Self-consistent model of unipolar transport in organic semiconductor diodes: accounting for a realistic density-of-states distribution

A self-consistent, mean-field model of charge-carrier injection and unipolar transport in an organic semiconductor diode is developed utilizing the effective transport energy concept and taking into account a realistic density-of-states distribution as well as the presence of trap states in an organic material. The consequences resulting from the model are discussed exemplarily on the basis of an indium tin oxide/organic semiconductor/metallic conductor structure. A comparison of the theory to experimental data of a unipolar indium tin oxide/poly-3-hexyl-thiophene/Al device is presented.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures; to be published in Journal of Applied Physic

Charge carrier injection into insulating media: single-particle versus mean-field approach

Self-consistent, mean-field description of charge injection into a dielectric medium is modified to account for discreteness of charge carriers. The improved scheme includes both the Schottky barrier lowering due to the individual image charge and the barrier change due to the field penetration into the injecting electrode that ensures validity of the model at both high and low injection rates including the barrier dominated and the space-charge dominated regimes. Comparison of the theory with experiment on an unipolar ITO/PPV/Au-device is presented.Comment: 32 pages, 9 figures; revised version accepted to PR

Little-Parks effect and multiquanta vortices in a hybrid superconductor--ferromagnet system

Within the phenomenological Ginzburg-Landau theory we investigate the phase diagram of a thin superconducting film with ferromagnetic nanoparticles. We study the oscillatory dependence of the critical temperature on an external magnetic field similar to the Little-Parks effect and formation of multiquantum vortex structures. The structure of a superconducting state is studied both analytically and numerically.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figure. Submitted to J. Phys.: Condens. Mat

Magnetic Pinning of Vortices in a Superconducting Film: The (anti)vortex-magnetic dipole interaction energy in the London approximation

The interaction between a superconducting vortex or antivortex in a superconducting film and a magnetic dipole with in- or out-of-plane magnetization is investigated within the London approximation. The dependence of the interaction energy on the dipole-vortex distance and the film thickness is studied and analytical results are obtained in limiting cases. We show how the short range interaction with the magnetic dipole makes the co-existence of vortices and antivortices possible. Different configurations with vortices and antivortices are investigated.Comment: 12 pages, 12 figures. Submitted to Phys. Rev.

Mathematical modelling and numerical simulation of CO2/CH4 separation in a polymeric membrane

YesCO2 capture from natural gas was experimentally and theoretically studied using a dead-end polymeric permeation cell. A numerical model was proposed for the separation of CO2/CH4 using Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) in a flat sheet membrane module and developed based upon the continuity, momentum and mass transfer equations. The slip velocity condition was considered to show the reflection of gas flow in contact with the membrane surface. The solution method was based on the well-known SIMPLE algorithm and implemented using MATLAB to determine the velocity and concentration profiles. Due to change in velocity direction in the membrane module, the hybrid differencing scheme was used to solve the diffusion-convection equation. The results of the model were compared with the experimental data obtained as part of this work and good agreement was observed. The distribution of CO2 concentration inside the feed and permeate chambers was shown and the velocity profile at the membrane surface was also determined using reflection factor for polymericmembrane. The modelling result revealed that increasing the amount of CO2 in gas feed resulted in an increase in the CO2 in the permeate stream while the gas feed pressure increased. By changing the permeability, the model developed by use of the solution-diffusion concept could be used for all polymeric membranes with flat sheet modules

Nucleation of superconductivity and vortex matter in superconductor - ferromagnet hybrids

The theoretical and experimental results concerning the thermodynamical and low-frequency transport properties of hybrid structures, consisting of spatially-separated conventional low-temperature superconductor (S) and ferromagnet (F), is reviewed. Since the superconducting and ferromagnetic parts are assumed to be electrically insulated, no proximity effect is present and thus the interaction between both subsystems is through their respective magnetic stray fields. Depending on the temperature range and the value of the external field H_{ext}, different behavior of such S/F hybrids is anticipated. Rather close to the superconducting phase transition line, when the superconducting state is only weakly developed, the magnetization of the ferromagnet is solely determined by the magnetic history of the system and it is not influenced by the field generated by the supercurrents. In contrast to that, the nonuniform magnetic field pattern, induced by the ferromagnet, strongly affect the nucleation of superconductivity leading to an exotic dependence of the critical temperature T_{c} on H_{ext}. Deeper in the superconducting state the effect of the screening currents cannot be neglected anymore. In this region of the phase diagram various aspects of the interaction between vortices and magnetic inhomogeneities are discussed. In the last section we briefly summarize the physics of S/F hybrids when the magnetization of the ferromagnet is no longer fixed but can change under the influence of the superconducting currents. As a consequence, the superconductor and ferromagnet become truly coupled and the equilibrium configuration of this "soft" S/F hybrids requires rearrangements of both, superconducting and ferromagnetic characteristics, as compared with "hard" S/F structures.Comment: Topical review, submitted to Supercond. Sci. Tech., 67 pages, 33 figures, 439 reference

Negative Magnetoresistance of Layered High-tc\text{}_{c} Compounds

Magnetoresistance of layered high-T$\text{}_{c}$ systems with quasi-two-dimensional superconductivity in magnetic field H applied parallel to superconducting planes was investigated theoretically. In such configuration an increase in the magnetic field intensity decreases the critical temperature of superconducting regions. It causes both a suppression of the gap parameter Δ and an increase in the tunneling current between the decoupled superconducting planes and, as a consequence, leads to negative magnetoresistance. The dependence of tunneling current on H was calculated for superconducting layer thickness d$\text{}_{S}$ smaller than the superconducting correlation length. The results can be used for analysis of current-voltage characteristics of both superconductor-insulator-superconductor and superconductor-insulator normal metal multilayered tunnel structures