499 research outputs found
Bleaching of sol-gel glass film with embedded gold nanoparticles by thermal poling
Gold clusters embedded in glass are expected to be hard to dissolve in the form of ions since gold is essentially a nonreactive metal. In spite of that, bleaching of Au-doped nanocomposite sol-gel glass film on a soda-lime glass substrate is demonstrated in which electric-field thermal poling is employed to effectively dissolve randomly distributed gold nanoparticles (15 nm in diameter) embedded in a low conductivity sol-gel glass film with a volume filling factor as small as 2.3%. The surface plasmon absorption band at 520 nm is suppressed in the region covered by the anodic electrode. The phenomenon is explained by the ionization of the gold nanoparticles and the redistribution of gold ions in the glass matrix due to the action of the extremely high electrostatic field locally developed during poling
Total Angular Momentum Conservation During Tunnelling through Semiconductor Barriers
We have investigated the electrical transport through strained
p-Si/Si_{1-x}Ge_x double-barrier resonant tunnelling diodes. The confinement
shift for diodes with different well width, the shift due to a central
potential spike in a well, and magnetotunnelling spectroscopy demonstrate that
the first two resonances are due to tunnelling through heavy hole levels,
whereas there is no sign of tunnelling through the first light hole state. This
demonstrates for the first time the conservation of the total angular momentum
in valence band resonant tunnelling. It is also shown that conduction through
light hole states is possible in many structures due to tunnelling of carriers
from bulk emitter states.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen-like correlation on a coherent-state basis and inseparability of two-mode Gaussian states
The strange property of the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) correlation between
two remote physical systems is a primitive object on the study of quantum
entanglement. In order to understand the entanglement in canonical
continuous-variable systems, a pair of the EPR-like uncertainties is an
essential tool. Here, we consider a normalized pair of the EPR-like
uncertainties and introduce a state-overlap to a classically correlated mixture
of coherent states. The separable condition associated with this state-overlap
determines the strength of the EPR-like correlation on a coherent-state basis
in order that the state is entangled. We show that the coherent-state-based
condition is capable of detecting the class of two-mode Gaussian entangled
states. We also present an experimental measurement scheme for estimation of
the state-overlap by a heterodyne measurement and a photon detection with a
feedforward operation.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures. A part of the materials in Sec. VI B of previous
versions was moved into another paper: Journal of Atomic, Molecular, and
Optical Physics, 2012, 854693 (2012).
http://www.hindawi.com/journals/jamop/2012/854693
Density of States of Disordered Two-Dimensional Crystals with Half-Filled Band
A diagrammatic method is applied to study the effects of commensurability in
two-dimensional disordered crystalline metals by using the particle-hole
symmetry with respect to the nesting vector P_0={\pm{\pi}/a, {\pi}/a} for a
half-filled electronic band. The density of electronic states (DoS) is shown to
have nontrivial quantum corrections due to both nesting and elastic impurity
scattering processes, as a result the van Hove singularity is preserved in the
center of the band. However, the energy dependence of the DoS is strongly
changed. A small offset from the middle of the band gives rise to disappearence
of quantum corrections to the DoS .Comment: to be published in Physical Review Letter
Mapping coherence in measurement via full quantum tomography of a hybrid optical detector
Quantum states and measurements exhibit wave-like --- continuous, or
particle-like --- discrete, character. Hybrid discrete-continuous photonic
systems are key to investigating fundamental quantum phenomena, generating
superpositions of macroscopic states, and form essential resources for
quantum-enhanced applications, e.g. entanglement distillation and quantum
computation, as well as highly efficient optical telecommunications. Realizing
the full potential of these hybrid systems requires quantum-optical
measurements sensitive to complementary observables such as field quadrature
amplitude and photon number. However, a thorough understanding of the practical
performance of an optical detector interpolating between these two regions is
absent. Here, we report the implementation of full quantum detector tomography,
enabling the characterization of the simultaneous wave and photon-number
sensitivities of quantum-optical detectors. This yields the largest
parametrization to-date in quantum tomography experiments, requiring the
development of novel theoretical tools. Our results reveal the role of
coherence in quantum measurements and demonstrate the tunability of hybrid
quantum-optical detectors.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figure
Pharmacogenetic Modulation of Orexin Neurons Alters Sleep/Wakefulness States in Mice
Hypothalamic neurons expressing neuropeptide orexins are critically involved in the control of sleep and wakefulness. Although the activity of orexin neurons is thought to be influenced by various neuronal input as well as humoral factors, the direct consequences of changes in the activity of these neurons in an intact animal are largely unknown. We therefore examined the effects of orexin neuron-specific pharmacogenetic modulation in vivo by a new method called the Designer Receptors Exclusively Activated by Designer Drugs approach (DREADD). Using this system, we successfully activated and suppressed orexin neurons as measured by Fos staining. EEG and EMG recordings suggested that excitation of orexin neurons significantly increased the amount of time spent in wakefulness and decreased both non-rapid eye movement (NREM) and rapid eye movement (REM) sleep times. Inhibition of orexin neurons decreased wakefulness time and increased NREM sleep time. These findings clearly show that changes in the activity of orexin neurons can alter the behavioral state of animals and also validate this novel approach for manipulating neuronal activity in awake, freely-moving animals
A robot uses its own microphone to synchronize its steps to musical beats while scatting and singing
Abstract—Musical beat tracking is one of the effective technologies for human-robot interaction such as musical ses-sions. Since such interaction should be performed in various environments in a natural way, musical beat tracking for a robot should cope with noise sources such as environmental noise, its own motor noises, and self voices, by using its own microphone. This paper addresses a musical beat tracking robot which can step, scat and sing according to musical beats by using its own microphone. To realize such a robot, we propose a robust beat tracking method by introducing two key techniques, that is, spectro-temporal pattern matching and echo cancellation. The former realizes robust tempo estimation with a shorter window length, thus, it can quickly adapt to tempo changes. The latter is effective to cancel self noises such as stepping, scatting, and singing. We implemented the proposed beat tracking method for Honda ASIMO. Experimental results showed ten times faster adaptation to tempo changes and high robustness in beat tracking for stepping, scatting and singing noises. We also demonstrated the robot times its steps while scatting or singing to musical beats. I
Effects of growth rate, size, and light availability on tree survival across life stages: a demographic analysis accounting for missing values and small sample sizes.
The data set supporting the results of this article is available in the Dryad repository, http://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.6f4qs. Moustakas, A. and Evans, M. R. (2015) Effects of
growth rate, size, and light availability on tree survival across life stages: a demographic analysis accounting for missing values.Plant survival is a key factor in forest dynamics and survival probabilities often vary across life stages. Studies specifically aimed at assessing tree survival are unusual and so data initially designed for other purposes often need to be used; such data are more likely to contain errors than data collected for this specific purpose
An assessment of the Indian Ocean mean state and seasonal cycle in a suite of interannual CORE-II simulations
We present an analysis of annual and seasonal mean characteristics of the Indian Ocean circulation and water masses from 16 global ocean–sea-ice model simulations that follow the Coordinated Ocean-ice Reference Experiments (CORE) interannual protocol (CORE-II). All simulations show a similar large-scale tropical current system, but with differences in the Equatorial Undercurrent. Most CORE-II models simulate the structure of the Cross Equatorial Cell (CEC) in the Indian Ocean. We uncover a previously unidentified secondary pathway of northward cross-equatorial transport along 75 °E, thus complementing the pathway near the Somali Coast. This secondary pathway is most prominent in the models which represent topography realistically, thus suggesting a need for realistic bathymetry in climate models. When probing the water mass structure in the upper ocean, we find that the salinity profiles are closer to observations in geopotential (level) models than in isopycnal models. More generally, we find that biases are model dependent, thus suggesting a grouping into model lineage, formulation of the surface boundary, vertical coordinate and surface salinity restoring. Refinement in model horizontal resolution (one degree versus degree) does not significantly improve simulations, though there are some marginal improvements in the salinity and barrier layer results. The results in turn suggest that a focus on improving physical parameterizations (e.g. boundary layer processes) may offer more near-term advances in Indian Ocean simulations than refined grid resolution
Challenges and Prospects in Ocean Circulation Models
We revisit the challenges and prospects for ocean circulation models following Griffies et al. (2010). Over the past decade, ocean circulation models evolved through improved understanding, numerics, spatial discretization, grid configurations, parameterizations, data assimilation, environmental monitoring, and process-level observations and modeling. Important large scale applications over the last decade are simulations of the Southern Ocean, the Meridional Overturning Circulation and its variability, and regional sea level change. Submesoscale variability is now routinely resolved in process models and permitted in a few global models, and submesoscale effects are parameterized in most global models. The scales where nonhydrostatic effects become important are beginning to be resolved in regional and process models. Coupling to sea ice, ice shelves, and high-resolution atmospheric models has stimulated new ideas and driven improvements in numerics. Observations have provided insight into turbulence and mixing around the globe and its consequences are assessed through perturbed physics models. Relatedly, parameterizations of the mixing and overturning processes in boundary layers and the ocean interior have improved. New diagnostics being used for evaluating models alongside present and novel observations are briefly referenced. The overall goal is summarizing new developments in ocean modeling, including: how new and existing observations can be used, what modeling challenges remain, and how simulations can be used to support observations.Peer reviewe
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