Comet Gas and Dust Dynamics Modeling

This software models the gas and dust dynamics of comet coma (the head region of a comet) in order to support the Microwave Instrument for Rosetta Orbiter (MIRO) project. MIRO will study the evolution of the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko's coma system. The instrument will measure surface temperature, gas-production rates and relative abundances, and velocity and excitation temperatures of each species along with their spatial temporal variability. This software will use these measurements to improve the understanding of coma dynamics. The modeling tool solves the equation of motion of a dust particle, the energy balance equation of the dust particle, the continuity equation for the dust and gas flow, and the dust and gas mixture energy equation. By solving these equations numerically, the software calculates the temperature and velocity of gas and dust as a function of time for a given initial gas and dust production rate, and a dust characteristic parameter that measures the ability of a dust particle to adjust its velocity to the local gas velocity. The software is written in a modular manner, thereby allowing the addition of more dynamics equations as needed. All of the numerical algorithms are added in-house and no third-party libraries are used

Genetic Algorithm Optimizes Q-LAW Control Parameters

A document discusses a multi-objective, genetic algorithm designed to optimize Lyapunov feedback control law (Q-law) parameters in order to efficiently find Pareto-optimal solutions for low-thrust trajectories for electronic propulsion systems. These would be propellant-optimal solutions for a given flight time, or flight time optimal solutions for a given propellant requirement. The approximate solutions are used as good initial solutions for high-fidelity optimization tools. When the good initial solutions are used, the high-fidelity optimization tools quickly converge to a locally optimal solution near the initial solution. Q-law control parameters are represented as real-valued genes in the genetic algorithm. The performances of the Q-law control parameters are evaluated in the multi-objective space (flight time vs. propellant mass) and sorted by the non-dominated sorting method that assigns a better fitness value to the solutions that are dominated by a fewer number of other solutions. With the ranking result, the genetic algorithm encourages the solutions with higher fitness values to participate in the reproduction process, improving the solutions in the evolution process. The population of solutions converges to the Pareto front that is permitted within the Q-law control parameter space

Magnetic-field dependence of valley splitting for Si quantum wells grown on tilted SiGe substrates

The valley splitting of the first few Landau levels is calculated as a function of the magnetic field for electrons confined in a strained silicon quantum well grown on a tilted SiGe substrate, using a parameterized tight-binding method. For a zero substrate tilt angle, the valley splitting slightly decreases with increasing magnetic field. In contrast, the valley splitting for a finite substrate tilt angle exhibits a strong and non-monotonous dependence on the magnetic field strength. The valley splitting of the first Landau level shows an exponential increase followed by a slow saturation as the magnetic field strength increases. The valley splitting of the second and third Landau levels shows an oscillatory behavior. The non-monotonous dependence is explained by the phase variation of the Landau level wave function along the washboard-like interface between the tilted quantum well and the buffer material. The phase variation is the direct consequence of the misorientation between the crystal axis and the confinement direction of the quantum well. This result suggests that the magnitude of the valley splitting can be tuned by controlling the Landau-level filling factor through the magnetic field and the doping concentration

Effect of electron-nuclear spin interactions on electron-spin qubits localized in self-assembled quantum dots

The effect of electron-nuclear spin interactions on qubit operations is investigated for a qubit represented by the spin of an electron localized in a self-assembled quantum dot. The localized electron wave function is evaluated within the atomistic tight-binding model. The magnetic field generated by the nuclear spins is estimated in the presence of an inhomogeneous environment characterized by a random nuclear spin configuration, by the dot-size distribution, by alloy disorder, and by interface disorder. Due to these inhomogeneities, the magnitude of the nuclear magnetic field varies from one qubit to another by the order of 100 G, 100 G, 10 G, and 0.1 G, respectively. The fluctuation of the magnetic field causes errors in exchange operations due to the inequality of the Zeeman splitting between two qubits. We show that the errors can be made lower than the quantum error threshold if an exchange energy larger than 0.1 meV is used for the operation.Comment: 15 pages, 2 figure

Development of a Nanoelectronic 3-D (NEMO 3-D) Simulator for Multimillion Atom Simulations and Its Application to Alloyed Quantum Dots

Material layers with a thickness of a few nanometers are common-place in today’s semiconductor devices. Before long, device fabrication methods will reach a point at which the other two device dimensions are scaled down to few tens of nanometers. The total atom count in such deca-nano devices is reduced to a few million. Only a small finite number of “free” electrons will operate such nano-scale devices due to quantized electron energies and electron charge. This work demonstrates that the simulation of electronic structure and electron transport on these length scales must not only be fundamentally quantum mechanical, but it must also include the atomic granularity of the device. Various elements of the theoretical, numerical, and software foundation of the prototype development of a Nanoelectronic Modeling tool (NEMO 3-D) which enables this class of device simulation on Beowulf cluster computers are presented. The electronic system is represented in a sparse complex Hamiltonian matrix of the order of hundreds of millions. A custom parallel matrix vector multiply algorithm that is coupled to a Lanczos and/or Rayleigh- Ritz eigenvalue solver has been developed. Benchmarks of the parallel electronic structure and the parallel strain calculation performed on various Beowulf cluster computers and a SGI Origin 2000 are presented. The Beowulf cluster benchmarks show that the competition for memory access on dual CPU PC boards renders the utility of one of the CPUs useless, if the memory usage per node is about 1-2 GB. A new strain treatment for the sp3s∗ and sp3d5s∗ tight-binding models is developed and parameterized for bulk material properties of GaAs and InAs. The utility of the new tool is demonstrated by an atomistic analysis of the effects of disorder in alloys. In particular bulk InxGa1−xAs and In0.6Ga0.4As quantum dots are examined. The quantum dot simulations show that the random atom configurations in the alloy, without any size or shape variations can lead to optical transition energy variations of several meV. The electron and hole wave functions show significant spatial variations due to spatial disorder indicating variations in electron and hole localization

Nanowire electron scattering spectroscopy

Methods and devices for spectroscopic identification of molecules using nanoscale wires are disclosed. According to one of the methods, nanoscale wires are provided, electrons are injected into the nanoscale wire; and inelastic electron scattering is measured via excitation of low-lying vibrational energy levels of molecules bound to the nanoscale wire

Fabrication of Single, Vertically Aligned Carbon Nanotubes in 3D Nanoscale Architectures

Plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) and high-throughput manufacturing techniques for integrating single, aligned carbon nanotubes (CNTs) into novel 3D nanoscale architectures have been developed. First, the PECVD growth technique ensures excellent alignment of the tubes, since the tubes align in the direction of the electric field in the plasma as they are growing. Second, the tubes generated with this technique are all metallic, so their chirality is predetermined, which is important for electronic applications. Third, a wafer-scale manufacturing process was developed that is high-throughput and low-cost, and yet enables the integration of just single, aligned tubes with nanoscale 3D architectures with unprecedented placement accuracy and does not rely on e-beam lithography. Such techniques should lend themselves to the integration of PECVD grown tubes for applications ranging from interconnects, nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS), sensors, bioprobes, or other 3D electronic devices. Chemically amplified polyhydroxystyrene-resin-based deep UV resists were used in conjunction with excimer laser-based (lambda = 248 nm) step-and-repeat lithography to form Ni catalyst dots = 300 nm in diameter that nucleated single, vertically aligned tubes with high yield using dc PECVD growth. This is the first time such chemically amplified resists have been used, resulting in the nucleation of single, vertically aligned tubes. In addition, novel 3D nanoscale architectures have been created using topdown techniques that integrate single, vertically aligned tubes. These were enabled by implementing techniques that use deep-UV chemically amplified resists for small-feature-size resolution; optical lithography units that allow unprecedented control over layer-to-layer registration; and ICP (inductively coupled plasma) etching techniques that result in near-vertical, high-aspect-ratio, 3D nanoscale architectures, in conjunction with the use of materials that are structurally and chemically compatible with the high-temperature synthesis of the PECVD-grown tubes. The techniques offer a wafer-scale process solution for integrating single PECVD-grown nanotubes into novel architectures that should accelerate their integration in 3D electronics in general. NASA can directly benefit from this technology for its extreme-environment planetary missions. Current Si transistors are inherently more susceptible to high radiation, and do not tolerate extremes in temperature. These novel 3D nanoscale architectures can form the basis for NEMS switches that are inherently less susceptible to radiation or to thermal extremes