Stabilizing graphitic thin films of wurtzite materials by epitaxial strain

Recent theory [Phys. Rev. Lett. 96, 066102 (2006)] and experiment [Phys. Rev. Lett. 99, 026102 (2007)] show that (0001) ultrathin films of wurtzite (WZ) materials surprisingly transform into a stable graphitelike structure, but the stability is limited to thicknesses of only a few atomic layers. Using first-principles calculations of both freestanding and substrate-supported thin films, we predict that the thickness range of stable graphitic films depends sensitively on strain and can be substantially extended to much thicker films by epitaxial tensile strain. Moreover, the band gap of the stable strained graphitic films can be tuned over a wide range either above or below that of the bulk WZ phase.     

Comment on "Monte carlo study of structural ordering in charged colloids using a long-range attractive interaction"

A recent theoretical analysis [B. V. R. Tata and N. Ise, Phys. Rev. E 58, 2237 (1998)] of interactions and phase transitions in charge-stabilized colloidal suspensions made reference to our previously published measurements [J. C. Crocker and D. G. Grier, Phys. Rev. Lett. 73, 352 (1994); 77, 1897 (1996); A. E. Larson and D. G. Grier, Nature (London) 385, 230 (1997)] of colloidal interactions. Tata and Ise claim that our measurements cannot distinguish between predictions of the Derjaguin, Landau, Verwey, and Overbeek (DLVO) theory and those of the competing theory due to Sogami and Ise (SI). We demonstrate that the DLVO theory accurately describes the measured interactions between isolated pairs of like-charged spheres, while the SI theory fails both quantitatively and qualitatively to describe our data.     

Black hole constraints on varying fundamental constants

We apply the generalized second law of thermodynamics and derive upper limits on the variation in the fundamental constants. The maximum variation in the electronic charge permitted for black holes accreting and emitting in the present cosmic microwave background corresponds to a variation in the fine-structure constant of Deltaalpha/alpha approximately 2 x 10(-23) per second. This value matches the variation measured by Webb et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 82, 884 (1999); Phys. Rev. Lett. 87, 091301 (2001)] using absorption lines in the spectra of distant quasars and suggests the variation mechanism may be a coupling between the electron and the cosmic photon background.     

Alternative explanation of specular optical activity

Bungay et al. [Phys. Lett. A 174, 335 (1993)] reported observing polarization plane rotation in optical reflection at normal incidence from GaAs, an effect that they term specular optical activity. Their preferred interpretation hypothesizes a partially symmetric third-rank bulk tensor arising from nonlocality, even though its existence would violate time reversibility. We present an alternative explanation based on the derived properties of a nonlocal surface layer that preserves time reversibility.     

Does bulk metallic glass of elemental Zr and Ti exist?

To verify the high-pressure formation of the bulk metallic glass in elemental Zr and Ti, which Zhang and Zhao [Nature (London) 430, 332 (2004)] and Y. Wang et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 95, 155501 (2005)] recently reported, the high-pressure states were investigated by our newly developed in situ angle-dispersive x-ray diffraction using a two-dimensional detector and x-ray transparent anvils. Despite the disappearance of all the Bragg peaks in the one-dimensional energy-dispersive data, two-dimensional angle-dispersive data showed several intense Bragg spots even at the conditions where the amorphization was reported. This finding suggests that Zr and Ti do not transform into an amorphous state, but that their grain size becomes large, which causes the missing Bragg peaks in energy-dispersive data.     

Optical gap solitons: Past,present, and future; theory and experiments

Optical gap solitons refer to nonlinear waves propagating in optical fibers whose linear refractive index has a periodic variation. Stationary gap solitons came to light first in 1987 [Chen and Mills, Phys. Rev. Lett. 58, 160 (1987)]; two years later, they re-emerge in Christodoulides and Joseph [Phys. Rev. Lett. 62, 1746 (1989)] and are first extended to a more general traveling wave form in Aceves and Wabnitz [Phys. Lett. A 141, 37 (1989)]. But it was not until seven years later, that the first experimental demonstration [Eggleton et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 76, 1627 (1996); J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 14, 2980 (1997)] was reported. Since then, there has been an increase in the study of the dynamics and applications of such solitons. This paper is a brief survey of some of the ongoing and future research on optical gap solitons. (c) 2000 American Institute of Physics.     

Spatial longitudinal coherence length of a thermal source and its influence on lensless ghost imaging

The spatial longitudinal coherence length (SLCL), which is determined by the size of and the distance from the source, is introduced to investigate the longitudinal resolution of lensless ghost imaging. Its influence is discussed quantitatively by simulation. The discrepancy of position sensitivity between Scarcelli et al. [Appl. Phys. Lett.88, 061106 (2006)] and Basano and Ottonello [Appl. Phys. Lett.88, 091109 (2006)] is clarified.     

Diffraction of picosecond bulk longitudinal and shear waves in micron thick films

Investigation of thin metallic film properties by means of picosecond ultrasonics [C. Thomsen et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 53, 989 (1984)] has been under the scope of several studies. Generation of longitudinal and shear waves [T. Pézeril et al., Phys. Rev. B 73, 132301 (2006); O. Matsuda et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 93, 095501 (2004)] with a wave vector normal to the film free surface has been demonstrated. Such measurements cannot provide complete information about properties of anisotropic films. Extreme focusing of a laser pump beam (≈0.5 μm) on the sample surface has recently allowed us to provide evidence of picosecond acoustic diffraction in thin metallic films (≈1 μm) [C. Rossignol et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 94, 166106 (2005)]. The resulting longitudinal and shear wavefronts propagate at group velocity through the bulk of the film. To interpret the received signals, source directivity diagrams are calculated taking into account material anisotropy, optical penetration, and laser beam width on the sample surface. It is shown that acoustic diffraction increases with optical penetration, so competing with the increasing of directivity caused by beam width. Reflection with mode conversion at the film-substrate interface is discussed.     

Nonsteady condensation and evaporation waves

Recent scaling results for the ac conductivity of ionic glasses by Roling et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 78, 2160 (1997)] and Sidebottom [Phys. Rev. Lett. 82, 3653 (1999)] are discussed. We prove that Sidebottom's version of scaling is completely general. A new approximation to the universal ac conductivity arising in the extreme disorder limit of the symmetric hopping model, the "diffusion cluster approximation," is presented and compared to computer simulations and experiments.     

Reply to "Comment on 'Monte carlo study of structural ordering in charged colloids using a long-range attractive interaction' "

In the Comment by Grier and Crocker (preceding paper) the authors tried to refute our criticism [Phys. Rev. E 58, 2237 (1998)] on their work [J. C. Crocker and D. G. Grier, Phys. Rev. Lett. 77, 1897 (1996)] by simply fitting once again their old experimental data. Grier and Crocker claim that their pair-potential measurements on aqueous dilute suspension of charged colloidal particles confined between charged glass walls at gap of about 8 &mgr;m provide evidence for the failure of Sogami-Ise (SI) theory and demonstrate the applicability of the Dejaguin, Landau, Vervey, and Overbeek (DLVO) theory. Grier and Crocker do not provide additional experimental proof to counter our criticism. We continue to claim here based on our conductivity and conductometric titration measurements, which allow estimating the effective charge and determining the number and nature of the dissociable sites respectively, that their measurements using not well-characterized samples cannot provide clear evidence for the failure of SI theory. With the evidences available in literature, we refute all of the Grier and Crocker comments, including the effect of charged wall confinement on the measured colloidal interactions.     

Reply to "Comment on 'Dynamics of wetting fronts in porous media' "

In our work [Phys. Rev. E 58, R5245 (1998)] we introduced a dynamic phenomenological approach to model propagation of localized wetting fronts in porous media. Gray and Miller in their Comment [Phys. Rev. E 61, 2150 (2000)] criticize our approach on several issues. The main criticism addresses the problem of mass conservation in our model. In this Reply we argue that their criticism is incorrect.     

Eavesdropping on the quantum dialogue protocol in lossy channel

We present an improved eavesdropping scheme on the quantum dialogue protocol in lossy channel,which is based on the strategies of W’ojcik [Phys.Rev.Lett.90 157901 (2003)] and ZML [Phys.Lett.A 333 46 (2004)] attack schemes.We show that our attack scheme doubles the domain of Eve’s eavesdropping and Eve can gain more information of the communication with less risk of being detected.Finally,a possible improvement for the dialogue protocol security is proposed.     

Terahertz electromagnetic wave transmission through random arrays of single rectangular holes and slits in thin metallic sheets

We report on the observation of terahertz transparency in random arrays of the single rectangular holes and slits with the areal coverage of only 12%. The terahertz transparency occurs at the fundamental shape resonance of the rectangular holes and confirms the theoretical predictions of earlier works of García-Vidal et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 95, 103901 (2005)] on single rectangular holes and of Ruan and Qiu [Phys. Rev. Lett. 96, 233901 (2006)] on random arrays of holes.     

Self-averaging of an order parameter in randomly coupled limit-cycle oscillators

In our recent paper [Phys. Rev. E 58, 1789 (1998)] we found notable deviations from a power-law decay for the "magnetization" of a system of coupled phase oscillators with random interactions claimed by Daido in Phys. Rev. Lett. 68, 1072 (1992). For another long-time property, the Lyaponov exponent, we found that his numerical procedure showed strong time discretization effects and we suspected a similar effect for the algebraic decay. In the Comment to our paper [preceding paper, Phys. Rev. E 61, 2145 (2000)] Daido made clear that the power law behavior was only claimed for the sample averaged magnetization [Z] and he presented new, more accurate numerical results which provide evidence for a power-law decay of this quantity. Our results, however, were obtained for Z itself and not for [Z]. In addition, we have taken the intrinsic oscillator frequencies as Gaussian random variables, while Daido in his new and apparently also in his earlier simulations used a deterministic approximation to the Gaussian distribution. Due to the differences in the observed quantity and the model assumptions our and Daido's results may be compatible.     

Comment on Radiative transfer over small distances from a heated metal

We show that there is no contradiction between the results presented by Pan [Opt. Lett. 25, 369 (2000)] and the 1/L(2) dependence of the radiative energy flux between two half-spaces separated by a small vacuum gap of width L obtained by Polder and Van Hove [Phys. Rev. B 4, 3303 (1971)] and by Loomis and Maris [Phys. Rev. B 50, 18517 (1994)].     

Reply to: “Comment on: ‘Exposed-key weakness of αη’ [Phys. Lett. A 370 (2007) 131]” [Phys. Lett. A 372 (2008) 7091]

We present simulations countering the claims in [R. Nair, H.P. Yuen, Phys. Lett. A 372 (2008) 7091] that the approximation given in [C. Ahn, K. Birnbaum, Phys. Lett. A 370 (2007) 131, quant-ph/0612058] for the eavesdropper's entropy on the encrypted key cannot be valid, and additionally discuss ways in which our views on security requirements differ from those given in [R. Nair, H.P. Yuen, Phys. Lett. A 372 (2008) 7091].     

Experimental demonstration of single photon nonlocality

In this Letter we experimentally implement a single photon Bell test based on the ideas of S. Tan et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 66, 252 (1991)]] and L. Hardy [Phys. Rev. Lett. 73, 2279 (1994)]]. A double homodyne measurement is used to measure correlations in the Fock space spanned by zero and one photons. Local oscillators used in the correlation measurement are distributed to two observers by copropagating it in an orthogonal polarization mode. This method eliminates the need for interferometrical stability in the setup, consequently making it a robust and scalable method.     

Nanosphere embedding into polymer surfaces: a viscoelastic contact mechanics analysis

Teichroeb and Forrest [Phys. Rev. Lett. 91, 016104 (2003)] image gold nanosphere embedment into a polystyrene surface and imply the existence of a liquid surface layer. We use a viscoelastic contact mechanics model of their results to give a contrary interpretation. The surface interactions between gold and polystyrene and the indentation depth determine the loads on the nanospheres. Using bulk properties, quantitative agreement between the model and the data is obtained, implying little or no depression in the glass temperature or existence of a liquid layer at the polystyrene surface.     

Crossover from three-dimensional to two-dimensional geometries of Au nanostructures on thin MgO(001) films: a confirmation of theoretical predictions

In this Letter, we report a low-temperature scanning tunneling microscopy study aiming to explore the adsorption properties of Au with respect to the thickness of supported MgO films. For different MgO film thicknesses (3 ML and 8 ML), we find significant differences in the distribution of Au adsorption sites and in the Au cluster geometry, in line with recent calculations and electron paramagnetic resonance experiments. On the surface of thick MgO films or unsupported MgO, Au adsorbs on O sites [Phys. Rev. Lett. 96, 146804 (2006)], and the equilibrium cluster geometry is three-dimensional. In contrast, on thin MgO films, the calculations predicted (i) a change of the preferred Au nucleation site [Phys. Rev. Lett. 94, 226104 (2005)] and (ii) a stabilization of two-dimensional Au cluster geometries [Phys. Rev. Lett. 97, 036106 (2006)].     

Atomic structure effects of a target on the polarization properties of high harmonics in the region of the cooper minimum

Recently, a scheme based on the method of weak measurements to register the trajectories of photons passing through a nested Mach–Zehnder interferometer was proposed [L. Vaidman, Phys. Rev. A 87, 052104 (2013)] and then realized [A. Danan, D. Farfurnik, S. Bar-Ad, et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 111, 240402 (2013)]. Interpreting the results of the experiment, the authors concluded that “the photons do not always follow continuous trajectories.” It is shown in this work that these results can be easily and clearly explained in terms of traditional classical electrodynamics or quantum mechanics implying the continuity of all possible paths of photons. Consequently, a new concept of disconnected trajectories proposed by the authors of work [Phys. Rev. Lett. 111, 240402 (2013)] is unnecessary.