17,824 research outputs found
Dirac model of electronic transport in graphene antidot barriers
In order to use graphene for semiconductor applications, such as transistors
with high on/off ratios, a band gap must be introduced into this otherwise
semimetallic material. A promising method of achieving a band gap is by
introducing nanoscale perforations (antidots) in a periodic pattern, known as a
graphene antidot lattice (GAL). A graphene antidot barrier (GAB) can be made by
introducing a 1D GAL strip in an otherwise pristine sheet of graphene. In this
paper, we will use the Dirac equation (DE) with a spatially varying mass term
to calculate the electronic transport through such structures. Our approach is
much more general than previous attempts to use the Dirac equation to calculate
scattering of Dirac electrons on antidots. The advantage of using the DE is
that the computational time is scale invariant and our method may therefore be
used to calculate properties of arbitrarily large structures. We show that the
results of our Dirac model are in quantitative agreement with tight-binding for
hexagonal antidots with armchair edges. Furthermore, for a wide range of
structures, we verify that a relatively narrow GAB, with only a few antidots in
the unit cell, is sufficient to give rise to a transport gap
Electronic and optical properties of graphene antidot lattices: Comparison of Dirac and tight-binding models
The electronic properties of graphene may be changed from semimetallic to
semiconducting by introducing perforations (antidots) in a periodic pattern.
The properties of such graphene antidot lattices (GALs) have previously been
studied using atomistic models, which are very time consuming for large
structures. We present a continuum model that uses the Dirac equation (DE) to
describe the electronic and optical properties of GALs. The advantages of the
Dirac model are that the calculation time does not depend on the size of the
structures and that the results are scalable. In addition, an approximation of
the band gap using the DE is presented. The Dirac model is compared with
nearest-neighbour tight-binding (TB) in order to assess its accuracy. Extended
zigzag regions give rise to localized edge states, whereas armchair edges do
not. We find that the Dirac model is in quantitative agreement with TB for GALs
without edge states, but deviates for antidots with large zigzag regions.Comment: 15 pages, 7 figures. Accepted by Journal of Physics: Condensed matte
Scaling behavior of spin transport in hydrogenated graphene
We calculate the spin transport of hydrogenated graphene using the
Landauer-B\"uttiker formalism with a spin-dependent tight-binding Hamiltonian.
The advantages of using this method is that it simultaneously gives information
on sheet resistance and localization length as well as spin relaxation length.
Furthermore, the Landauer-B\"uttiker formula can be computed very efficiently
using the recursive Green's function technique. Previous theoretical results on
spin relaxation time in hydrogenated graphene have not been in agreement with
experiments. Here, we study magnetic defects in graphene with randomly aligned
magnetic moments, where interference between spin-channels is explicitly
included. We show that the spin relaxation length and sheet resistance scale
nearly linearly with the impurity concentration. Moreover, the spin relaxation
mechanism in hydrogenated graphene is Markovian only near the charge neutrality
point or in the highly dilute impurity limit
Bubble coalescence in breathing DNA: Two vicious walkers in opposite potentials
We investigate the coalescence of two DNA-bubbles initially located at weak
segments and separated by a more stable barrier region in a designed construct
of double-stranded DNA. The characteristic time for bubble coalescence and the
corresponding distribution are derived, as well as the distribution of
coalescence positions along the barrier. Below the melting temperature, we find
a Kramers-type barrier crossing behaviour, while at high temperatures, the
bubble corners perform drift-diffusion towards coalescence. The results are
obtained by mapping the bubble dynamics on the problem of two vicious walkers
in opposite potentials.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figure
Excitation of zero-frequency magnetic field-aligned currents by ionospheric heating
Time-dependent, three-dimensional numerical simulations of the reduced MHD model describing shear Alfve ́n waves in the magnetosphere provide an interesting prediction superficially similar to results of several iono- spheric heating experiments conducted at high altitudes. In these experiments, heating of the ionospheric F-region with a constant/zero-frequency beam of HF waves causes luminous structures in the ionosphere in the form of a ring or a solid spot with a characteristic size comparable to the size of the heated spot. Simulations suggest that spots/rings or similar optical appearance might be associated with a magnetic field- aligned current system produced by the ionospheric heat- ing. Two of the most interesting features of this current system are (1) strong localization across the ambient mag- netic field and (2) distinctive non-symmetrical luminous sig- natures (ring/spot) in magnetically conjugate locations in the ionosphere
Volume-energy correlations in the slow degrees of freedom of computer-simulated phospholipid membranes
Constant-pressure molecular-dynamics simulations of phospholipid membranes in
the fluid phase reveal strong correlations between equilibrium fluctuations of
volume and energy on the nanosecond time-scale. The existence of strong
volume-energy correlations was previously deduced indirectly by Heimburg from
experiments focusing on the phase transition between the fluid and the ordered
gel phases. The correlations, which are reported here for three different
membranes (DMPC, DMPS-Na, and DMPSH), have volume-energy correlation
coefficients ranging from 0.81 to 0.89. The DMPC membrane was studied at two
temperatures showing that the correlation coefficient increases as the phase
transition is approached
A Mesolithic settlement site at Howick, Northumberland: a preliminary report
Excavations at a coastal site at Howick during 2000 and 2002 have revealed evidence for a substantial Mesolithic settlement and a Bronze Age cist cemetery. Twenty one radiocarbon determinations of the earlier eighth millennium BP (Cal.) indicate that the Mesolithic site is one of the earliest known in northern Britain. An 8m core of sediment was recovered from stream deposits adjacent to the archaeological site which provides information on local environmental conditions. Howick offers a unique opportunity to understand aspects of hunter-gatherer colonisation and settlement during a period of rapid palaeogeographical change around the margins of the North Sea basin, at a time when it was being progressively inundated by the final stages of the postglacial marine transgression. The cist cemetery will add to the picture of Bronze Age occupation of the coastal strip and again reveals a correlation between the location of Bronze Age and Mesolithic sites which has been observed elsewhere in the region
Clar Sextet Analysis of Triangular, Rectangular and Honeycomb Graphene Antidot Lattices
Pristine graphene is a semimetal and thus does not have a band gap. By making
a nanometer scale periodic array of holes in the graphene sheet a band gap may
form; the size of the gap is controllable by adjusting the parameters of the
lattice. The hole diameter, hole geometry, lattice geometry and the separation
of the holes are parameters that all play an important role in determining the
size of the band gap, which, for technological applications, should be at least
of the order of tenths of an eV. We investigate four different hole
configurations: the rectangular, the triangular, the rotated triangular and the
honeycomb lattice. It is found that the lattice geometry plays a crucial role
for size of the band gap: the triangular arrangement displays always a sizable
gap, while for the other types only particular hole separations lead to a large
gap. This observation is explained using Clar sextet theory, and we find that a
sufficient condition for a large gap is that the number of sextets exceeds one
third of the total number of hexagons in the unit cell. Furthermore, we
investigate non-isosceles triangular structures to probe the sensitivity of the
gap in triangular lattices to small changes in geometry
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