1,266 research outputs found
Resistance spikes and domain wall loops in Ising quantum Hall ferromagnets
We explain the recent observation of resistance spikes and hysteretic
transport properties in Ising quantum Hall ferromagnets in terms of the unique
physics of their domain walls. Self-consistent RPA/Hartree-Fock theory is
applied to microscopically determine properties of the ground state and
domain-wall excitations. In these systems domain wall loops support
one-dimensional electron systems with an effective mass comparable to the bare
electron mass and may carry charge. Our theory is able to account
quantitatively for the experimental Ising critical temperature and to explain
characteristics of the resistive hysteresis loops.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure
Polarity control of carrier injection at ferroelectric/metal interfaces for electrically switchable diode and photovoltaic effects
We investigated a switchable ferroelectric diode effect and its physical
mechanism in Pt/BiFeO3/SrRuO3 thin-film capacitors. Our results of electrical
measurements support that, near the Pt/BiFeO3 interface of as-grown samples, a
defective layer (possibly, an oxygen-vacancy-rich layer) becomes formed and
disturbs carrier injection. We therefore used an electrical training process to
obtain ferroelectric control of the diode polarity where, by changing the
polarization direction using an external bias, we could switch the transport
characteristics between forward and reverse diodes. Our system is characterized
with a rectangular polarization hysteresis loop, with which we confirmed that
the diode polarity switching occurred at the ferroelectric coercive voltage.
Moreover, we observed a simultaneous switching of the diode polarity and the
associated photovoltaic response dependent on the ferroelectric domain
configurations. Our detailed study suggests that the polarization charge can
affect the Schottky barrier at the ferroelectric/metal interfaces, resulting in
a modulation of the interfacial carrier injection. The amount of
polarization-modulated carrier injection can affect the transition voltage
value at which a space-charge-limited bulk current-voltage (J-V) behavior is
changed from Ohmic (i.e., J ~ V) to nonlinear (i.e., J ~ V^n with n \geq 2).
This combination of bulk conduction and polarization-modulated carrier
injection explains the detailed physical mechanism underlying the switchable
diode effect in ferroelectric capacitors.Comment: Accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.
Correlation between the bath composition and nanoporosity of DC-electrodeposited Ni-Fe alloy
The outstanding mechanical strength of as-deposited DC-electrodeposited nanocrystalline (nc) Ni-Fe alloys has been the subject of numerous researches in view of their scientific and practical interest. However, recent studies have reported a dramatic drop in ductility upon annealing above 350°C, associated with a concomitant abnormal rapid grain growth. The inherent cause has been ascribed to the presence of a detrimental product or by product in the bath, which affects either the microstructure or causes defects in the concentration and/or distribution of the as-deposited films. The present work has been inspired by the observed abnormal behaviour of annealed electrodeposited nc Ni-Fe alloy, which has here been addressed by considering the relationship between the composition of the bath (iron-chloride, nickel-sulphate solution, saccharin and ascorbic acid) and deposition defects (e.g. grain boundary pores) in the case of an nc Ni-Fe (Fe 48 wt%) alloy. The current investigations have included X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) in both as-deposited and post-annealed conditions (300°C–400°C). XPS depth profiling with Ar ion sputtering showed a significant amount of C and O impurities entrapped in the foils during deposition. As such impurities are often overlooked in common analytical techniques, new scenarios may need to be rationalised to explain the observed drop in tensile ductility of the as-deposited Ni-Fe alloys
Hysteresis effect in \nu=1 quantum Hall system under periodic electrostatic modulation
The effect of a one-dimensional periodic electrostatic modulation on quantum
Hall systems with filling factor \nu=1 is studied. We propose that, either when
the amplitude of the modulation potential or the tilt angle of the magnetic
field is varied, the system can undergo a first-order phase transition from a
fully spin-polarized homogeneous state to a partially spin-polarized
charge-density-wave state, and show hysteresis behavior of the spin
polarization. This is confirmed by our self-consistent numerical calculations
within the Hartree-Fock approximation. Finally we suggest that the \nu=1/3
fractional quantum Hall state may also show similar hysteresis behavior in the
presence of a periodic potential modulation.Comment: RevTeX, 4 page, 3 EPS figure
Twitter-based analysis of the dynamics of collective attention to political parties
Large-scale data from social media have a significant potential to describe
complex phenomena in real world and to anticipate collective behaviors such as
information spreading and social trends. One specific case of study is
represented by the collective attention to the action of political parties. Not
surprisingly, researchers and stakeholders tried to correlate parties' presence
on social media with their performances in elections. Despite the many efforts,
results are still inconclusive since this kind of data is often very noisy and
significant signals could be covered by (largely unknown) statistical
fluctuations. In this paper we consider the number of tweets (tweet volume) of
a party as a proxy of collective attention to the party, identify the dynamics
of the volume, and show that this quantity has some information on the
elections outcome. We find that the distribution of the tweet volume for each
party follows a log-normal distribution with a positive autocorrelation of the
volume over short terms, which indicates the volume has large fluctuations of
the log-normal distribution yet with a short-term tendency. Furthermore, by
measuring the ratio of two consecutive daily tweet volumes, we find that the
evolution of the daily volume of a party can be described by means of a
geometric Brownian motion (i.e., the logarithm of the volume moves randomly
with a trend). Finally, we determine the optimal period of averaging tweet
volume for reducing fluctuations and extracting short-term tendencies. We
conclude that the tweet volume is a good indicator of parties' success in the
elections when considered over an optimal time window. Our study identifies the
statistical nature of collective attention to political issues and sheds light
on how to model the dynamics of collective attention in social media.Comment: 16 pages, 7 figures, 3 tables. Published in PLoS ON
Non-Fermi liquid behavior and scaling of low frequency suppression in optical conductivity spectra of CaRuO
Optical conductivity spectra of paramagnetic CaRuO are
investigated at various temperatures. At T=10 K, it shows a non-Fermi liquid
behavior of , similar to the case
of a ferromagnet SrRuO. As the temperature () is increased, on the other
hand, in the low frequency region is progressively
suppressed, deviating from the 1/{\omega}^{\frac 12%}-dependence.
Interestingly, the suppression of is found to scale with
at all temperatures. The origin of the scaling
behavior coupled with the non-Fermi liquid behavior is discussed.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure
Layer charge instability in unbalanced bilayer systems in the quantum Hall regime
Measurements in GaAs hole bilayers with unequal layer densities reveal a
pronounced magneto-resistance hysteresis at the magnetic field positions where
either the majority or minority layer is at Landau level filling factor one. At
a fixed field in the hysteretic regions, the resistance exhibits an unusual
time dependence, consisting of random, bidirectional jumps followed by slow
relaxations. These anomalies are apparently caused by instabilities in the
charge distribution of the two layers.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Phase Dependent Thermopower in Andreev Interferometers
We report measurements of the thermopower S of mesoscopic Andreev
interferometers, which are hybrid loops with one arm fabricated from a
superconductor (Al), and one arm from a normal metal (Au). S depends on the
phase of electrons in the interferometer, oscillating as a function of magnetic
flux with a period of one flux quantum (= h/2e). The magnitude of S increases
as the temperature T is lowered, reaching a maximum around T = 0.14 K, and
decreases at lower temperatures. The symmetry of S oscillations with respect to
magnetic flux depends on the topology of the sample.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Magnetoresistance of proximity coupled Au wires
We report measurements of the magnetoresistance (MR) of narrow Au wires
coupled to a superconducting Al contact on one end, and a normal Au contact on
the other. The MR at low magnetic field is quadratic in , with a
characteristic field scale determined by phase coherent paths which
encompass not only the wire, but also the two contacts. is essentially
temperature independent at low temperatures, indicating that the area of the
phase coherent paths is not determined by the superconducting coherence length
in the normal metal, which is strongly temperature dependent at low
temperatures. We identify the relevant length scale as a combination of the
electron phase coherence length in the normal metal and the coherence
length in the superconductor
Scaling of the anomalous Hall effect in SrCaRuO
The anomalous Hall effect (AHE) of ferromagnetic thin films of
SrCaRuO (0 0.4) is studied as a function of
and temperature . As increases, both the transition temperature
and the magnetization are reduced and vanish near 0.7. For all
compositions, the transverse resistivity varies non-monotonously
with , and even changes sign, thus violating the conventional expression
( is the magnetic induction, while
and are the ordinary and anomalous Hall coefficients). From the rather
complicated data of , we find a scaling behavior of the transverse
conductivity with , which is well reproduced by the
first-principles band calculation assuming the intrinsic origin of the AHE.Comment: REVTeX 4 style; 5 pages, 3 figures; revised 23/2 and accepted for
publicatio
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