Microfluidic immunomagnetic multi-target sorting – a model for controlling deflection of paramagnetic beads

We describe a microfluidic system that uses a magnetic field to sort paramagnetic beads by deflecting them in the direction normal to the flow. Our experiments systematically study the dependence of the beads’ deflection on: bead size and susceptibility, magnet strength, fluid speed and viscosity, and device geometry. We also develop a design parameter that can aid in the design of microfluidic devices for immunomagnetic multi-target sorting

Renormalization-group approach to superconductivity: from weak to strong electron-phonon coupling

We present the numerical solution of the renormalization group (RG) equations derived in Ref. [1], for the problem of superconductivity in the presence of both electron-electron and electron-phonon coupling at zero temperature. We study the instability of a Fermi liquid to a superconductor and the RG flow of the couplings in presence of retardation effects and the crossover from weak to strong coupling. We show that our numerical results provide an ansatz for the analytic solution of the problem in the asymptotic limits of weak and strong coupling.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures, conference proceedings for the Electron Correlations and Materials Properties, in Kos, Greece, July 5-9, 200

Charge echo in a Cooper-pair box

A spin-echo-type technique is applied to an artificial two-level system that utilizes charge degree of freedom in a small superconducting electrode. Gate-voltage pulses are used to produce the necessary pulse sequence in order to eliminate the inhomogeneity effect in the time-ensemble measurement and to obtain refocused echo signals. Comparison of the decay time of the observed echo signal with estimated decoherence time suggests that low-frequency energy-level fluctuations due to the 1/f charge noise dominate the dephasing in the system.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

CP, T and CPT Violations in the K^0 - bar{K^0} System -- Present Status --

Possible violation of CP, T and CPT symmetries in the K^0 - bar{K^0} system is studied in a way as phenomenological and comprehensive as possible. For this purpose, we first introduce parameters which represent violation of these symmetries in mixing parameters and decay amplitudes in a convenient and well-defined way and, treating these parameters as small, derive formulas which relate them to the experimentally measured quantities. We then perform numerical analyses to derive constraints to these symmetry-violating parameters, with the latest data reported by KTeV Collaboration, NA48 Collaboration and CPLEAR Collaboration, along with those compiled by Particle Data Group, used as inputs. The result obtained by CPLEAR Collaboration from an unconstrained fit to a time-dependent leptonic asymmetry, aided by the Bell-Steinberger relation, enables us to determine or constrain most of the parameters separately. It is shown among the other things that (1) CP and T symmetries are violated definitively at least at the level of 10^{-4} in 2 pi decays, (2) CP and T symmetries are violated at least at the level of 10^{-3} in the K^0 - bar{K^0} mixing, and (3) CPT symmetry is at present tested to the level of 10^{-5} at the utmost.Comment: 20 page

EffiTest: Efficient Delay Test and Statistical Prediction for Configuring Post-silicon Tunable Buffers

At nanometer manufacturing technology nodes, process variations significantly affect circuit performance. To combat them, post- silicon clock tuning buffers can be deployed to balance timing bud- gets of critical paths for each individual chip after manufacturing. The challenge of this method is that path delays should be mea- sured for each chip to configure the tuning buffers properly. Current methods for this delay measurement rely on path-wise frequency stepping. This strategy, however, requires too much time from ex- pensive testers. In this paper, we propose an efficient delay test framework (EffiTest) to solve the post-silicon testing problem by aligning path delays using the already-existing tuning buffers in the circuit. In addition, we only test representative paths and the delays of other paths are estimated by statistical delay prediction. Exper- imental results demonstrate that the proposed method can reduce the number of frequency stepping iterations by more than 94% with only a slight yield loss.Comment: ACM/IEEE Design Automation Conference (DAC), June 201

Quantum noise in the Josephson charge qubit

We study decoherence of the Josephson charge qubit by measuring energy relaxation and dephasing with help of the single-shot readout. We found that the dominant energy relaxation process is a spontaneous emission induced by quantum noise coupled to the charge degree of freedom. Spectral density of the noise at high frequencies is roughly proportional to the qubit excitation energy.Comment: Submitted to Phys. Rev. Letter

Application of selective epitaxy to fabrication of nanometer scale wire and dot structures

The selective growth of nanometer scale GaAs wire and dot structures using metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy is demonstrated. Spectrally resolved cathodoluminescence images as well as spectra from single dots and wires are presented. A blue shifting of the GaAs peak is observed as the size scale of the wires and dots decreases

Decoherence of flux qubits due to 1/f flux noise

We have investigated decoherence in Josephson-junction flux qubits. Based on the measurements of decoherence at various bias conditions, we discriminate contributions of different noise sources. In particular, we present a Gaussian decay function of the echo signal as evidence of dephasing due to $1/f$ flux noise whose spectral density is evaluated to be about $(10^{-6} \Phi_0)^2$/Hz at 1 Hz. We also demonstrate that at an optimal bias condition where the noise sources are well decoupled the coherence observed in the echo measurement is mainly limited by energy relaxation of the qubit.Comment: 4 pages, error in Fig.4 corrected, to appear in PR