Spin melting and refreezing driven by uniaxial compression on a dipolar hexagonal plate

We investigate freezing characteristics of a finite dipolar hexagonal plate by the Monte Carlo simulation. The hexagonal plate is cut out from a piled triangular lattice of three layers with FCC-like (ABCABC) stacking structure. In the present study an annealing simulation is performed for the dipolar plate uniaxially compressed in the direction of layer-piling. We find spin melting and refreezing driven by the uniaxial compression. Each of the melting and refreezing corresponds one-to-one with a change of the ground states induced by compression. The freezing temperatures of the ground-state orders differ significantly from each other, which gives rise to the spin melting and refreezing of the present interest. We argue that these phenomena are originated by a finite size effect combined with peculiar anisotropic nature of the dipole-dipole interaction.Comment: Proceedings of the Highly Frustrated Magnetism (HFM2006) conference. To appear in a special issue of J. Phys. Condens. Matte

Auditory dominance in motor-sensory temporal recalibration

Perception of synchrony between one’s own action (e.g. a finger tap) and the sensory feedback thereof (e.g. a flash or click) can be shifted after exposure to an induced delay (temporal recalibration effect, TRE). It remains elusive, however, whether the same mechanism underlies motor-visual (MV) and motor-auditory (MA) TRE. We examined this by measuring crosstalk between MV- and MA-delayed feedbacks. During an exposure phase, participants pressed a mouse at a constant pace while receiving visual or auditory feedback that was either delayed (+150 ms) or subjectively synchronous (+50 ms). During a post-test, participants then tried to tap in sync with visual or auditory pacers. TRE manifested itself as a compensatory shift in the tap–pacer asynchrony (a larger anticipation error after exposure to delayed feedback). In experiment 1, MA and MV feedback were either both synchronous (MV-sync and MA-sync) or both delayed (MV-delay and MA-delay), whereas in experiment 2, different delays were mixed across alternating trials (MV-sync and MA-delay or MV-delay and MA-sync). Exposure to consistent delays induced equally large TREs for auditory and visual pacers with similar build-up courses. However, with mixed delays, we found that synchronized sounds erased MV-TRE, but synchronized flashes did not erase MA-TRE. These results suggest that similar mechanisms underlie MA- and MV-TRE, but that auditory feedback is more potent than visual feedback to induce a rearrangement of motor-sensory timing

Electrical Control of Dynamic Spin Splitting Induced by Exchange Interaction as Revealed by Time Resolved Kerr Rotation in a Degenerate Spin-Polarized Electron Gas

The manipulation of spin degree of freedom have been demonstrated in spin polarized electron plasma in a heterostructure by using exchange-interaction induced dynamic spin splitting rather than the Rashba and Dresselhaus types, as revealed by time resolved Kerr rotation. The measured spin splitting increases from 0.256meV to 0.559meV as the bias varies from -0.3V to -0.6V. Both the sign switch of Kerr signal and the phase reversal of Larmor precessions have been observed with biases, which all fit into the framework of exchange-interaction-induced spin splitting. The electrical control of it may provide a new effective scheme for manipulating spin-selected transport in spin FET-like devices.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures ; added some discussion

Significance of myocardial tenascin-C expression in left ventricular remodelling and long-term outcome in patients with dilated cardiomyopathy

Aim Dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) has a variety of causes, and no useful approach to predict left ventricular (LV) remodelling and long-term outcome has yet been established. Myocardial tenascin-C (TNC) is known to appear under pathological conditions, possibly to regulate cardiac remodelling. The aim of this study was to clarify the significance of myocardial TNC expression in LV remodelling and the long-term outcome in DCM. Methods and results One hundred and twenty-three consecutive DCM patients who underwent endomyocardial biopsy for initial diagnosis were studied. Expression of TNC in biopsy sections was analysed immunohistochemically to quantify the ratio of the TNC-positive area to the whole myocardial tissue area (TNC area). Clinical parameters associated with TNC area were investigated. The patients were divided into two groups based on receiver operating characteristic analysis of TNC area to predict death: high TNC group with TNC area ≥2.3% (22 patients) and low TNC group with TNC area <2.3% (101 patients). High TNC was associated with diabetes mellitus. Comparing echocardiographic findings between before and 9 months after endomyocardial biopsy, the low TNC group was associated with decreased LV end-diastolic diameter and increased LV ejection fraction, whereas the high TNC group was not. Survival analysis revealed a worse outcome in the high TNC group than in the low TNC group (P < 0.001). Multivariable Cox regression analysis revealed that TNC area was independently associated with poor outcome (HR = 1.347, P = 0.032). Conclusions Increased myocardial TNC expression was associated with worse LV remodeling and long-term outcome in DCM

Capacitive micromachined ultrasonic transducers with novel membrane design

AbstractThis paper presents a novel membrane design for capacitive micromachined ultrasonic transducers (cMUTs). The proposed design is composed of a thick membrane with reinforcing beams supported by a circumferential thin membrane to improve transducer sensitivity without degrading the membrane resonance frequency. Analytical formulation of sensitivity for the proposed design was newly derived and its validity was verified by finite element analysis (FEA). From the analysis, we confirmed that this thick membrane structure achieved three times higher sensitivity compared to the conventional design by decreasing 70 % of the mass of the thick membrane part with keeping the resonance frequency same

Spin Dynamics in the Second Subband of a Quasi Two Dimensional System Studied in a Single Barrier Heterostructure by Time Resolved Kerr Rotation

By biasing a single barrier heterostructure with a 500nm-thick GaAs layer as the absorption layer, the spin dynamics for both of the first and second subband near the AlAs barrier are examined. We find that when simultaneously scanning the photon energy of both the probe and pump beams, a sign reversal of the Kerr rotation (KR) takes place as long as the probe photons break away the first subband and probe the second subband. This novel feature, while stemming from the exchange interaction, has been used to unambiguously distinguish the different spin dynamics ($T_2^{1*}$ and $T_2^{2*}$) for the first and second subbands under the different conditions by their KR signs (negative for $1^{st}$ and positive for $2^{nd}$). In the zero magnetic field, by scanning the wavelength towards the short wavelength, $T_2^{1*}$ decreases in accordance with the D'yakonov-Perel' (DP) spin decoherence mechanism. At 803nm, $T_2^{2*}$(450ps) becomes ten times longer than $T_2^{1*}$(50ps). However, the value of $T_2^{2*}$ at 803nm is roughly the same as the value of $T_2^{1*}$ at 815nm. A new feature has been disclosed at the wavelength of 811nm under the bias of -0.3V (807nm under the bias of -0.6V) that the spin coherence times ($T_2^{1*}$ and $T_2^{2*}$) and the effective $g^*$ factors ($|g^*(E1)|$ and $|g^*(E2)|$) all display a sudden change, due to the "resonant" spin exchange coupling between two spin opposite bands.Comment: 9pages, 3 figure