1,634 research outputs found
A Circuit Model for Domain Walls in Ferromagnetic Nanowires: Application to Conductance and Spin Transfer Torques
We present a circuit model to describe the electron transport through a
domain wall in a ferromagnetic nanowire. The domain wall is treated as a
coherent 4-terminal device with incoming and outgoing channels of spin up and
down and the spin-dependent scattering in the vicinity of the wall is modelled
using classical resistances. We derive the conductance of the circuit in terms
of general conductance parameters for a domain wall. We then calculate these
conductance parameters for the case of ballistic transport through the domain
wall, and obtain a simple formula for the domain wall magnetoresistance which
gives a result consistent with recent experiments. The spin transfer torque
exerted on a domain wall by a spin-polarized current is calculated using the
circuit model and an estimate of the speed of the resulting wall motion is
made.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures; submitted to Physical Review
Cross-sectional study assessing HIV related knowledge, attitudes and behavior in Namibian public sector employees in capital and regional settings
The study objective was to assess the current status of HIV knowledge, attitudes and behavior (KAB) among employees of Namibian ministries. As most HIV campaigning takes place in the capital of Windhoek, an additional aim was to compare Windhoek to four regions (Hardap, Erongo, Oshana, and Caprivi). Between January and March 2011 a cross-sectional survey was conducted in two Namibian ministries, with participants selected randomly from the workforce. Data collection was based on questionnaires. 832 participants were included in the study (51.6% male). Nearly 90% of participants reported to have been tested for HIV before. Knowledge about HIV transmission ranged from 67% to 95% of correct answers, with few differences between the capital and regions. However, a knowledge gap regarding HIV transmission and prevention was seen. In particular, we found significantly lower knowledge regarding transmission from mother-to-child during pregnancy and higher rate of belief in a supernatural role in HIV transmission. In addition, despite many years of HIV prevention activities, a substantial proportion of employees had well-known HIV risk factors including multiple concurrent partnership rates (21%), intergenerational sex (19%), and lower testing rates for men (82% compared to women with 91%)
Theory of scanning gate microscopy
A systematic theory of the conductance measurements of non-invasive (weak
probe) scanning gate microscopy is presented that provides an interpretation of
what precisely is being measured. A scattering approach is used to derive
explicit expressions for the first and second order conductance changes due to
the perturbation by the tip potential in terms of the scattering states of the
unperturbed structure. In the case of a quantum point contact, the first order
correction dominates at the conductance steps and vanishes on the plateaus
where the second order term dominates. Both corrections are non-local for a
generic structure. Only in special cases, such as that of a centrally symmetric
quantum point contact in the conductance quantization regime, can the second
order correction be unambiguously related with the local current density. In
the case of an abrupt quantum point contact we are able to obtain analytic
expressions for the scattering eigenfunctions and thus evaluate the resulting
conductance corrections.Comment: 19 pages, 7 figure
Length-dependent oscillations of the conductance through atomic chains: The importance of electronic correlations
We calculate the conductance of atomic chains as a function of their length.
Using the Density Matrix Renormalization Group algorithm for a many-body model
which takes into account electron-electron interactions and the shape of the
contacts between the chain and the leads, we show that length-dependent
oscillations of the conductance whose period depends on the electron density in
the chain can result from electron-electron scattering alone. The amplitude of
these oscillations can increase with the length of the chain, in contrast to
the result from approaches which neglect the interactions.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figure
Anomaly in the relaxation dynamics close to the surface plasmon resonance
We propose an explanation for the anomalous behaviour observed in the
relaxation dynamics of the differential optical transmission of noble-metal
nanoparticles. Using the temperature dependences of the position and the width
of the surface plasmon resonance, we obtain a strong frequency dependence in
the time evolution of the transmission close to the resonance. In particular,
our approach accounts for the slowdown found below the plasmon frequency. This
interpretation is independent of the presence of a nearby interband transition
which has been invoked previously. We therefore argue that the anomaly should
also appear for alkaline nanoparticles.Comment: version published in EP
Classification of airborne laser scanning data using geometric multi-scale features and different neighbourhood types
In this paper, we address the classification of airborne laser scanning data. We present a novel methodology relying on the use of complementary types of geometric features extracted from multiple local neighbourhoods of different scale and type. To demonstrate the performance of our methodology, we present results of a detailed evaluation on a standard benchmark dataset and we show that the consideration of multi-scale, multi-type neighbourhoods as the basis for feature extraction leads to improved classification results in comparison to single-scale neighbourhoods as well as in comparison to multi-scale neighbourhoods of the same type
Disorder-induced enhancement of the persistent current for strongly interacting electrons in one-dimensional rings
We show that disorder increases the persistent current of a half-filled
one-dimensional Hubbard-Anderson ring at strong interaction. This unexpected
effect results from a perturbative expansion starting from the strongly
interacting Mott insulator ground state. The analytical result is confirmed and
extended by numerical calculations.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures, LaTeX, using epl.cls (included), considerably
revised final versio
Electron Transport through Disordered Domain Walls: Coherent and Incoherent Regimes
We study electron transport through a domain wall in a ferromagnetic nanowire
subject to spin-dependent scattering. A scattering matrix formalism is
developed to address both coherent and incoherent transport properties. The
coherent case corresponds to elastic scattering by static defects, which is
dominant at low temperatures, while the incoherent case provides a
phenomenological description of the inelastic scattering present in real
physical systems at room temperature. It is found that disorder scattering
increases the amount of spin-mixing of transmitted electrons, reducing the
adiabaticity. This leads, in the incoherent case, to a reduction of conductance
through the domain wall as compared to a uniformly magnetized region which is
similar to the giant magnetoresistance effect. In the coherent case, a
reduction of weak localization, together with a suppression of spin-reversing
scattering amplitudes, leads to an enhancement of conductance due to the domain
wall in the regime of strong disorder. The total effect of a domain wall on the
conductance of a nanowire is studied by incorporating the disordered regions on
either side of the wall. It is found that spin-dependent scattering in these
regions increases the domain wall magnetoconductance as compared to the effect
found by considering only the scattering inside the wall. This increase is most
dramatic in the narrow wall limit, but remains significant for wide walls.Comment: 23 pages, 12 figure
Scanning gate experiments: from strongly to weakly invasive probes
An open resonator fabricated in a two-dimensional electron gas is used to
explore the transition from strongly invasive scanning gate microscopy to the
perturbative regime of weak tip-induced potentials. With the help of numerical
simulations that faithfully reproduce the main experimental findings, we
quantify the extent of the perturbative regime in which the tip-induced
conductance change is unambiguously determined by properties of the unperturbed
system. The correspondence between the experimental and numerical results is
established by analyzing the characteristic length scale and the amplitude
modulation of the conductance change. In the perturbative regime, the former is
shown to assume a disorder-dependent maximum value, while the latter linearly
increases with the strength of a weak tip potential.Comment: 11 pages, 7 figure
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