Charge confinement and Klein tunneling from doping graphene

In the present work, we investigate how structural defects in graphene can change its transport properties. In particular, we show that breaking of the sublattice symmetry in a graphene monolayer overcomes the Klein effect, leading to confined states of massless Dirac fermions. Experimentally, this corresponds to chemical bonding of foreign atoms to carbon atoms, which attach themselves to preferential positions on one of the two sublattices. In addition, we consider the scattering off a tensor barrier, which describes the rotation of the honeycomb cells of a given region around an axis perpendicular to the graphene layer. We demonstrate that in this case the intervalley mixing between the Dirac points emerges, and that Klein tunneling occurs.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figure

Generation of Superposition States and Charge-Qubit Relaxation Probing in a Circuit

We demonstrate how a superposition of coherent states can be generated for a microwave field inside a coplanar transmission line coupled to a single superconducting charge qubit, with the addition of a single classical magnetic pulse for chirping of the qubit transition frequency. We show how the qubit dephasing induces decoherence on the field superposition state, and how it can be probed by the qubit charge detection. The character of the charge qubit relaxation process itself is imprinted in the field state decoherence profile.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure

Experimental characterization of the structural response of adobe arches

Earth was one of the first construction materials used by mankind and has been used as a building material since ancient times until the present days. Its qualities related to thermal comfort, low cost or simple construction techniques have contributed to such a long tradition throughout the world with several different architectural expressions, integrating the culture and history of each region. With the wide propagation of steel and concrete structures, there has been a general loss of the traditional knowledge in earth construction. This type of construction presents important structural fragilities and requires a special maintenance to preserve its qualities. In order to understand the structural behaviour of this type of structures, the associated construction methods and processes have to be considered. Aveiro University has been developing studies on adobe constructions, with research on the material mechanical characterization, experimental study of the structural behaviour of adobe masonry walls and, more recently, in the development of a detailed survey methodology for the characterization of buildings in Aveiro district. Integrated in these studies, arches with different geometries were built using adobe blocks and traditional construction methods. These arches were tested under different types of vertical loading (distributed symmetrical, distributed non-symmetrical and point load) until collapse. The experimental tests performed reproduce the typical loading conditions of these structures during construction and use. The tests conducted, the results obtained and the main conclusions attained are described in this paper

Towards a knowledge-based system to assist the Brazilian data-collecting system operation

A study is reported which was carried out to show how a knowledge-based approach would lead to a flexible tool to assist the operation task in a satellite-based environmental data collection system. Some characteristics of a hypothesized system comprised of a satellite and a network of Interrogable Data Collecting Platforms (IDCPs) are pointed out. The Knowledge-Based Planning Assistant System (KBPAS) and some aspects about how knowledge is organized in the IDCP's domain are briefly described