29 research outputs found
Colossal Magnetoresistance is a Griffiths Singularity
It is now widely accepted that the magnetic transition in doped manganites
that show large magnetoresistance is a type of percolation effect. This paper
demonstrates that the transition should be viewed in the context of the
Griffiths phase that arises when disorder suppresses a magnetic transition.
This approach explains unusual aspects of susceptibility and heat capacity data
from a single crystal of LaCaMnOComment: 4 page
Low frequency 1/f noise in doped manganite grain-boundary junctions
We have performed a systematic analysis of the low frequency 1/f-noise in
single grain boundary junctions in the colossal magnetoresistance material
La_{2/3}Ca_{1/3}MnO_{3-delta}. The grain boundary junctions were formed in
epitaxial La_{2/3}Ca_{1/3}MnO_{3-delta} films deposited on SrTiO_3 bicrystal
substrates and show a large tunneling magnetoresistance of up to 300% at 4.2 K
as well as ideal, rectangular shaped resistance versus applied magnetic field
curves. Below the Curie temperature T_C the measured 1/f noise is dominated by
the grain boundary. The dependence of the noise on bias current, temperature
and applied magnetic field gives clear evidence that the large amount of low
frequency noise is caused by localized sites with fluctuating magnetic moments
in a heavily disordered grain boundary region. At 4.2 K additional temporally
unstable Lorentzian components show up in the noise spectra that are most
likely caused by fluctuating clusters of interacting magnetic moments. Noise
due to fluctuating domains in the junction electrodes is found to play no
significant role.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figure
Dynamic transition in vortex flow in strongly disordered Josephson junction arrays and superconducting thin films
We study the dynamics of vortices in strongly disordered Josephson
junction arrays and superconducting films driven by a current. We find a
dynamic phase transition in vortex flow at a current . Below
there is plastic flow characterized by an average-velocity correlation length
scale in the direction of motion, which diverges when approaching
. Above we find a moving vortex phase with homogeneous flow and
short range smectic order. A finite size analysis shows that this phase becomes
asymptotically a liquid for large length scales.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Noise Probe of the Dynamic Phase Separation in La2/3Ca1/3MnO3
Giant Random Telegraph Noise (RTN) in the resistance fluctuation of a
macroscopic film of perovskite-type manganese oxide La2/3Ca1/3MnO3 has been
observed at various temperatures ranging from 4K to 170K, well below the Curie
temperature (TC = 210K). The amplitudes of the two-level-fluctuations (TLF)
vary from 0.01% to 0.2%. We use a statistical analysis of the life-times of the
TLF to gain insight into the microscopic electronic and magnetic state of this
manganite. At low temperature (below 30K) The TLF is well described by a
thermally activated two-level model. An estimate of the energy difference
between the two states is inferred. At higher temperature (between 60K and
170K) we observed critical effects of the temperature on the life-times of the
TLF. We discuss this peculiar temperature dependence in terms of a sharp change
in the free energy functional of the fluctuators. We attribute the origin of
the RTN to be a dynamic mixed-phase percolative conduction process, where
manganese clusters switch back and forth between two phases that differ in
their conductivity and magnetization.Comment: 15 pages, PDF only, Phys. Rev. Lett. (in press
Instabilities and disorder-driven first-order transition of the vortex lattice
Transport studies in a Corbino disk geometry suggest that the Bragg glass
phase undergoes a first-order transition into a disordered solid. This
transition shows a sharp reentrant behavior at low fields. In contrast, in the
conventional strip configuration, the phase transition is obscured by the
injection of the disordered vortices through the sample edges, which results in
the commonly observed vortex instabilities and smearing of the peak effect in
NbSe2 crystals. These features are found to be absent in the Corbino geometry,
in which the circulating vortices do not cross the sample edges.Comment: 12 pages 3 figures. Accepted for publication in Physical Review
Letter
Hall noise and transverse freezing in driven vortex lattices
We study driven vortices lattices in superconducting thin films. Above the
critical force we find two dynamical phase transitions at and
, which could be observed in simultaneous noise measurements of the
longitudinal and the Hall voltage. At there is a transition from plastic
flow to smectic flow where the voltage noise is isotropic (Hall noise =
longitudinal noise) and there is a peak in the differential resistance. At
there is a sharp transition to a frozen transverse solid where the Hall
noise falls down abruptly and vortex motion is localized in the transverse
direction.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure
Effect of pinning and driving force on the metastability effects in weakly pinned superconductors and the determination of spinodal line pertaining to order-disorder transition
We explore the effect of varying drive on metastability features exhibited by
the vortex matter in single crystals of 2H-NbSe and CeRu with varying
degree of random pinning. An optimal balance between the pinning and driving
force is needed to view the metastability effects in typically weakly pinned
specimen of low temperature superconductors. As one uses samples with larger
pinning in order to differentiate the response of different metastable vortex
states, one encounters a new phenomena, viz., the second magnetization peak
(SMP) anomaly prior to the PE. Interplay between the path dependence in the
critical current density and the non-linearity in the electromagnetic response
determine the metastability effects seen in first and the third harmonic
response of the ac susceptibility across the temperature regions of the SMP and
the PE. The limiting temperature above which metastability effects cease can be
conveniently located in the third harmonic data, and the observed behavior can
be rationalized within the Beans Critical State model. A vortex phase diagram
showing the different vortex phases for a typically weakly pinned specimen has
been constructed via the ac susceptibility data in a crystal of 2H-NbSe
which shows the SMP and the PE anomalies. The phase space of coexisting weaker
and stronger pinned regions has been identified. It can be bifurcated into two
parts, where the order and disorder dominate, respectively. The former part
continuously connects to the reentrant disordered vortex phase pertaining to
the small bundle pinning regime, where the vortices are far apart, interaction
effects are weak and the polycrystalline form of flux line lattice prevails.Comment: Submitted to the Special Volume on Vortex State Studies, Pramana J.
Phy
Biogenesis of the inner membrane complex is dependent on vesicular transport by the alveolate specific GTPase Rab11B
Apicomplexan parasites belong to a recently recognised group of protozoa referred to as Alveolata. These protists contain membranous sacs (alveoli) beneath the plasma membrane, termed the Inner Membrane Complex (IMC) in the case of Apicomplexa. During parasite replication the IMC is formed de novo within the mother cell in a process described as internal budding. We hypothesized that an alveolate specific factor is involved in the specific transport of vesicles from the Golgi to the IMC and identified the small GTPase Rab11B as an alveolate specific Rab-GTPase that localises to the growing end of the IMC during replication of Toxoplasma gondii. Conditional interference with Rab11B function leads to a profound defect in IMC biogenesis, indicating that Rab11B is required for the transport of Golgi derived vesicles to the nascent IMC of the daughter cell. Curiously, a block in IMC biogenesis did not affect formation of sub-pellicular microtubules, indicating that IMC biogenesis and formation of sub-pellicular microtubules is not mechanistically linked. We propose a model where Rab11B specifically transports vesicles derived from the Golgi to the immature IMC of the growing daughter parasites
Charge Transport in Manganites: Hopping Conduction, the Anomalous Hall Effect and Universal Scaling
The low-temperature Hall resistivity \rho_{xy} of La_{2/3}A_{1/3}MnO_3 single
crystals (where A stands for Ca, Pb and Ca, or Sr) can be separated into
Ordinary and Anomalous contributions, giving rise to Ordinary and Anomalous
Hall effects, respectively. However, no such decomposition is possible near the
Curie temperature which, in these systems, is close to metal-to-insulator
transition. Rather, for all of these compounds and to a good approximation, the
\rho_{xy} data at various temperatures and magnetic fields collapse (up to an
overall scale), on to a single function of the reduced magnetization
m=M/M_{sat}, the extremum of this function lying at m~0.4. A new mechanism for
the Anomalous Hall Effect in the inelastic hopping regime, which reproduces
these scaling curves, is identified. This mechanism, which is an extension of
Holstein's model for the Ordinary Hall effect in the hopping regime, arises
from the combined effects of the double-exchange-induced quantal phase in
triads of Mn ions and spin-orbit interactions. We identify processes that lead
to the Anomalous Hall Effect for localized carriers and, along the way, analyze
issues of quantum interference in the presence of phonon-assisted hopping. Our
results suggest that, near the ferromagnet-to-paramagnet transition, it is
appropriate to describe transport in manganites in terms of carrier hopping
between states that are localized due to combined effect of magnetic and
non-magnetic disorder. We attribute the qualitative variations in resistivity
characteristics across manganite compounds to the differing strengths of their
carrier self-trapping, and conclude that both disorder-induced localization and
self-trapping effects are important for transport.Comment: 29 pages, 20 figure
Structure of the APPL1 BAR-PH domain and characterization of its interaction with Rab5
APPL1 is an effector of the small GTPase Rab5. Together, they mediate a signal transduction pathway initiated by ligand binding to cell surface receptors. Interaction with Rab5 is confined to the amino (N)-terminal region of APPL1. We report the crystal structures of human APPL1 N-terminal BAR-PH domain motif. The BAR and PH domains, together with a novel linker helix, form an integrated, crescent-shaped, symmetrical dimer. This BAR–PH interaction is likely conserved in the class of BAR-PH containing proteins. Biochemical analyses indicate two independent Rab-binding sites located at the opposite ends of the dimer, where the PH domain directly interacts with Rab5 and Rab21. Besides structurally supporting the PH domain, the BAR domain also contributes to Rab binding through a small surface region in the vicinity of the PH domain. In stark contrast to the helix-dominated, Rab-binding domains previously reported, APPL1 PH domain employs β-strands to interact with Rab5. On the Rab5 side, both switch regions are involved in the interaction. Thus we identified a new binding mode between PH domains and small GTPases