2,877 research outputs found
Effect of stoichiometry on oxygen incorporation in MgB2 thin films
The amount of oxygen incorporated into MgB2 thin films upon exposure to
atmospheric gasses is found to depend strongly on the material's stoichiometry.
Rutherford backscattering spectroscopy was used to monitor changes in oxygen
incorporation resulting from exposure to: (a) ambient atmosphere, (b) humid
atmospheres, (c) anneals in air and (d) anneals in oxygen. The study
investigated thin-film samples with compositions that were systematically
varied from Mg0.9B2 to Mg1.1B2. A significant surface oxygen contamination was
observed in all of these films. The oxygen content in the bulk of the film, on
the other hand, increased significantly only in Mg rich films and in films
exposed to humid atmospheres.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures, 1 tabl
Topological Qubit Design and Leakage
We examine how best to design qubits for use in topological quantum
computation. These qubits are topological Hilbert spaces associated with small
groups of anyons. Op- erations are performed on these by exchanging the anyons.
One might argue that, in order to have as many simple single qubit operations
as possible, the number of anyons per group should be maximized. However, we
show that there is a maximal number of particles per qubit, namely 4, and more
generally a maximal number of particles for qudits of dimension d. We also look
at the possibility of having topological qubits for which one can perform
two-qubit gates without leakage into non-computational states. It turns out
that the requirement that all two-qubit gates are leakage free is very
restrictive and this property can only be realized for two-qubit systems
related to Ising-like anyon models, which do not allow for universal quantum
computation by braiding. Our results follow directly from the representation
theory of braid groups which means they are valid for all anyon models. We also
make some remarks on generalizations to other exchange groups.Comment: 13 pages, 3 figure
Zurek-Kibble Mechanism for the Spontaneous Vortex Formation in Josephson Tunnel Junctions: New Theory and Experiment
New scaling behavior has been both predicted and observed in the spontaneous
production of fluxons in quenched annular Josephson tunnel
junctions as a function of the quench time, . The probability
to trap a single defect during the N-S phase transition clearly follows an
allometric dependence on with a scaling exponent , as
predicted from the Zurek-Kibble mechanism for {\it realistic} JTJs formed by
strongly coupled superconductors. This definitive experiment replaces one
reported by us earlier, in which an idealised model was used that predicted
, commensurate with the then much poorer data. Our experiment
remains the only condensed matter experiment to date to have measured a scaling
exponent with any reliability.Comment: Four pages, one figur
Spontaneous Fluxon Production in Annular Josephson Tunnel Junctions in the Presence of a Magnetic Field
We report on the spontaneous production of fluxons in the presence of a
symmetry-breaking magnetic field for annular Josephson tunnel junctions during
a thermal quench. The dependence on field intensity of the probability
to trap a single defect during the N-S phase transition drastically
depends on the sample circumferences. We show that the data can be understood
in the framework of the Kibble-Zurek picture of spontaneous defect formation
controlled by causal bounds.Comment: Submitted to Phys. Rev. B with 5 figures on Nov. 15, 200
Dynamic Spin-Polarized Resonant Tunneling in Magnetic Tunnel Junctions
Precisely engineered tunnel junctions exhibit a long sought effect that
occurs when the energy of the electron is comparable to the potential energy of
the tunneling barrier. The resistance of metal-insulator-metal tunnel junctions
oscillates with an applied voltage when electrons that tunnel directly into the
barrier's conduction band interfere upon reflection at the classical turning
points: the insulator-metal interface, and the dynamic point where the incident
electron energy equals the potential barrier inside the insulator. A model of
tunneling between free electron bands using the exact solution of the
Schroedinger equation for a trapezoidal tunnel barrier qualitatively agrees
with experiment.Comment: 4pgs, 3 fig
Critical Current Density and Resistivity of MgB2 Films
The high resistivity of many bulk and film samples of MgB2 is most readily
explained by the suggestion that only a fraction of the cross-sectional area of
the samples is effectively carrying current. Hence the supercurrent (Jc) in
such samples will be limited by the same area factor, arising for example from
porosity or from insulating oxides present at the grain boundaries. We suggest
that a correlation should exist, Jc ~ 1/{Rho(300K) - Rho(50K)}, where Rho(300K)
- Rho(50K) is the change in the apparent resistivity from 300 K to 50 K. We
report measurements of Rho(T) and Jc for a number of films made by hybrid
physical-chemical vapor deposition which demonstrate this correlation, although
the "reduced effective area" argument alone is not sufficient. We suggest that
this argument can also apply to many polycrystalline bulk and wire samples of
MgB2.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figure
Nanoscale grains, high irreversibility field, and large critical current density as a function of high energy ball milling time in C-doped magnesium diboride
Magnesium diboride (MgB2) powder was mechanically alloyed by high energy ball
milling with C to a composition of Mg(B0.95C0.05)2 and then sintered at 1000 C
in a hot isostatic press. Milling times varied from 1 minute to 3000 minutes.
Full C incorporation required only 30-60 min of milling. Grain size of sintered
samples decreased with increased milling time to less than 30 nm for 20-50 hrs
of milling. Milling had a weak detrimental effect on connectivity. Strong
irreversibility field (H*) increase (from 13.3 T to 17.2 T at 4.2 K) due to
increased milling time was observed and correlated linearly with inverse grain
size (1/d). As a result, high field Jc benefited greatly from lengthy powder
milling. Jc(8 T, 4.2 K) peaked at > 80,000 A/cm2 with 1200 min of milling
compared with only ~ 26,000 A/cm2 for 60 min of milling. This non-compositional
performance increase is attributed to grain refinement of the unsintered powder
by milling, and to the probable suppression of grain growth by milling-induced
MgO nano-dispersions.Comment: 12 pages, 11 figure
New Experiments for Spontaneous Vortex Formation in Josephson Tunnel Junctions
It has been argued by Zurek and Kibble that the likelihood of producing
defects in a continuous phase transition depends in a characteristic way on the
quench rate. In this paper we discuss an improved experiment for measuring the
Zurek-Kibble scaling exponent for the production of fluxons in
annular symmetric Josephson Tunnel Junctions. We find .
Further, we report accurate measurements of the junction gap voltage
temperature dependence which allow for precise monitoring of the fast
temperature variations during the quench.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.
Effect of oxygen incorporation on normal and superconducting properties of MgB2 films
Oxygen was systematically incorporated in MBE grown MgB2 films using in-situ
post-growth anneals in an oxygen environment. Connectivity analysis in
combination with measurements of the critical temperature and resistivity
indicate that oxygen is distributed both within and between the grains. High
values of critical current densities in field (~4x10^5 A/cm^2 at 8 T and 4.2
K), extrabolated critical fields (>45 T) and slopes of critical field versus
temperature (1.4 T/K) are observed. Our results suggest that low growth
temperatures (300oC) and oxygen doping (>0.65%) can produce MgB2 with high Jc
values in field and Hc2 for high-field magnet applications.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figure
Observation of band structure and density of states effects in Co-based magnetic tunnel junctions
Utilizing Co/AlO/Co magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs) with Co
electrodes of different crystalline phases, a clear relationship between
electrode structure and junction transport properties is presented. For
junctions with one fcc(111) textured and one polycrystalline (poly-phase and
poly-directional) Co electrode, a strong asymmetry is observed in the
magnetotransport properties, while when both electrodes are polycrystalline the
magnetotransport is essentially symmetric. These observations are successfully
explained within a model based on ballistic tunneling between the calculated
band structures (DOS) of fcc-Co and hcp-Co.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev. Let
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