5,722 research outputs found
Very large spontaneous electric polarization in BiFeO3 single crystals at room temperature and its evolution under cycling fields
Electric polarization loops are measured at room temperature on highly pure
BiFeO3 single crystals synthesized by a flux growth method. Because the
crystals have a high electrical resistivity, the resulting low leakage currents
allow us to measure a large spontaneous polarization reaching 100
microC.cm^{-2}, a value never reported in the bulk. During electric cycling,
the slow degradation of the material leads to an evolution of the hysteresis
curves eventually preventing full saturation of the crystals.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figure
Voltage and temperature dependence of the grain boundary tunneling magnetoresistance in manganites
We have performed a systematic analysis of the voltage and temperature
dependence of the tunneling magnetoresistance (TMR) of grain boundaries (GB) in
the manganites. We find a strong decrease of the TMR with increasing voltage
and temperature. The decrease of the TMR with increasing voltage scales with an
increase of the inelastic tunneling current due to multi-step inelastic
tunneling via localized defect states in the tunneling barrier. This behavior
can be described within a three-current model for magnetic tunnel junctions
that extends the two-current Julliere model by adding an inelastic,
spin-independent tunneling contribution. Our analysis gives strong evidence
that the observed drastic decrease of the GB-TMR in manganites is caused by an
imperfect tunneling barrier.Comment: to be published in Europhys. Lett., 8 pages, 4 figures (included
Photovoltaic response around a unique180° ferroelectric domain wall in single crystalline BiFeO3
Using an experimental setup designed to scan a submicron sized light spot and collect the photogenerated current through larger electrodes, we map the photovoltaic response in ferroelectric BiFeO3 single crystals. We study the effect produced by a unique 180° ferroelectric domain wall (DW) and show that the photocurrent maps are significantly affected by its presence and shape. The effect is large in its vicinity and in the Schottky barriers at the interface with the Au electrodes, but no extra photocurrent is observed when the illuminating spot touches the DW, indicating that this particular entity is not the heart of specific photo-electric properties. Using 3D modelling, we argue that the measured effect is due to the spatial distribution of internal fields which are significantly affected by the charge of the DW due to its distortion
Electronic control of the spin-wave damping in a magnetic insulator
It is demonstrated that the decay time of spin-wave modes existing in a
magnetic insulator can be reduced or enhanced by injecting an in-plane dc
current, , in an adjacent normal metal with strong spin-orbit
interaction. The demonstration rests upon the measurement of the ferromagnetic
resonance linewidth as a function of in a 5~m diameter
YIG(20nm){\textbar}Pt(7nm) disk using a magnetic resonance force microscope
(MRFM). Complete compensation of the damping of the fundamental mode is
obtained for a current density of , in
agreement with theoretical predictions. At this critical threshold the MRFM
detects a small change of static magnetization, a behavior consistent with the
onset of an auto-oscillation regime.Comment: 6 pages 4 figure
Gene transfer engineering for astrocyte-specific silencing in the CNS.
Cell-type-specific gene silencing is critical to understand cell functions in normal and pathological conditions, in particular in the brain where strong cellular heterogeneity exists. Molecular engineering of lentiviral vectors has been widely used to express genes of interest specifically in neurons or astrocytes. However, we show that these strategies are not suitable for astrocyte-specific gene silencing due to the processing of small hairpin RNA (shRNA) in a cell. Here we develop an indirect method based on a tetracycline-regulated system to fully restrict shRNA expression to astrocytes. The combination of Mokola-G envelope pseudotyping, glutamine synthetase promoter and two distinct microRNA target sequences provides a powerful tool for efficient and cell-type-specific gene silencing in the central nervous system. We anticipate our vector will be a potent and versatile system to improve the targeting of cell populations for fundamental as well as therapeutic applications
Anomalous temperature behavior of resistivity in lightly doped manganites around a metal-insulator phase transition
An unusual temperature and concentration behavior of resistivity in
has been observed at slight doping
(). Namely, introduction of copper results in a splitting of
the resistivity maximum around a metal-insulator transition temperature
into two differently evolving peaks. Unlike the original -free
maximum which steadily increases with doping, the second (satellite) peak
remains virtually unchanged for , increases for and finally
disappears at with . The observed phenomenon
is thought to arise from competition between substitution induced strengthening
of potential barriers (which hamper the charge hopping between neighboring
sites) and weakening of carrier's kinetic energy. The data are well fitted
assuming a nonthermal tunneling conductivity theory with randomly distributed
hopping sites.Comment: 10 REVTEX pages, 2 PostScript figures (epsf.sty); to be published in
JETP Letter
Negative Domain Wall Contribution to the Resistivity of Microfabricated Fe Wires
The effect of domain walls on electron transport has been investigated in
microfabricated Fe wires (0.65 to 20 linewidths) with controlled stripe
domains. Magnetoresistance (MR) measurements as a function of domain wall
density, temperature and the angle of the applied field are used to determine
the low field MR contributions due to conventional sources in ferromagnetic
materials and that due to the erasure of domain walls. A negative domain wall
contribution to the resistivity is found. This result is discussed in light of
a recent theoretical study of the effect of domain walls on quantum transport.Comment: 7 pages, 4 postscript figures and 1 jpg image (Fig. 1
Electronic transport through domain walls in ferromagnetic nanowires: Co-existence of adiabatic and non-adiabatic spin dynamics
We study the effect of a domain wall on the electronic transport in
ferromagnetic quantum wires. Due to the transverse confinement, conduction
channels arise. In the presence of a domain wall, spin up and spin down
electrons in these channels become coupled. For very short domain walls or at
high longitudinal kinetic energy, this coupling is weak, leads to very few spin
flips, and a perturbative treatment is possible. For very long domain wall
structures, the spin follows adiabatically the local magnetization orientation,
suppressing the effect of the domain wall on the total transmission, but
reversing the spin of the electrons. In the intermediate regime, we numerically
investigate the spin-dependent transport behavior for different shapes of the
domain wall. We find that the knowledge of the precise shape of the domain wall
is not crucial for determining the qualitative behavior. For parameters
appropriate for experiments, electrons with low longitudinal energy are
transmitted adiabatically while the electrons at high longitudinal energy are
essentially unaffected by the domain wall. Taking this co-existence of
different regimes into account is important for the understanding of recent
experiments.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figure
- …