Recovery of normal heat conduction in harmonic chains with correlated disorder

We consider heat transport in one-dimensional harmonic chains with isotopic disorder, focussing our attention mainly on how disorder correlations affect heat conduction. Our approach reveals that long-range correlations can change the number of low-frequency extended states. As a result, with a proper choice of correlations one can control how the conductivity $\kappa$ scales with the chain length $N$. We present a detailed analysis of the role of specific long-range correlations for which a size-independent conductivity is exactly recovered in the case of fixed boundary conditions. As for free boundary conditions, we show that disorder correlations can lead to a conductivity scaling as $\kappa \sim N^{\varepsilon}$, with the scaling exponent $\varepsilon$ being arbitrarily small (although not strictly zero), so that normal conduction is almost recovered even in this case.Comment: 15 pages, 2 figure

Experimental study and analytical modeling of the channel length influence on the electrical characteristics of small-molecule thin-film transistors

Bottom-contact p-type small-molecule copper phthalocyanine (CuPc) thin film transistors (TFTs) with different channel lengths have been fabricated by thermal evaporation. The influence of the channel length on the current-voltage characteristics of the fabricated transistors were investigated in the linear and saturation regimes. The devices exhibit excellent p-type operation characteristics. Results show that devices with smaller channel length (L = 2.5 mu m and 5 mu m) present the best electrical performance, in terms of drain current value, field effect mobility and subthreshold slope. Saturation field-effect mobilities of 1.7 x 10(-3) cm(2) V-1 s(-1) and 1 x 10(-3) cm(2) V-1 s(-1) were obtained for TFTs with channel lengths of L = 2.5 mu m and L = 5 mu m, respectively. Transmission line method was used to study the dependence of the contact resistance with the channel length. Contact resistance becomes dominant with respect to the channel resistance only in the case of short channel devices (L = 2.5 mu m and 5 mu m). It was also found that the field effect mobility is extremely dependent on the channel length dimension. Finally, an analytical model has been developed to reproduce the dependence of the transfer characteristics with the channel length and the obtained data are in good agreement with the experimental results for all fabricated devices.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Suspensions Thermal Noise in the LIGO Gravitational Wave Detector

We present a calculation of the maximum sensitivity achievable by the LIGO Gravitational wave detector in construction, due to limiting thermal noise of its suspensions. We present a method to calculate thermal noise that allows the prediction of the suspension thermal noise in all its 6 degrees of freedom, from the energy dissipation due to the elasticity of the suspension wires. We show how this approach encompasses and explains previous ways to approximate the thermal noise limit in gravitational waver detectors. We show how this approach can be extended to more complicated suspensions to be used in future LIGO detectors.Comment: 28 pages, 13 figure

Interplay of Coulomb and electron-phonon interactions in graphene

We consider mutual effect of the electron-phonon and strong Coulomb interactions on each other by summing up leading logarithmic corrections via the renormalization group approach. We find that the Coulomb interaction enhances electron coupling to the intervalley A1 optical phonons, but not to the intravalley E2 phonons