Different facets of the raise and peel model

The raise and peel model is a one-dimensional stochastic model of a fluctuating interface with nonlocal interactions. This is an interesting physical model. It's phase diagram has a massive phase and a gapless phase with varying critical exponents. At the phase transition point, the model exhibits conformal invariance which is a space-time symmetry. Also at this point the model has several other facets which are the connections to associative algebras, two-dimensional fully packed loop models and combinatorics.Comment: 29 pages 17 figure

Temperley-Lieb Stochastic Processes

We discuss one-dimensional stochastic processes defined through the Temperley-Lieb algebra related to the Q=1 Potts model. For various boundary conditions, we formulate a conjecture relating the probability distribution which describes the stationary state, to the enumeration of a symmetry class of alternating sign matrices, objects that have received much attention in combinatorics.Comment: 9 pages LaTeX, 11 Postscript figures, minor change

Nonlinear absorption and refraction of picosecond and femtosecond pulses in HgTe quantum dot films

We report measurements of the saturated intensities, saturable absorption, and nonlinear refraction in 70-nm thick films containing 4 nm HgTe quantum dots. We demonstrate strong nonlinear refraction and saturable absorption in the thin films using tunable picosecond and femtosecond pulses. Studies were carried out using tunable laser pulses in the range of 400–1100 nm. A significant variation of the nonlinear refraction along this spectral range was demonstrated. The maximal values of the nonlinear absorption coefficients and nonlinear refractive indices determined within the studied wavelength range were −2.4 × 10−5 cm2 W−1 (in the case of 28 ps, 700 nm probe pulses) and −3 × 10−9 cm2 W−1 (in the case of 28 ps, 400 nm probe pulses), respectively. Our studies show that HgTe quantum dots can be used in different fields e.g., as efficient emitters of high-order harmonics of ultrashort laser pulses or as laser mode-lockers. © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. Published under the CC BY 4.0 license.European Regional Development Fund (1.1.1.5/19/A/003), Latvian Council of Sciences (lzp-2020/2-0238). Institute of Solid State Physics, University of Latvia as the Center of Excellence acknowledges funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 Framework Programme H2020-WIDESPREAD-01-2016-2017-TeamingPhase2 under grant agreement No. 739508, project CAMART2

Refined Razumov-Stroganov conjectures for open boundaries

Recently it has been conjectured that the ground-state of a Markovian Hamiltonian, with one boundary operator, acting in a link pattern space is related to vertically and horizontally symmetric alternating-sign matrices (equivalently fully-packed loop configurations (FPL) on a grid with special boundaries).We extend this conjecture by introducing an arbitrary boundary parameter. We show that the parameter dependent ground state is related to refined vertically symmetric alternating-sign matrices i.e. with prescribed configurations (respectively, prescribed FPL configurations) in the next to central row. We also conjecture a relation between the ground-state of a Markovian Hamiltonian with two boundary operators and arbitrary coefficients and some doubly refined (dependence on two parameters) FPL configurations. Our conjectures might be useful in the study of ground-states of the O(1) and XXZ models, as well as the stationary states of Raise and Peel models.Comment: 11 pages LaTeX, 8 postscript figure

Nonlinear Optical Characterization of InP@ZnS Core-Shell Colloidal Quantum Dots Using 532 nm, 10 ns Pulses

InP@ZnS core-shell colloidal quantum dots (CQDs) were synthesized and characterized using the z-scan technique. The nonlinear refraction and nonlinear absorption coefficients (γ = −2 × 10−12 cm2 W−1, β = 4 × 10−8 cm W−1) of these CQDs were determined using 10 ns, 532 nm pulses. The saturable absorption (β = −1.4 × 10−9 cm W−1, Isat = 3.7 × 108 W cm−2) in the 3.5 nm CQDs dominated at small intensities of the probe pulses (I ≤ 7 × 107 W cm−2) followed by reverse saturable absorption at higher laser intensities. We report the optical limiting studies using these CQDs showing the suppression of propagated nanosecond radiation in the intensity range of 8 × 107–2 × 109 W cm−2. The role of nonlinear scattering is considered using off-axis z-scan scheme, which demonstrated the insignificant role of this process along the whole range of used intensities of 532 nm pulses. We discuss the thermal nature of the negative nonlinear refraction in the studied species

Environmentally sustainable organic field effect transistors

Environmentally sustainable systems for the design, production, and handling of electronic devices should be developed to solve the dramatic increase in electronic waste. Sustainability in plastic electronics may be the production of electronic devices from natural materials, or materials found in common commodity products accepted by society. Thereby biodegradable, biocompatible, bioresorbable, or even metabolizable electronics may become reality. Transistors with an operational voltage as low as 6 V, a source drain current of up to 0.5 μA and an on–off ratio up to four orders of magnitude, with saturated field effect mobilities in the range of 1.5 × 10−4 to 2 × 10−2 cm2/V s, have been fabricated with such materials. Our work comprises steps towards environmentally safe devices in low-cost, large volume, disposable or throwaway electronic applications, such as in food packaging, plastic bags, and disposable dishware. In addition, there is significant potential to use such electronic items in biomedical implants. As such, organic materials offer a unique opportunity to guide electronics industry towards an environmentally safe direction