14,053 research outputs found
Ground-state Stabilization of Open Quantum Systems by Dissipation
Control by dissipation, or environment engineering, constitutes an important
methodology within quantum coherent control which was proposed to improve the
robustness and scalability of quantum control systems. The system-environment
coupling, often considered to be detrimental to quantum coherence, also
provides the means to steer the system to desired states. This paper aims to
develop the theory for engineering of the dissipation, based on a ground-state
Lyapunov stability analysis of open quantum systems via a Heisenberg-picture
approach. Algebraic conditions concerning the ground-state stability and
scalability of quantum systems are obtained. In particular, Lyapunov stability
conditions expressed as operator inequalities allow a purely algebraic
treatment of the environment engineering problem, which facilitates the
integration of quantum components into a large-scale quantum system and draws
an explicit connection to the classical theory of vector Lyapunov functions and
decomposition-aggregation methods for control of complex systems. The
implications of the results in relation to dissipative quantum computing and
state engineering are also discussed in this paper.Comment: 18 pages, to appear in Automatic
Silicon nanowire devices
Transport measurements were carried out on 15–35 nm diameter silicon nanowires grown using SiH4 chemical vapor deposition via Au or Zn particle-nucleated vapor-liquid-solid growth at 440°C. Both Al and Ti/Au contacts to the wires were investigated. The wires, as produced, were essentially intrinsic, although Au nucleated wires exhibited a slightly higher conductance. Thermal treatment of the fabricated devices resulted in better electrical contacts, as well as diffusion of dopant atoms into the nanowires, and increased the nanowire conductance by as much as 10^4. Three terminal devices indicate that the doping of the wires is p type
On the generalization of linear least mean squares estimation to quantum systems with non-commutative outputs
The purpose of this paper is to study the problem of generalizing the
Belavkin-Kalman filter to the case where the classical measurement signal is
replaced by a fully quantum non-commutative output signal. We formulate a least
mean squares estimation problem that involves a non-commutative system as the
filter processing the non-commutative output signal. We solve this estimation
problem within the framework of non-commutative probability. Also, we find the
necessary and sufficient conditions which make these non-commutative estimators
physically realizable. These conditions are restrictive in practice.Comment: 31 page
Probing the size and density of silicon nanocrystals in nanocrystal memory device applications
Structural characterization via transmission electron microscopy and atomic force microscopy of arrays of small Si nanocrystals embedded in SiO2, important to many device applications, is usually difficult and fails to correctly resolve nanocrystal size and density. We demonstrate that scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) imaging enables a much more accurate measurement of the ensemble size distribution and array density for small Si nanocrystals in SiO2, estimated to be 2-3 nm and 4 x 10^(12) - 3 x 10^(13) cm^(-2), respectively, in this study. The reflection high energy electron diffraction pattern further verifies the existence of nanocrystallites in SiO2. The present STM results enable nanocrystal charging characteristics to be more clearly understood: we find the nanocrystal charging measurements to be consistent with single charge storage on individual Si nanocrystals. Both electron tunneling and hole tunneling processes are suggested to explain the asymmetric charging/ discharging processes as a function of bias
Interpolation Approach to Hamiltonian-varying Quantum Systems and the Adiabatic Theorem
Quantum control could be implemented by varying the system Hamiltonian.
According to adiabatic theorem, a slowly changing Hamiltonian can approximately
keep the system at the ground state during the evolution if the initial state
is a ground state. In this paper we consider this process as an interpolation
between the initial and final Hamiltonians. We use the mean value of a single
operator to measure the distance between the final state and the ideal ground
state. This measure could be taken as the error of adiabatic approximation. We
prove under certain conditions, this error can be precisely estimated for an
arbitrarily given interpolating function. This error estimation could be used
as guideline to induce adiabatic evolution. According to our calculation, the
adiabatic approximation error is not proportional to the average speed of the
variation of the system Hamiltonian and the inverse of the energy gaps in many
cases. In particular, we apply this analysis to an example on which the
applicability of the adiabatic theorem is questionable.Comment: 12 pages, to appear in EPJ Quantum Technolog
Diet Shapes Mortality Response to Trauma in Old Tephritid Fruit Flies.
Despite the importance of trauma in healthspan and lifespan in humans as well as in non-human species, with one important exception the literature in both gerontology and ecology contains virtually no experimental demographic studies concerned with trauma in any species. We used dietary manipulation [full diet (F) versus sugar-only (S)] to produce four levels of frailty in 55-day old tephritid fruit flies (Anastrepha ludens) that were then subject to the trauma of cage transfer stress (n = 900/sex in each of the 4 treatments). The key results included the following: (1) there is a trauma effect caused by the transfer that depends on previous diet before transfer, new diet after transfer and gender of the fly; (2) males are more vulnerable than females; (3) if initial diet was F, flies are relatively immune against the trauma, and the subsequent diet (F or S) does not matter; (4) however if initial diet was S, then the effect of the trauma depends largely on the diet after the transfer; (5) flies transferred from S to F diets do very well in terms of remaining longevity (i.e. greatest remaining longevity), while flies transferred from S to S diet do poorly (i.e. shortest remaining longevity). We discuss both the strengths and weaknesses of this study and implications of the results
Gain Stabilization of a Submillimeter SIS Heterodyne Receiver
We have designed a system to stabilize the gain of a submillimeter heterodyne
receiver against thermal fluctuations of the mixing element. In the most
sensitive heterodyne receivers, the mixer is usually cooled to 4 K using a
closed-cycle cryocooler, which can introduce ~1% fluctuations in the physical
temperature of the receiver components. We compensate for the resulting mixer
conversion gain fluctuations by monitoring the physical temperature of the
mixer and adjusting the gain of the intermediate frequency (IF) amplifier that
immediately follows the mixer. This IF power stabilization scheme, developed
for use at the Submillimeter Array (SMA), a submillimeter interferometer
telescope on Mauna Kea in Hawaii, routinely achieves a receiver gain stability
of 1 part in 6,000 (rms to mean). This is an order of magnitude improvement
over the typical uncorrected stability of 1 part in a few hundred. Our gain
stabilization scheme is a useful addition to SIS heterodyne receivers that are
cooled using closed-cycle cryocoolers in which the 4 K temperature fluctuations
tend to be the leading cause of IF power fluctuations.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figures accepted to IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory
and Technique
Fluctuation-Induced Transitions in a Bistable Surface Reaction: Catalytic CO Oxidation on a Pt Field Emitter Tip
Fluctuations which arise in catalytic CO oxidation on a Pt field emitter tip have been studied with field electron microscopy as the imaging method. Fluctuation-driven transitions between the active and the inactive branch of the reaction are found to occur sufficiently close to the bifurcation point, terminating the bistable range. The experimental results are modeled with Monte Carlo simulations of a lattice-gas reaction model incorporating rapid CO diffusion
Scanning Tunneling Microscopy and Spectroscopy of Wet-Chemically Prepared Chlorinated Si(111) Surfaces
Chlorine-terminated Si(111) surfaces prepared through the wet-chemical treatment of H-terminated Si(111) surfaces with PCl_5 (in chlorobenzene) were investigated using ultrahigh vacuum scanning tunneling microscopy (UHV cryo-STM) and tunneling spectroscopy. STM images, collected at 77 K, revealed an unreconstructed 1 × 1 structure for the chlorination layer, consistent with what has been observed for the gas phase chlorination of H-terminated Si(111). However, the wet-chemical chlorination is shown to generate etch pits in the Si(111) surface, with an increase in etch pit density correlating with increasing PCl_5 exposure temperatures. These etch pits were assumed to stabilize the edge structure through the partial removal of the 〈112̄〉 step edges. Tunneling spectroscopy revealed a nonzero density of states at zero bias. This is in contrast to the cases of H-, methyl-, or ethyl-terminated Si(111), in which similar measurements have revealed the presence of a large conductance gap
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