in "virtual" photo-excitation processes
We consider generation of an electrical pulse by an optical pulse in the
``virtual excitation'' regime. The electronic system, which is any
electro-optic material including a quantum well structure biased by a dc
electric field, is assumed to be coupled to an external circuit. It is found
that the photon frequency is subject to an extra red shift in addition to the
usual self-phase modulation, whereas the photon number is conserved. The Joule
energy consumed in the external circuit is supplied only from the extra red
shift.Comment: 4 pages, 1 fugur
Photonic crystals of coated metallic spheres
It is shown that simple face-centered-cubic (fcc) structures of both metallic
and coated metallic spheres are ideal candidates to achieve a tunable complete
photonic bandgap (CPBG) for optical wavelengths using currently available
experimental techniques. For coated microspheres with the coating width to
plasma wavelength ratio and the coating and host
refractive indices and , respectively, between 1 and 1.47, one can
always find a sphere radius such that the relative gap width (gap
width to the midgap frequency ratio) is larger than 5% and, in some cases,
can exceed 9%. Using different coatings and supporting liquids, the width
and midgap frequency of a CPBG can be tuned considerably.Comment: 14 pages, plain latex, 3 ps figures, to appear in Europhys. Lett. For
more info on this subject see
http://www.amolf.nl/research/photonic_materials_theory/moroz/moroz.htm
Collective oscillations driven by correlation in the nonlinear optical regime
We present an analytical and numerical study of the coherent exciton
polarization including exciton-exciton correlation. The time evolution after
excitation with ultrashort optical pulses can be divided into a slowly varying
polarization component and novel ultrafast collective modes. The frequency and
damping of the collective modes are determined by the high-frequency properties
of the retarded two-exciton correlation function, which includes Coulomb
effects beyond the mean-field approximation. The overall time evolution depends
on the low-frequency spectral behavior. The collective mode, well separated
from the slower coherent density evolution, manifests itself in the coherent
emission of a resonantly excited excitonic system, as demonstrated numerically.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in Physical Review
Letter
Kinetic and structural mechanism for DNA unwinding by a non-hexameric helicase
UvrD, a model for non-hexameric Superfamily 1 helicases, utilizes ATP hydrolysis to translocate stepwise along single-stranded DNA and unwind the duplex. Previous estimates of its step size have been indirect, and a consensus on its stepping mechanism is lacking. To dissect the mechanism underlying DNA unwinding, we use optical tweezers to measure directly the stepping behavior of UvrD as it processes a DNA hairpin and show that UvrD exhibits a variable step size averaging ~3 base pairs. Analyzing stepping kinetics across ATP reveals the type and number of catalytic events that occur with different step sizes. These single-molecule data reveal a mechanism in which UvrD moves one base pair at a time but sequesters the nascent single strands, releasing them non-uniformly after a variable number of catalytic cycles. Molecular dynamics simulations point to a structural basis for this behavior, identifying the protein-DNA interactions responsible for strand sequestration. Based on structural and sequence alignment data, we propose that this stepping mechanism may be conserved among other non-hexameric helicases
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Photocarrier relaxation in the quantum kinetics regime
We present a study of carrier relaxation in GaAs in the quantum- kinetics regime. The results cannot be explained by Bolzmann kinetics. They are in satisfactory agreement with quantum-kinetic theory calculation of the occupation number in k-space
Radiative corrections to the excitonic molecule state in GaAs microcavities
The optical properties of excitonic molecules (XXs) in GaAs-based quantum
well microcavities (MCs) are studied, both theoretically and experimentally. We
show that the radiative corrections to the XX state, the Lamb shift
and radiative width , are
large, about of the molecule binding energy , and
definitely cannot be neglected. The optics of excitonic molecules is dominated
by the in-plane resonant dissociation of the molecules into outgoing
1-mode and 0-mode cavity polaritons. The later decay channel,
``excitonic molecule 0-mode polariton + 0-mode
polariton'', deals with the short-wavelength MC polaritons invisible in
standard optical experiments, i.e., refers to ``hidden'' optics of
microcavities. By using transient four-wave mixing and pump-probe
spectroscopies, we infer that the radiative width, associated with excitonic
molecules of the binding energy meV, is
meV in the microcavities and
meV in a reference GaAs single quantum
well (QW). We show that for our high-quality quasi-two-dimensional
nanostructures the limit, relevant to the XX states, holds at
temperatures below 10 K, and that the bipolariton model of excitonic molecules
explains quantitatively and self-consistently the measured XX radiative widths.
We also find and characterize two critical points in the dependence of the
radiative corrections against the microcavity detuning, and propose to use the
critical points for high-precision measurements of the molecule bindingenergy
and microcavity Rabi splitting.Comment: 16 pages, 11 figures, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.
Decoherence-Free Subspaces for Multiple-Qubit Errors: (I) Characterization
Coherence in an open quantum system is degraded through its interaction with
a bath. This decoherence can be avoided by restricting the dynamics of the
system to special decoherence-free subspaces. These subspaces are usually
constructed under the assumption of spatially symmetric system-bath coupling.
Here we show that decoherence-free subspaces may appear without spatial
symmetry. Instead, we consider a model of system-bath interactions in which to
first order only multiple-qubit coupling to the bath is present, with
single-qubit system-bath coupling absent. We derive necessary and sufficient
conditions for the appearance of decoherence-free states in this model, and
give a number of examples. In a sequel paper we show how to perform universal
and fault tolerant quantum computation on the decoherence-free subspaces
considered in this paper.Comment: 18 pages, no figures. Major changes. Section on universal fault
tolerant computation removed. This section contained a crucial error. A new
paper [quant-ph/0007013] presents the correct analysi
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