Correlation transfer and diffusion of ultrasound-modulated multiply scattered light

We develop a temporal correlation transfer equation (CTE) and a temporal correlation diffusion equation (CDE) for ultrasound-modulated multiply scattered light. These equations can be applied to an optically scattering medium with embedded optically scattering and absorbing objects to calculate the power spectrum of light modulated by a nonuniform ultrasound field. We present an analytical solution based on the CDE and Monte Carlo simulation results for light modulated by a cylinder of ultrasound in an optically scattering slab. We further validate with experimental measurements the numerical calculations for an actual ultrasound field. The CTE and CDE are valid for moderate ultrasound pressures and on a length scale comparable with the optical transport mean-free path. These equations should be applicable to a wide spectrum of conditions for ultrasound-modulated optical tomography of soft biological tissues.     

高散射媒质中的光程可分割动态光散射研究

为研究散射光强度随光子在散射媒质中散射光程的变化,基于单散射理论与扩散波光谱理论,采用了低相干动态光散射装置对不同粒径大小的聚苯乙烯悬浮液进行研究。将测量得到的背散射光光场强度谱的线宽与相应的理论计算结果相比较发现,在短光程区域,考虑容器壁附近拖曳效应的影响后,对于不同粒径的颗粒,光程为约5倍粒子平均自由程的区域可看成为单散射区域;对于光程大于225 m的区域可看成为扩散光波区域。实验结果表明低相干动态光散射法可实现高散射媒质从单散射区域到低次散射再到扩散区域的全光程的可分割的光场强度谱测量。     

Theory of cooling by flow through narrow pores

We consider the possibility of adding a stage to a dilution refrigerator to provide additional cooling by "filtering out" hot atoms. Three methods are considered: (1) effusion, where holes having diameters larger than a mean-free path allow atoms to pass through easily; (2) particle waveguidelike motion using very narrow channels that greatly restrict the quantum states of the atoms in a channel; (3) wall-limited diffusion through channels, in which the wall scattering is disordered so that local density equilibrium is established in a channel. We assume that channel dimensions are smaller than the mean-free path for atom-atom interactions. The particle waveguide and the wall-limited diffusion methods using channels on order of the de Broglie wavelength give cooling. Recent advances in nanofilters give this method some hope of being practical.     

Sound wave scattering in network glasses

The acoustic branch of two network glasses, (Li2O)xB2O3 ( x = 0.25 and 0.5), is followed over a large momentum transfer range 1-12 nm(-1), using inelastic x-ray scattering. We observe the transition from propagating modes to a region of strong scattering as the Ioffe-Regel limit is reached. A region of Rayleigh scattering of the acoustic modes precedes the strong scattering regime at larger Q, causing a rapid decrease of the mean-free path of the modes.     

Spin-flip effect on electrical transport in magnetic quantum wire systems

We investigate the spin-flip effect on electronic transport in a nanostructure composed of two nonmagnetic (NM) leads separated by a periodic spacer. The spacer is composed of one-dimensional heterostructure formed by a sequence of magnetic (A) and nonmagnetic (B) sites periodically juxtaposed (as in a typical periodic quantum dot (QD)). The calculations are based on the tight-binding model and transfer matrix method, which compute the current–voltage characteristic within the Landauer–Büttiker formalism. Our main goal is to assess the contribution of the spin-flip scattering to the transport properties of such systems. The spin-dependent transport behavior can be controlled via a gate magnetic field and an applied voltage in the ballistic regime. Our results show that the conductance strongly depends on the configurations of the magnetic QD. The application of the predicted results may be useful in designing spin-valve devices, such as spin-polarized molecular transistors.     

Spin-dependent conductance in FM/quantum-dot/FM tunneling system

We present a theoretical study of the spin-dependent conductance spectra in a FM/semiconductor quantum-dot (QD)/FM system. Both the Rashba spin-orbit (SO) coupling in the QD and spin-flip scattering caused by magnetic barrier impurities are taken into account. It is found that in the single-level QD system with parallel magnetic moments in the two FM leads, due to the interference between different tunneling paths through the spin-degenerate level, a dip or a narrow resonant peak can appear in the conductance spectra, which depends on the property of the spin-flip scattering. When the magnetizations of the two FM leads are noncollinear, the resonant peak can be transformed into a dip. The Rashba SO coupling manifests itself by a Rashba phase factor, which changes the phase information of every tunneling path and can greatly modulate the conductance. When the QD has multiple levels, the Rashba interlevel spin-flip effect appears, which changes the topological property of the structure. Its interplay with the Rashba phase can directly tune the coupling strengths between dot and leads, and can result in switching from resonance into antiresonance in the conductance spectra.     

Electromechanical noise in a diffusive conductor

Electrons moving in a conductor can transfer momentum to the lattice via collisions with impurities and boundaries, giving rise to a fluctuating mechanical stress tensor. The root-mean-squared momentum transfer per scattering event in a disordered metal (of dimension L greater than the mean-free path l and screening length xi) is found to be reduced below the Fermi momentum by a factor of order l/L for shear fluctuations and (xi/L)(2) for pressure fluctuations. The excitation of an elastic bending mode by the shear fluctuations is estimated to fall within current experimental sensitivity for a nanomechanical oscillator.     

Basic Requirements of Spin-Flip Raman Scattering on Excitonic Resonances and Its Modulation through Additional High-Energy Illumination in Semiconductor Heterostructures

We describe the major requirements to experimentally perform and observe resonant spin-flip Raman scattering on excitonic resonances in low-dimensional semiconductors. We characterize in detail the properties of this resonant light scattering technique and evaluate the criteria, which must be fulfilled by the experimental setup and the semiconductor sample studied to be able to observe a spin-flip scattering process. We also demonstrate the influence of additional unpolarized laser illumination with energies, which exceed considerably the band gap energy of the semiconductor nanostructure under study, on the resonantly excited electron spin-flip scattering in InAs-based quantum dot ensembles as well as on the paramagnetic Mn-ion spin-flip in (Zn,Mn)Se/(Zn,Be)Se quantum wells.     

Critical current oscillations in S/F heterostructures in the presence of s–d scattering

Josephson current is investigated in the superconductor/ferromagnet/superconductor junction. It was shown that the current exhibited damping oscillations as a function of the ferromagnetic layer thickness. Previous theories based on Usadel or Eilenberger equations have predicted that the damping length and oscillation period divided by 2π were the same for weak ferromagnetic spacer. This contradicts past experiments. A new calculation of the Josephson current is proposed. The Gorkov equations are solved taking into account s–d scattering in ferromagnet. It is shown that the oscillation period depends only on the exchange magnetic field in the spacer, whereas the damping length is connected to the ferromagnetic mean free path. The concordance with the former experiment allows one to conclude that s–d scattering as a pair-breaking mechanism plays a significant role in the proximity effect in S/F heterostructures.     

Low-energy pions in nuclear matter and ππ photoproduction within a BUU transport model

In the present paper we investigate a method to describe low-energy scattering events of pions and nuclei within a Boltzmann-Uehling-Uhlenbeck (BUU) transport model. Implementing different scenarios of medium modifications, we studied the mean-free path of pions in nuclear matter at low momenta and compared pion absorption simulations to data. Pursuing these studies we have shown, that also in a regime of a long pionic wave length the semi-classical BUU model still generates reasonable results. We present results on π-induced events in the regime of 10 MeV≤T _kin ^π ≤130 MeV and photo-induced ππ production at incident beam energies of 400–460 MeV.     

Hot-electron drift velocity in III–V semiconductors under the condition of impact ionization

A calculation has been carried out for the drift velocity of electrons in the highfield region under the condition of impact ionization in III–V semiconductor compounds.The energy-balance equation of the one-electron model has been solved considering alloy scattering and carrier-carrier interaction, in addition to optical phonon and ionization scattering. Fairly good agreement is obtained for GaAs with the available experimental and Monte-Carlo results. Graphs for the high-field drift velocity has also been plotted for Ga_1–x In_xAs (x = 0.53) at different ratios of ionization mean-free path and optical phonon mean-free path. The plot of high-field drift velocity versus ionization rate reveals that the high-field drift velocity strongly depends on the ionization rate of carriers, and vice versa.     

Spacer layer thickness fluctuation scattering in a modulation-doped Al_xGa_1-xAs/GaAs/Al_xGa_1-xAs quantum well

We theoretically study the influence of spacer layer thickness fluctuation(SLTF) on the mobility of a twodimensional electron gas(2DEG) in the modulation-doped Al x Ga 1 x As/GaAs/Al x Ga 1 x As quantum well.The dependence of the mobility limited by SLTF scattering on spacer layer thickness and donor density are obtained.The results show that SLTF scattering is an important scattering mechanism for the quantum well structure with a thick well layer.     

Anomalous coherent backscattering of light from opal photonic crystals

We studied coherent backscattering (CBS) of light from opal photonic crystals with incomplete band gaps. We observed a dramatic broadening of the CBS cone for incident angles close to the Bragg condition in the crystals. We modify the conventional CBS theory to incorporate Bragg attenuation resulting from the photonic band structure. By fitting the CBS data with the modified theory, we extract both the disorder-induced light mean-free path and the Bragg attenuation length of the inherent opal photonic crystal.     

Quasiparticle scattering induced by charge doping of iron-pnictide superconductors probed by collective vortex pinning

Charge doping of iron-pnictide superconductors leads to collective pinning of flux vortices, whereas isovalent doping does not. Moreover, flux pinning in the charge-doped compounds is consistently described by the mean-free path fluctuations introduced by the dopant atoms, allowing for the extraction of the elastic quasiparticle scattering rate. The absence of scattering by dopant atoms in isovalently doped BaFe2(As(1-x)P(x))(2) is consistent with the observation of a linear temperature dependence of the low-temperature penetration depth in this material.     

Intradot spin-flip Andreev reflection tunneling through a ferromagnet-quantum dot-superconductor system with ac field

We investigate Andreev reflection (AR) tunneling through a ferromagnet-quantum dot-superconductor (F-QD-S) system in the presence of an external ac field. The intradot spin-flip scattering in the QD is involved. Using the nonequilibrium Green function and BCS quasiparticle spectrum for superconductor, time-averaged AR conductance is formulated. The competition between the intradot spin-flip scattering and photon-assisted tunneling dominates the resonant behaviors of the time-averaged AR conductance. For weak intradot spin-flip scattering strengths, the AR conductance shows a series of equal interval resonant levels. However, the single-peak at main resonant level develops into a well-resolved double-peak resonance at a strong intradot spin-flip scattering strength. Remarkable, multiple-photon-assisted tunneling that generates photonic sideband peaks with a variable interval has been found. In addition, the AR conductance-bias voltage characteristic shows a transition between the single-peak to double-peak resonance as the ratio of the two tunneling strengths varies.     

Photon path length analysis of radiative transfer in planar layers with single internal sources

A solution technique is presented which successfully predicts the radiative intensity and flux path length distributions for a scattering medium with an arbitrary internal source. All scattering effects are included through the optical path length concept. The extension of the optical path length technique to incorporate internal sources permits relatively simple modeling of scattering layers with any source distribution (e.g. temperature) and any absorption feature using a data base of responses (path length distributions) to arbitrarily located internal single sources. Path length distributions are presented for a single source in the layer and exhibit trends similar to those seen in the boundary source problem. The effects of orders of scattering are demonstrated. Although the technique is directed to radiative heat transfer analyses, the source need not be a thermal source and the solutions are not restricted to thermal applications.     

High-frequency acoustics of 3He in aerogel

High-frequency ( approximately 15 MHz) acoustics were performed on 3He in 98% porous silica aerogel using an acoustic cavity technique. Measurements of the sound attenuation in the normal Fermi liquid and superfluid display behavior quite different from the bulk owing to strong elastic scattering of quasiparticles. The transition from first-to-zero sound is completely obscured with a quasiparticle mean-free path estimated to be in the range of 200-300 nm. No collective mode attenuation peak was observed at or below the superfluid transition.     

Tunneling conductance of a two-dimensional electron gas with Dresselhaus spin-orbit coupling

We theoretically studied the spin-dependent charge transport in a two-dimensional electron gas with Dresselhaus spin-orbit coupling (DSOC) and metal junctions. It is shown that the DSOC energy can be directly measured from the tunneling conductance spectrum. We found that spin polarization of the conductance in the propagation direction can be obtained by injecting from the DSOC system. We also considered the effect of the interfacial scattering barrier (both spin-flip and non-spin-flip scattering) on the overall conductance and the spin polarization of the conductance. It is found that the increase of spin-flip scattering can enhance the conductance under certain conditions. Moreover, both types of scattering can increase the spin polarization below the branches crossing of the energy band.     

Spin-flip effects in a parallel-coupled double quantum dot molecule

We investigate theoretically the electronic transport through a parallel-coupled double quantum dot (DQD) molecule attached to metallic electrodes, in which the spin-flip scattering on each quantum dot is considered. Special attention is paid to the effects of the intradot spin-flip processes on the linear conductance by using the equation of motion approach for Green’s functions. When a weak spin-flip scattering on each quantum dot is present, the single Fano peak splits into two Fano peaks, and the Breit–Wigner resonance may be suppressed slightly. When the spin-flip scattering strength on each quantum dot becomes strong, the linear conductance spectrum consists of two Breit–Wigner peaks and two Fano peaks due to the quantum interference effects. The positions and shapes of these resonant peaks can be controlled by using the magnetic flux through the quantum device.     

Diffusion of charged particles in strong large-scale random and regular magnetic fields

The nonlinear collision integral for the Green’s function averaged over a random magnetic field is transformed using an iteration procedure taking account of the strong random scattering of particles on the correlation length of the random magnetic field. Under this transformation the regular magnetic field is assumed to be uniform at distances of the order of the correlation length. The single-particle Green’s functions of the scattered particles in the presence of a regular magnetic field are investigated. The transport coefficients are calculated taking account of the broadening of the cyclotron and Cherenkov resonances as a result of strong random scattering. The mean-free path lengths parallel and perpendicular to the regular magnetic field are found for a power-law spectrum of the random field. The analytical results obtained are compared with the experimental data on the transport ranges of solar and galactic cosmic rays in the interplanetary magnetic field. As a result, the conditions for the propagation of cosmic rays in the interplanetary space and a more accurate idea of the structure of the interplanetary magnetic field are determined.