88 research outputs found
Influence of V/III molar ratio on the formation of In vacancies in InN grown by metal-organic vapor-phase epitaxy
We have applied a slow positron beam to study InN samples grown by metal-organic vapor-phase epitaxy with different V/III molar ratios (3300â24â000) and at different growth temperatures (550â625°C). Indium vacancies were identified in samples grown at V/III ratios below 4000. Their concentration is in the 10exp17cmâ3 range. No strong dependence of vacancy concentration on the molar ratio was observed. At low V/III ratios, however, In droplets and vacancy clusters are formed near the substrate interface. The elevated growth temperature enhances the In vacancy formation, possibly due to limited sticking of In on the growth surface close to the decomposition temperature.Peer reviewe
Temperature-induced topological phase transition in HgTe quantum wells
We report a direct observation of temperature-induced topological phase
transition between trivial and topological insulator in HgTe quantum well. By
using a gated Hall bar device, we measure and represent Landau levels in fan
charts at different temperatures and we follow the temperature evolution of a
peculiar pair of "zero-mode" Landau levels, which split from the edge of
electron-like and hole-like subbands. Their crossing at critical magnetic field
is a characteristic of inverted band structure in the quantum well. By
measuring the temperature dependence of , we directly extract the critical
temperature , at which the bulk band-gap vanishes and the topological
phase transition occurs. Above this critical temperature, the opening of a
trivial gap is clearly observed.Comment: 5 pages + Supplemental Materials; Phys. Rev. Lett. (accepted
Temperature-driven single-valley Dirac fermions in HgTe quantum wells
We report on temperature-dependent magnetospectroscopy of two HgTe/CdHgTe
quantum wells below and above the critical well thickness . Our results,
obtained in magnetic fields up to 16 T and temperature range from 2 K to 150 K,
clearly indicate a change of the band-gap energy with temperature. The quantum
well wider than evidences a temperature-driven transition from
topological insulator to semiconductor phases. At the critical temperature of
90 K, the merging of inter- and intra-band transitions in weak magnetic fields
clearly specifies the formation of gapless state, revealing the appearance of
single-valley massless Dirac fermions with velocity of
ms. For both quantum wells, the energies extracted from
experimental data are in good agreement with calculations on the basis of the
8-band Kane Hamiltonian with temperature-dependent parameters.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures and Supplemental Materials (4 pages
Temperature-dependent magnetospectroscopy of HgTe quantum wells
We report on magnetospectroscopy of HgTe quantum wells in magnetic fields up
to 45 T in temperature range from 4.2 K up to 185 K. We observe intra- and
inter-band transitions from zero-mode Landau levels, which split from the
bottom conduction and upper valence subbands, and merge under the applied
magnetic field. To describe experimental results, realistic
temperature-dependent calculations of Landau levels have been performed. We
show that although our samples are topological insulators at low temperatures
only, the signature of such phase persists in optical transitions at high
temperatures and high magnetic fields. Our results demonstrate that
temperature-dependent magnetospectroscopy is a powerful tool to discriminate
trivial and topological insulator phases in HgTe quantum wells
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Do the legs of magnetic clouds contain twisted flux-rope magnetic fields?
Magnetic clouds (MCs) are a subset of interplanetary coronal mass ejections (ICMEs) characterised primarily by a smooth rotation in the magnetic field direction indicative of the presence of a magnetic flux rope. Energetic particle signatures suggest MC flux ropes remain magnetically connected to the Sun at both ends, leading to widely used model of global MC structure as an extended flux rope, with a loop-like axis stretching out from the Sun into the heliosphere and back to the Sun. The time of flight of energetic particles, however, suggests shorter magnetic field line lengths than such a continuous twisted flux rope would produce. In this study, two simple models are compared with observed flux rope axis orientations of 196 MCs to show that the flux rope structure is confined to the MC leading edge. The magnetic cloud âlegs,â which magnetically connect the flux rope to the Sun, are not recognisable as MCs and thus are unlikely to contain twisted flux rope fields. Spacecraft encounters with these non-flux rope legs may provide an explanation for the frequent observation of non-magnetic cloud ICMEs
Natural Nuclear Reactor Oklo and Variation of Fundamental Constants Part 1: Computation of Neutronics of Fresh Core
Using modern methods of reactor physics we have performed full-scale
calculations of the natural reactor Oklo. For reliability we have used recent
version of two Monte Carlo codes: Russian code MCU REA and world wide known
code MCNP (USA). Both codes produce similar results. We have constructed a
computer model of the reactor Oklo zone RZ2 which takes into account all
details of design and composition. The calculations were performed for three
fresh cores with different uranium contents. Multiplication factors,
reactivities and neutron fluxes were calculated. We have estimated also the
temperature and void effects for the fresh core. As would be expected, we have
found for the fresh core a significant difference between reactor and Maxwell
spectra, which was used before for averaging cross sections in the Oklo
reactor. The averaged cross section of Sm-149 and its dependence on the shift
of resonance position (due to variation of fundamental constants) are
significantly different from previous results.
Contrary to results of some previous papers we find no evidence for the
change of the fine structure constant in the past and obtain new, most accurate
limits on its variation with time:
-4 10^{-17}year^{-1} < d alpha/dt/alpha < 3 10^{-17} year^{-1}
A further improvement in the accuracy of the limits can be achieved by taking
account of the core burnup. These calculations are in progress.Comment: 25 pages, 14 figures, 12 tables, minor corrections, typos correcte
FFAT motif phosphorylation controls formation and lipid transfer function of interâorganelle contacts
Organelles are physically connected in membrane contact sites. The endoplasmic reticulum possesses three major receptors, VAPâA, VAPâB, and MOSPD2, which interact with proteins at the surface of other organelles to build contacts. VAPâA, VAPâB, and MOSPD2 contain an MSP domain, which binds a motif named FFAT (two phenylalanines in an acidic tract). In this study, we identified a nonâconventional FFAT motif where a conserved acidic residue is replaced by a serine/threonine. We show that phosphorylation of this serine/threonine is critical for nonâconventional FFAT motifs (named PhosphoâFFAT) to be recognized by the MSP domain. Moreover, structural analyses of the MSP domain alone or in complex with conventional and PhosphoâFFAT peptides revealed new mechanisms of interaction. Based on these new insights, we produced a novel prediction algorithm, which expands the repertoire of candidate proteins with a PhosphoâFFAT that are able to create membrane contact sites. Using a prototypical tethering complex made by STARD3 and VAP, we showed that phosphorylation is instrumental for the formation of ERâendosome contacts, and their sterol transfer function. This study reveals that phosphorylation acts as a general switch for interâorganelle contacts
Temperature Dependent Zero-Field Splittings in Graphene
Graphene is a quantum spin Hall insulator with a 45 eV wide non-trivial
topological gap induced by the intrinsic spin-orbit coupling. Even though this
zero-field spin splitting is weak, it makes graphene an attractive candidate
for applications in quantum technologies, given the resulting long spin
relaxation time. On the other side, the staggered sub-lattice potential,
resulting from the coupling of graphene with its boron nitride substrate,
compensates intrinsic spin-orbit coupling and decreases the non-trivial
topological gap, which may lead to the phase transition into trivial band
insulator state. In this work, we present extensive experimental studies of the
zero-field splittings in monolayer and bilayer graphene in a temperature range
2K-12K by means of sub-Terahertz photoconductivity-based electron spin
resonance technique. Surprisingly, we observe a decrease of the spin splittings
with increasing temperature. We discuss the origin of this phenomenon by
considering possible physical mechanisms likely to induce a temperature
dependence of the spin-orbit coupling. These include the difference in the
expansion coefficients between the graphene and the boron nitride substrate or
the metal contacts, the electron-phonon interactions, and the presence of a
magnetic order at low temperature. Our experimental observation expands
knowledge about the non-trivial topological gap in graphene.Comment: Main text with figures (20 pages) and Supplementary Information (14
pages) Accepted in Phys. Rev.
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