24,389 research outputs found
Structure of polydisperse inverse ferrofluids: Theory and computer simulation
By using theoretical analysis and molecular dynamics simulations, we
investigate the structure of colloidal crystals formed by nonmagnetic
microparticles (or magnetic holes) suspended in ferrofluids (called inverse
ferrofluids), by taking into account the effect of polydispersity in size of
the nonmagnetic microparticles. Such polydispersity often exists in real
situations. We obtain an analytical expression for the interaction energy of
monodisperse, bidisperse, and polydisperse inverse ferrofluids. Body-centered
tetragonal (bct) lattices are shown to possess the lowest energy when compared
with other sorts of lattices and thus serve as the ground state of the systems.
Also, the effect of microparticle size distributions (namely, polydispersity in
size) plays an important role in the formation of various kinds of structural
configurations. Thus, it seems possible to fabricate colloidal crystals by
choosing appropriate polydispersity in size.Comment: 22 pages, 8 figure
Ultrasensitive mechanical detection of magnetic moment using a commercial disk drive write head
Sensitive detection of weak magnetic moments is an essential capability in
many areas of nanoscale science and technology, including nanomagnetism,
quantum readout of spins, and nanoscale magnetic resonance imaging. Here, we
show that the write head of a commercial hard drive may enable significant
advances in nanoscale spin detection. By approaching a sharp diamond tip to
within 5 nm from the pole and measuring the induced diamagnetic moment with a
nanomechanical force transducer, we demonstrate a spin sensitivity of 0.032
Bohr magnetons per root Hz, equivalent to 21 proton magnetic moments. The high
sensitivity is enabled in part by the pole's strong magnetic gradient of up to
28 million Tesla per meter and in part by the absence of non-contact friction
due to the extremely flat writer surface. In addition, we demonstrate
quantitative imaging of the pole field with about 10 nm spatial resolution. We
foresee diverse applications for write heads in experimental condensed matter
physics, especially in spintronics, ultrafast spin manipulation, and mesoscopic
physics.Comment: 21 pages, 6 figure
The Abel-Zeilberger Algorithm
We use both Abel's lemma on summation by parts and Zeilberger's algorithm to
find recurrence relations for definite summations. The role of Abel's lemma can
be extended to the case of linear difference operators with polynomial
coefficients. This approach can be used to verify and discover identities
involving harmonic numbers and derangement numbers. As examples, we use the
Abel-Zeilberger algorithm to prove the Paule-Schneider identities, the
Apery-Schmidt-Strehl identity, Calkin's identity and some identities involving
Fibonacci numbers.Comment: 18 page
Confocal microscopic image sequence compression using vector quantization and 3D pyramids
The 3D pyramid compressor project at the University of Glasgow has developed a compressor for images obtained from CLSM device. The proposed method using a combination of image pyramid coder and vector quantization techniques has good performance at compressing confocal volume image data. An experiment was conducted on several kinds of CLSM data using the presented compressor compared to other well-known volume data compressors, such as MPEG-1. The results showed that the 3D pyramid compressor gave higher subjective and objective image quality of reconstructed images at the same compression ratio and presented more acceptable results when applying image processing filters on reconstructed images
Geometric vs. Dynamical Gates in Quantum Computing Implementations Using Zeeman and Heisenberg Hamiltonians
Quantum computing in terms of geometric phases, i.e. Berry or
Aharonov-Anandan phases, is fault-tolerant to a certain degree. We examine its
implementation based on Zeeman coupling with a rotating field and isotropic
Heisenberg interaction, which describe NMR and can also be realized in quantum
dots and cold atoms. Using a novel physical representation of the qubit basis
states, we construct and Hadamard gates based on Berry and
Aharonov-Anandan phases. For two interacting qubits in a rotating field, we
find that it is always impossible to construct a two-qubit gate based on Berry
phases, or based on Aharonov-Anandan phases when the gyromagnetic ratios of the
two qubits are equal. In implementing a universal set of quantum gates, one may
combine geometric and Hadamard gates and dynamical
gate.Comment: published version, 5 page
Nanoladder cantilevers made from diamond and silicon
We present a "nanoladder" geometry that minimizes the mechanical dissipation
of ultrasensitive cantilevers. A nanoladder cantilever consists of a
lithographically patterned scaffold of rails and rungs with feature size
100 nm. Compared to a rectangular beam of the same dimensions, the mass and
spring constant of a nanoladder are each reduced by roughly two orders of
magnitude. We demonstrate a low force noise of zN and zN in a one-Hz bandwidth for devices made from silicon and
diamond, respectively, measured at temperatures between 100--150 mK. As opposed
to bottom-up mechanical resonators like nanowires or nanotubes, nanoladder
cantilevers can be batch-fabricated using standard lithography, which is a
critical factor for applications in scanning force microscopy
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