9,209 research outputs found
Classification of interacting electronic topological insulators in three dimensions
A fundamental open problem in condensed matter physics is how the dichotomy
between conventional and topological band insulators is modified in the
presence of strong electron interactions. We show that there are 6 new
electronic topological insulators that have no non-interacting counterpart.
Combined with the previously known band-insulators, these produce a total of 8
topologically distinct phases. Two of the new topological insulators have a
simple physical description as Mott insulators in which the electron spins form
spin analogs of the familiar topological band-insulator. The remaining are
obtained as combinations of these two `topological paramagnets' and the
topological band insulator. We prove that these 8 phases form a complete list
of all possible interacting topological insulators, and are classified by a
Z_2^3 group-structure. Experimental signatures are also discussed for these
phases.Comment: New version contains more results on experimental signatures and a
more rigorous proof of a key statement (see Appendix D,E), with references
reorganize
Gapped Symmetry Preserving Surface-State for the Electron Topological Insulator
It is well known that the 3D electronic topological insulator (TI) with
charge-conservation and time-reversal symmetry cannot have a trivial insulating
surface that preserves symmetry. It is often implicitly assumed that if the TI
surface preserves both symmetries then it must be gapless. Here we show that it
is possible for the TI surface to be both gapped and symmetry-preserving, at
the expense of having surface-topological order. In contrast to analogous
bosonic topological insulators, this symmetric surface topological order is
intrinsically non-Abelian. We show that the surface-topological order provides
a complete non-perturbative definition of the electron TI that transcends a
free-particle band-structure picture, and could provide a useful perspective
for studying strongly correlated topological Mott insulators.Comment: 12 pages, 2 figures, (published version
Improvement of dielectric loss of doped Ba0.5Sr0.5TiO3 thin films for tunable microwave devices
Al2O3-Ba0.5Sr0.5TiO3 (Al2O3-BST) thin films, with different Al2O3 contents,
were deposited on (100) LaAlO3 substrate by pulsed laser deposition (PLD)
technique. The Al2O3-BST films was demosnstrated to be a suitable systems to
fabricate ferroelectric thin films with low dielectric loss and higher figure
of merit for tunable microwave devices. Pure BST thin films were also
fabricated for comparison purpose. The films' structure and morphology were
analyzed by X-ray diffractiopn and scanning electron microscopy, respectively;
nad showed that the surface roughness for the Al2O3-BST films increased with
the Al2O3 content. Apart from that, the broadening in the intensity peak in XRD
result indicating the grain size of the Al2O3-BST films reduced with the
increasing of Al2O3 dopant. We measured the dielctric properties of Al2O3-BST
films with a home-made non-destructive dual resonator method at frequency ~ 7.7
GHZ. The effect of doped Al2O3 into BST thin films significantly reduced the
dielectric constant, dielectric loss and tunability compare to pure BST thin
film. Our result shows the figure of merit (K), used to compare the films with
varied dielectric properties, increased with the Al2O3 content. Therefore
Al2O3-BST films show the potential to be exploited in tunable microwave
devices.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, 1 table. Accepted & tentatively for Feb 15 2004
issue, Journal of Applied Physic
Origins of ferromagnetism in transition-metal doped Si
We present results of the magnetic, structural and chemical characterizations of Mn<sup>+</sup>-implanted Si displaying <i>n</i>-type semiconducting behavior and ferromagnetic ordering with Curie temperature,T<sub>C</sub> well above room temperature. The temperature-dependent magnetization measured by superconducting quantum device interference (SQUID) from 5 K to 800 K was characterized by three different critical temperatures (T*<sub>C</sub>~45 K, T<sub>C1</sub>~630-650 K and T<sub>C2</sub>~805-825 K). Their origins were investigated using dynamic secondary mass ion spectroscopy (SIMS) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) techniques, including electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS), Z-contrast STEM (scanning TEM) imaging and electron diffraction. We provided direct evidences of the presence of a small amount of Fe and Cr impurities which were unintentionally doped into the samples together with the Mn<sup>+</sup> ions, as well as the formation of Mn-rich precipitates embedded in a Mn-poor matrix. The observed T*<sub>C</sub> is attributed to the Mn<sub>4</sub>Si<sub>7</sub> precipitates identified by electron diffraction. Possible origins of and are also discussed. Our findings raise questions regarding the origin of the high ferromagnetism reported in many material systems without a careful chemical analysis
A mode-coupling theory for the glassy dynamics of a diatomic probe molecule immersed in a simple liquid
Generalizing the mode-coupling theory for ideal liquid-glass transitions,
equations of motion are derived for the correlation functions describing the
glassy dynamics of a diatomic probe molecule immersed in a simple glass-forming
system. The molecule is described in the interaction-site representation and
the equations are solved for a dumbbell molecule consisting of two fused hard
spheres in a hard-sphere system. The results for the molecule's arrested
position in the glass state and the reorientational correlators for
angular-momentum index and near the glass transition are
compared with those obtained previously within a theory based on a
tensor-density description of the molecule in order to demonstrate that the two
approaches yield equivalent results. For strongly hindered reorientational
motion, the dipole-relaxation spectra for the -process can be mapped on
the dielectric-loss spectra of glycerol if a rescaling is performed according
to a suggestion by Dixon et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 65}, 1108 (1990)]. It is
demonstrated that the glassy dynamics is independent of the molecule's inertia
parameters.Comment: 19 pages, 10 figures, Phys. Rev. E, in prin
Superconductivity and Magnetism in REFeAsO1-xFx (RE=Rare Earth Elements)
Fluoride-doped iron-based oxypnictides containing rare-earth gadolinium
(GdFeAsO0.8F0.2) and co-doping with yttrium (Gd0.8Y0.2FeAsO0.8F0.2) have been
prepared via conventional solid state reaction at ambient pressure. The
non-yttrium substituted oxypnictide show superconducting transition as high as
43.9 K from temperature dependent resistance measurements with the Meissner
effect observed at a lower temperature of 40.8 K from temperature dependent
magnetization measurements. By replacing a small amount of gadolinium with
yttrium Tc was observed to be lowered by 10 K which might be caused by a change
in the electronic or magnetic structures since the crystal structure was not
altered.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, Journal of Physics: Conference Series
(Proceedings in the LT25 Low Temperature Physics Conference) Submitte
Simultaneous computation of dynamical and equilibrium information using a weighted ensemble of trajectories
Equilibrium formally can be represented as an ensemble of uncoupled systems
undergoing unbiased dynamics in which detailed balance is maintained. Many
non-equilibrium processes can be described by suitable subsets of the
equilibrium ensemble. Here, we employ the "weighted ensemble" (WE) simulation
protocol [Huber and Kim, Biophys. J., 1996] to generate equilibrium trajectory
ensembles and extract non-equilibrium subsets for computing kinetic quantities.
States do not need to be chosen in advance. The procedure formally allows
estimation of kinetic rates between arbitrary states chosen after the
simulation, along with their equilibrium populations. We also describe a
related history-dependent matrix procedure for estimating equilibrium and
non-equilibrium observables when phase space has been divided into arbitrary
non-Markovian regions, whether in WE or ordinary simulation. In this
proof-of-principle study, these methods are successfully applied and validated
on two molecular systems: explicitly solvated methane association and the
implicitly solvated Ala4 peptide. We comment on challenges remaining in WE
calculations
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