99 research outputs found
Why pinning by surface irregularities can explain the peak effect in transport properties and neutron diffraction results in NbSe2 and Bi-2212 crystals?
The existence of a peak effect in transport properties (a maximum of the
critical current as function of magnetic field) is a well-known but still
intriguing feature of type II superconductors such as NbSe2 and Bi-2212. Using
a model of pinning by surface irregularities in anisotropic superconductors, we
have developed a calculation of the critical current which allows estimating
quantitatively the critical current in both the high critical current phase and
in the low critical current phase. The only adjustable parameter of this model
is the angle of the vortices at the surface. The agreement between the
measurements and the model is really very impressive. In this framework, the
anomalous dynamical properties close to the peak effect is due to co-existence
of two different vortex states with different critical currents. Recent neutron
diffraction data in NbSe2 crystals in presence of transport current support
this point of view
Experimental study of the correlation length of critical-current fluctuations in the presence of surface disorder: Probing vortex long-range interactions
We report on critical currents and voltage noise measurements in Niobium
strips in the superconducting state, in the presence of a bulk vortex lattice
() and in the surface superconducting state ().
For homogeneous surfaces, the correlation length of the current fluctuations
can be associated with the electromagnetic skin depth of vortex superficial
instabilities. The modification of the surface state by means of low energy
irradiation induces a strong modification of the critical current and of the
noise. The appearance of a corner frequency in the spectral domain can be
linked with the low wave-vectors of the artificial corrugation. Since this
latter occurs only for , we propose that the long-range
interactions allow the correlation length to extend up to values imposed by the
surface topography.Comment: accepted for publication in PR
Longitudinal and transverse noise in a moving Vortex Lattice
We have studied the longitudinal and the transverse velocity fluctuations of
a moving vortex lattice (VL) driven by a transport current. They exhibit both
the same broad spectrum and the same order of magnitude. These two components
are insensitive to the velocity and to a small bulk perturbation. This means
that no bulk averaging over the disorder and no VL crystallization are
observed. This is consistently explained referring to a previously proposed
noisy flow of surface current whose elementary fluctuator is measured
isotropic.Comment: accepted for publication in Phys Rev
Simulation of MeV/atom cluster correlations in matter
We present an efficient algorithm able to predict the trajectories of individual cluster constituents as they penetrate relatively thick amorphous targets. Our algorithm properly treats both the intracluster Coulomb repulsion and the collisions between cluster constituents and target atoms. We have compared our simulation predictions to experimental measurements of the distribution of lateral exit velocities, and demonstrated that the in-target Coulomb explosion of 2MeV/atom carbon clusters in carbon foils must be shielded with a screening length of less than 2.5 Å. We also present a simple phenomenological model for the suppression of the exit-side charge of ions in clusters which depends on the enhanced ionization potential that an electron near an ion feels due to the ion’s charged comoving neighbors. By using our simulation algorithm we have predicted the exit correlations of the cluster constituents and verified that the charge suppression model fits the observed charge suppression of ions in clusters to within the experimental uncertainties
Measurement of energy and angular distributions of secondary ions in the sputtering of gold by swift Au-n clusters: Study of emission mechanisms
Energy and angular distributions of negative ions (Au–, Au2-, Au3-, and Au5-) emitted from gold target bombarded by Au, Au4, and Au9 projectiles at 200 keV/atom were measured with a multipixel position sensitive detector. The angular distributions are symmetrical with respect to the normal to the target surface and forward peaked. They depend on the type of emitted ions, on the emission energy, and on the projectile size. More forward directed emission is observed with Au9 projectiles. The secondary ion energy distributions obtained with Au and Au4 projectiles are well reproduced by a sum of linear collision cascades and thermal spike processes. However, in the case of Au9 projectiles the energy distributions are better described by using a simple spike model with two different average temperature regimes: the first one corresponds to high emission energy occurring in the early stage of the whole process, and the second to the low energy component
Heavy gold cluster beams production and identification
NIM ACCIt is shown that beams of very heavy gold clusters can be produced by a liquid metal ion source (LMIS). An experimental method is described for defining the LMIS source and the Wien filter parameters that must be set to extract and select large Aun clusters. This method is based on the acceleration of the clusters to high energy (MeV) and on the measurement, after their passage through a thin foil, of their number of constituents and velocity. Only an average mass over charge value is obtained for a given set of source and Wien filter parameters. These parameters can then be used to select heavy Aun cluster beams for applications at low energy (keV) in mass spectrometry
Energy loss and angular distributions of gold cluster constituents
Heavy gold cluster beams are accelerated to high energy (hundreds of keV/atom) and break up when going through a thin foil. The energy and angular distributions of the constituents are then measured and very well reproduced by a SRIM code calculation, which takes into account atomic interactions only. These distributions do not depend on the number of constituents in the cluster and are found to be the same as those of single gold atoms at the same velocity, in the studied energy range
Exact solution of Markovian master equations for quadratic fermi systems: thermal baths, open XY spin chains, and non-equilibrium phase transition
We generalize the method of third quantization to a unified exact treatment
of Redfield and Lindblad master equations for open quadratic systems of n
fermions in terms of diagonalization of 4n x 4n matrix. Non-equilibrium thermal
driving in terms of the Redfield equation is analyzed in detail. We explain how
to compute all physically relevant quantities, such as non-equilibrium
expectation values of local observables, various entropies or information
measures, or time evolution and properties of relaxation. We also discuss how
to exactly treat explicitly time dependent problems. The general formalism is
then applied to study a thermally driven open XY spin 1/2 chain. We find that
recently proposed non-equilibrium quantum phase transition in the open XY chain
survives the thermal driving within the Redfield model. In particular, the
phase of long-range magnetic correlations can be characterized by
hypersensitivity of the non-equilibrium-steady state to external (bath or bulk)
parameters. Studying the heat transport we find negative thermal conductance
for sufficiently strong thermal driving, as well as non-monotonic dependence of
the heat current on the strength of the bath coupling.Comment: 24 pages, 12 figures, submitted to New Journal of Physics, Focus
issue "Quantum Information and Many-Body Theory
Very large gold and silver sputtering yields induced by keV to MeV energy Au clusters (n = 1-13)
CAS, BIA
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