Local fields in nonlinear quantum transport

We investigate the dynamical interplay between currents and electromagnetic fields in frequency-dependent transport through a single-channel quantum wire with an impurity potential in the presence of electron-electron interactions. We introduce and discuss a formalism which allows a self-consistent treatment of currents and electromagnetic fields.Comment: 4 page

The ERA2 facility: towards application of a fiber-based astronomical spectrograph for imaging spectroscopy in life sciences

Astronomical instrumentation is most of the time faced with challenging requirements in terms of sensitivity, stability, complexity, etc., and therefore leads to high performance developments that at first sight appear to be suitable only for the specific design application at the telescope. However, their usefulness in other disciplines and for other applications is not excluded. The ERA2 facility is a lab demonstrator, based on a high-performance astronomical spectrograph, which is intended to explore the innovation potential of fiber-coupled multi-channel spectroscopy for spatially resolved spectroscopy in life science, material sciences, and other areas of research.Comment: 10 pages, 9 figures, SPIE Conference "Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation" 2012, Amsterda

Terahertz-driven phonon upconversion in SrTiO 3

Direct manipulation of the atomic lattice using intense long-wavelength laser pulses has become a viable approach to create new states of matter in complex materials. Conventionally, a high-frequency vibrational mode is driven resonantly by a mid- infrared laser pulse and the lattice structure is modified through indirect coupling of this infrared-active phonon to other, lower-frequency lattice modulations. Here, we drive the lowest-frequency optical phonon in the prototypical transition metal oxide SrTiO3 well into the anharmonic regime with an intense terahertz field. We show that it is possible to transfer energy to higher-frequency phonon modes through nonlinear coupling. Our observations are carried out by directly mapping the lattice response to the coherent drive field with femtosecond X-ray pulses, enabling direct visualization of the atomic displacements

Anomalous Tien-Gordon scaling in a 1d tunnel junction

We investigate the nonlinear ac transport through a quantum wire with an impurity in the presence of finite range electron-electron interactions. We discuss the influence of the spatial shape of the ac electric field onto transport properties of the system and find that the scaling behavior of the occupation probability of the sidebands depends on the range of the voltage drop