6,956 research outputs found
Nuclear magnetic resonance probes for the Kondo scenario for the 0.7 feature in semiconductor quantum point contact devices
We propose a probe based on nuclear relaxation and Knight shift measurements
for the Kondo scenario for the "0.7 feature" in semiconductor quantum point
contact (QPC) devices. We show that the presence of a bound electron in the QPC
would lead to a much higher rate of nuclear relaxation compared to nuclear
relaxation through exchange of spin with conduction electrons. Furthermore, we
show that the temperature dependence of this nuclear relaxation is very
non-monotonic as opposed to the linear-T relaxation from coupling with
conduction electrons. We present a qualitative analysis for the additional
relaxation due to nuclear spin diffusion (NSD) and study the extent to which
NSD affects the range of validity of our method. The conclusion is that nuclear
relaxation, in combination with Knight shift measurements, can be used to
verify whether the 0.7 feature is indeed due to the presence of a bound
electron in the QPC.Comment: Published version. Appears in a Special Section on the 0.7 Feature
and Interactions in One-Dimensional Systems. 16 page
Dynamic nuclear polarisation in biased quantum wires with spin-orbit interaction
We propose a new method for dynamic nuclear polarisation in a quasi
one-dimensional quantum wire utilising the spin-orbit interaction, the
hyperfine interaction, and a finite source-drain potential difference. In
contrast with current methods, our scheme does not rely on external magnetic or
optical sources which makes independent control of closely placed devices much
more feasible. Using this method, a significant polarisation of a few per cent
is possible in currently available InAs wires which may be detected by
conductance measurements. This may prove useful for nuclear-magnetic-resonance
studies in nanoscale systems as well as in spin-based devices where external
magnetic and optical sources will not be suitable.Comment: 6 pages, published versio
Nanoscale quantum dot infrared sensors with photonic crystal cavity
We report high performance infrared sensors that are based on intersubband transitions in nanoscale self-assembled quantum dots combined with a microcavity resonator made with a high-index-contrast two-dimensional photonic crystal. The addition of the photonic crystal cavity increases the photocurrent, conversion efficiency, and the signal to noise ratio (represented by the specific detectivity D*) by more than an order of magnitude. The conversion efficiency of the detector at Vb=–2.6 V increased from 7.5% for the control sample to 95% in the PhC detector. In principle, these photonic crystal resonators are technology agnostic and can be directly integrated into the manufacturing of present day infrared sensors using existing lithographic tools in the fabrication facility
Coulomb blockade and quantum tunnelling in the low-conductivity phase of granular metals
We study the effects of Coulomb interaction and inter-grain quantum
tunnelling in an array of metallic grains using the phase-functional approach
for temperatures well below the charging energy of individual
grains yet large compared to the level spacing in the grains. When the
inter-grain tunnelling conductance , the conductivity in
dimensions decreases logarithmically with temperature
(), while for ,
the conductivity shows simple activated behaviour ().
We show, for bare tunnelling conductance , that the parameter
determines the competition between
charging and tunnelling effects. At low enough temperatures in the regime
, a charge is shared among a finite
number of grains, and we find a soft
activation behaviour of the conductivity, , where is the effective
coordination number of a grain.Comment: 11 pages REVTeX, 3 Figures. Appendix added, replaced with published
versio
How does literacy affect speech processing? Not by enhancing cortical responses to speech, but by promoting connectivity of acoustic-phonetic and graphomotor cortices
Previous research suggests that literacy, specifically learning alphabetic letter-to-phoneme mappings, modifies online speech processing, and enhances brain responses, as indexed by the blood-oxygenation level dependent signal (BOLD), to speech in auditory areas associated with phonological processing (Dehaene et al., 2010). However, alphabets are not the only orthographic systems in use in the world, and hundreds of millions of individuals speak languages that are not written using alphabets. In order to make claims that literacy per se has broad and general consequences for brain responses to speech, one must seek confirmatory evidence from non-alphabetic literacy. To this end, we conducted a longitudinal fMRI study in India probing the effect of literacy in Devanagari, an abugida, on functional connectivity and cerebral responses to speech in 91 variously literate Hindi-speaking male and female human participants. Twenty-two completely illiterate participants underwent six months of reading and writing training. Devanagari literacy increases functional connectivity between acoustic-phonetic and graphomotor brain areas, but we find no evidence that literacy changes brain responses to speech, either in cross-sectional or longitudinal analyses. These findings shows that a dramatic reconfiguration of the neurofunctional substrates of online speech processing may not be a universal result of learning to read, and suggest that the influence of writing on speech processing should also be investigated
Learning to read alters cortico-subcortical crosstalk in the visual system of illiterates
Learning to read is known to result in a reorganization of the developing cerebral cortex. In this longitudinal resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging study in illiterate adults we show that only 6 months of literacy training can lead to neuroplastic changes in the mature brain. We observed that literacy-induced neuroplasticity is not confined to the cortex but increases the functional connectivity between the occipital lobe and subcortical areas in the midbrain and the thalamus. Individual rates of connectivity increase were significantly related to the individualdecoding skill gains. These findings crucially complement current neurobiological concepts ofnormal and impaired literacy acquisition
Fluctuation-driven insulator-to-metal transition in an external magnetic field
We consider a model for a metal-insulator transition of correlated electrons
in an external magnetic field. We find a broad region in interaction and
magnetic field where metallic and insulating (fully magnetized) solutions
coexist and the system undergoes a first-order metal-insulator transition. A
global instability of the magnetically saturated solution precedes the local
ones and is caused by collective fluctuations due to poles in electron-hole
vertex functions.Comment: REVTeX 4 pages, 3 PS figure
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