8,395 research outputs found
Calibration of thickness-dependent k-factors for germanium X-ray lines to improve energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy of SiGe layers in analytical transmission electron microscopy
We show that the accuracy of energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy can be improved by analysing and comparing multiple lines from the same element. For each line, an effective k-factor can be defined that varies as a function of the intensity ratio of multiple lines (e.g. K/L) from the same element. This basically performs an internal self-consistency check in the quantification using differently absorbed X-ray lines, which is in principle equivalent to an absorption correction as a function of specimen thickness but has the practical advantage that the specimen thickness itself does not actually need to be measured
Storage and recall of weak coherent optical pulses with an efficiency of 25%
We demonstrate experimentally a quantum memory scheme for the storage of weak
coherent light pulses in an inhomogeneously broadened optical transition in a
Pr^{3+}: YSO crystal at 2.1 K. Precise optical pumping using a frequency stable
(about 1kHz linewidth) laser is employed to create a highly controllable Atomic
Frequency Comb (AFC) structure. We report single photon storage and retrieval
efficiencies of 25%, based on coherent photon echo type re-emission in the
forward direction. The coherence property of the quantum memory is proved
through interference between a super Gaussian pulse and the emitted echo.
Backward retrieval of the photon echo emission has potential for increasing
storage and recall efficiency.Comment: 5,
Experimental realization of Dicke states of up to six qubits for multiparty quantum networking
We report the first experimental generation and characterization of a
six-photon Dicke state. The produced state shows a fidelity of F=0.56+/-0.02
with respect to an ideal Dicke state and violates a witness detecting genuine
six-qubit entanglement by four standard deviations. We confirm characteristic
Dicke properties of our resource and demonstrate its versatility by projecting
out four- and five-photon Dicke states, as well as four-photon GHZ and W
states. We also show that Dicke states have interesting applications in
multiparty quantum networking protocols such as open-destination teleportation,
telecloning and quantum secret sharing.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, RevTeX
Formation of Low Threshold Voltage Microlasers
Vertical cavity surface emitting lasers (VCSELs) with threshold voltages of 1.7V have been fabricated. The resistance-area product in these new vertical cavity lasers is comparable to that of edge-emitting lasers, and threshold currents as low as 3 mA have been measured. Molecular beam epitaxy was used to grow n-type mirrors, a quantum well active region, and a heavily Be-doped p-contact. After contact definition and alloying, passive high-reflectivity mirrors were deposited by reactive sputter deposition of SiO2/Si3N4 to complete the laser cavity
A New Measurement of the Temperature Density Relation of the IGM From Voigt Profile Fitting
We decompose the Lyman-{\alpha} (Ly{\alpha}) forest of an extensive sample of
74 high signal-to-noise ratio and high-resolution quasar spectra into a
collection of Voigt profiles. Absorbers located near caustics in the peculiar
velocity field have the smallest Doppler parameters, resulting in a low-
cutoff in the - set by the thermal state of intergalactic
medium (IGM). We fit this cutoff as a function of redshift over the range
, which allows us to measure the evolution of the IGM
temperature-density () relation parameters
and . We calibrate our measurements against Ly forest
simulations, using 21 different thermal models of the IGM at each redshift,
also allowing for different values of the IGM pressure smoothing scale. We
adopt a forward-modeling approach and self-consistently apply the same
algorithms to both data and simulations, propagating both statistical and
modeling uncertainties via Monte Carlo. The redshift evolution of shows a
suggestive peak at , while our evolution of is consistent with
and disfavors inverted temperature-density relations. Our
measured evolution of and are generally in good agreement with
previous determinations in the literature. Both the peak in the evolution of
at , as well as the high temperatures K
that we observe at , strongly suggest that a significant episode
of heating occurred after the end of HI reionization, which was most likely the
cosmic reionization of HeII.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ, 23 pages, 26 figures, machine
readable tables available onlin
Full characterization of a three-photon GHZ state using quantum state tomography
We have performed the first experimental tomographic reconstruction of a
three-photon polarization state. Quantum state tomography is a powerful tool
for fully describing the density matrix of a quantum system. We measured 64
three-photon polarization correlations and used a "maximum-likelihood"
reconstruction method to reconstruct the GHZ state. The entanglement class has
been characterized using an entanglement witness operator and the maximum
predicted values for the Mermin inequality was extracted.Comment: 3 pages, 3 figure
Decoherence assisting a measurement-driven quantum evolution process
We study the problem of driving an unknown initial mixed quantum state onto a
known pure state without using unitary transformations. This can be achieved,
in an efficient manner, with the help of sequential measurements on at least
two unbiased bases. However here we found that, when the system is affected by
a decoherence mechanism, only one observable is required in order to achieve
the same goal. In this way the decoherence can assist the process. We show
that, depending on the sort of decoherence, the process can converge faster or
slower than the method implemented by means of two complementary observables.Comment: Four pages, three figures included ([email protected]
Experimental violation of a cluster state Bell inequality
Cluster states are a new type of multiqubit entangled states with
entanglement properties exceptionally well suited for quantum computation. In
the present work, we experimentally demonstrate that correlations in a
four-qubit linear cluster state cannot be described by local realism. This
exploration is based on a recently derived Bell-type inequality [V. Scarani et
al., Phys. Rev A 71, 042325 (2005)] which is tailored, by using a combination
of three- and four-particle correlations, to be maximally violated by cluster
states but not violated at all by GHZ states. We observe a cluster state Bell
parameter of , which is more than 7 standard deviations larger
than the threshold of 2 imposed by local realism.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure
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