Transport in gapped bilayer graphene: the role of potential fluctuations

We employ a dual-gated geometry to control the band gap \Delta in bilayer graphene and study the temperature dependence of the resistance at the charge neutrality point, RNP(T), from 220 to 1.5 K. Above 5 K, RNP(T) is dominated by two thermally activated processes in different temperature regimes and exhibits exp(T3/T)^{1/3} below 5 K. We develop a simple model to account for the experimental observations, which highlights the crucial role of localized states produced by potential fluctuations. The high temperature conduction is attributed to thermal activation to the mobility edge. The activation energy approaches \Delta /2 at large band gap. At intermediate and low temperatures, the dominant conduction mechanisms are nearest neighbor hopping and variable-range hopping through localized states. Our systematic study provides a coherent understanding of transport in gapped bilayer graphene.Comment: to appear in Physical Review B: Rapid Com

Automated parameters for troubled-cell indicators using outlier detection

In Vuik and Ryan (2014) we studied the use of troubled-cell indicators for discontinuity detection in nonlinear hyperbolic partial differential equations and introduced a new multiwavelet technique to detect troubled cells. We found that these methods perform well as long as a suitable, problem-dependent parameter is chosen. This parameter is used in a threshold which decides whether or not to detect an element as a troubled cell. Until now, these parameters could not be chosen automatically. The choice of the parameter has impact on the approximation: it determines the strictness of the troubled-cell indicator. An inappropriate choice of the parameter will result in detection (and limiting) of too few or too many elements. The optimal parameter is chosen such that the minimal number of troubled cells is detected and the resulting approximation is free of spurious oscillations. In this paper we will see that for each troubled-cell indicator the sudden increase or decrease of the indicator value with respect to the neighboring values is important for detection. Indication basically reduces to detecting the outliers of a vector (one dimension) or matrix (two dimensions). This is done using Tukey's boxplot approach to detect which coefficients in a vector are straying far beyond others (Tukey, 1977). We provide an algorithm that can be applied to various troubled-cell indication variables. Using this technique the problem-dependent parameter that the original indicator requires is no longer necessary as the parameter will be chosen automatically

Generation of tunable Terahertz out-of-plane radiation using Josephson vortices in modulated layered superconductors

We show that a moving Josephson vortex in spatially modulated layered superconductors generates out-of-plane THz radiation. Remarkably, the magnetic and in-plane electric fields radiated are of the same order, which is very unusual for any good-conducting medium. Therefore, the out-of-plane radiation can be emitted to the vacuum without the standard impedance mismatch problem. Thus, the proposed design can be more efficient for tunable THz emitters than previous proposals, for radiation only propagating along the ab-plane.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figure. Phys. Rev. B (2005), in pres

Evidence for spin-flip scattering and local moments in dilute fluorinated graphene

The issue of whether local magnetic moments can be formed by introducing adatoms into graphene is of intense research interest because it opens the window to fundamental studies of magnetism in graphene, as well as of its potential spintronics applications. To investigate this question we measure, by exploiting the well-established weak localization physics, the phase coherence length L_phi in dilute fluorinated graphene. L_phi reveals an unusual saturation below ~ 10 K, which cannot be explained by non-magnetic origins. The corresponding phase breaking rate increases with decreasing carrier density and increases with increasing fluorine density. These results provide strong evidence for spin-flip scattering and points to the existence of adatom-induced local magnetic moment in fluorinated graphene. Our results will stimulate further investigations of magnetism and spintronics applications in adatom-engineered graphene.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures, and supplementary materials; Phys. Rev. Lett. in pres

Exciton Valley Dynamics probed by Kerr Rotation in WSe2 Monolayers

We have experimentally studied the pump-probe Kerr rotation dynamics in WSe$_2$ monolayers. This yields a direct measurement of the exciton valley depolarization time $\tau_v$. At T=4K, we find $\tau_v\approx 6$ps, a fast relaxation time resulting from the strong electron-hole Coulomb exchange interaction in bright excitons. The exciton valley depolarization time decreases significantly when the lattice temperature increases with $\tau_v$ being as short as 1.5ps at 125K. The temperature dependence is well explained by the developed theory taking into account the exchange interaction and a fast exciton scattering time on short-range potentials.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure

Spontaneous excitation of an accelerated multilevel atom in dipole coupling to the derivative of a scalar field

We study the spontaneous excitation of an accelerated multilevel atom in dipole coupling to the derivative of a massless quantum scalar field and separately calculate the contributions of the vacuum fluctuation and radiation reaction to the rate of change of the mean atomic energy of the atom. It is found that, in contrast to the case where a monopole like interaction between the atom and the field is assumed, there appear extra corrections proportional to the acceleration squared, in addition to corrections which can be viewed as a result of an ambient thermal bath at the Unruh temperature, as compared with the inertial case, and the acceleration induced correction terms show anisotropy with the contribution from longitudinal polarization being four times that from the transverse polarization for isotropically polarized accelerated atoms. Our results suggest that the effect of acceleration on the rate of change of the mean atomic energy is dependent not only on the quantum field to which the atom is coupled, but also on the type of the interaction even if the same quantum scalar field is considered.Comment: 11 pages, no figure