Electron transport in a mesoscopic superconducting / ferromagnetic hybrid conductor

We present electrical transport experiments performed on submicron hybrid devices made of a ferromagnetic conductor (Co) and a superconducting (Al) electrode. The sample was patterned in order to separate the contributions of the Co conductor and of the Co-Al interface. We observed a strong influence of the Al electrode superconductivity on the resistance of the Co conductor. This effect is large only when the interface is highly transparent. We characterized the dependence of the observed resistance decrease on temperature, bias current and magnetic field. As the differential resistance of the ferromagnet exhibits a non-trivial asymmetry, we claim that the magnetic domain structure plays an important role in the electron transport properties of superconducting / ferromagnetic conductors. Received 9 July 2002 / Received in final form 22 October 2002 Published online 27 January 2003 RID="a" ID="a"e-mail: herve.courtois@grenoble.cnrs.fr RID="b" ID="b"associated to Université Joseph Fourier     

Spin polarized current in the ground state of superconductor-ferromagnet-insulator trilayers

We study the ground state properties of a superconductor-ferromagnet-insulator trilayer on the basis of a Hubbard Model featuring exchange splitting in the ferromagnet and electron-electron attraction in the superconductor. We solve the spin-polarized Hartree-Fock-Gorkov equations together with the Maxwell's equation (Ampere's law) fully self-consistently with respect to the order parameter and the current. For certain values of the exchange splitting we find that a spontaneous spin polarized current is generated in the ground state and is intimately related to Andreev bound states at the Fermi level. Moreover, the polarization of the current strongly depends on the band filling. Received 23 September 2002 / Received in final form 13 December 2002 Published online 1st April 2003 RID="a" ID="a"e-mail: m.a.krawiec@bristol.ac.uk     

Coherent transport through intramolecular junction of single-wall carbon nanotubes

We have constructed four types single-wall carbon nanotube intramolecular junctions (IMJs) of (5,5)/(8,0), (5,5)/(10,0), (5,5)/(9,0)A, and (5,5)/(9,0)B along a common axis, and calculated their electronic and transport properties using a tight binding-based Green's function approach that is particular suitable for realistic calculation of electronic transport property in extended system. Our results show that quasi-localized states can appear in the metal/semiconductor heterojunctions ((5,5)/(8,0) and (5,5)/(10,0)junctions), which is desirable for the design of a quantum device; and the conductance of M-M IMJs is very sensitive to the connectivity of the matching tubes, certain configurations of connection completely stop the flow of electron, while others permit the transmission of the current through the interface. These results may have implications for the device assembly and manipulation process of all carbon nanotubes-based microelectronic elements. Received 14 January 2003 / Received in final form 25 February 2003 Published online 4 June 2003 RID="a" ID="a"e-mail: lfyzz@yahoo.com.cn     

Phase transitions in a cluster molecular field approximation

Cluster molecular field approximations represent a substantial progress over the simple Weiss theory where only one spin is considered in the molecular field resulting from all the other spins. In this work we discuss a systematic way of improving the molecular field approximation by inserting spin clusters of variable sizes into a homogeneously magnetised background. The density of states of these spin clusters is then computed exactly. We show that the true non-classical critical exponents can be extracted from spin clusters treated in such a manner. For this purpose a molecular field finite size scaling theory is discussed and effective critical exponents are analysed. Reliable values of critical quantities of various Ising and Potts models are extracted from very small system sizes. Received 30 September 2002 / Received in final form 25 November 2002 Published online 27 January 2003 RID="a" ID="a"e-mail: pleim@theorie1.physik.uni-erlangen.de     

Noise correlations in shear flows

We consider the effects of a shear on velocity fluctuations in a flow. The shear gives rise to a transient amplification that not only influences the amplitude of perturbations but also their time correlations. We show that, in the presence of white noise, time correlations of transversal velocity components are exponential and that correlations of the longitudinal components are exponential with an algebraic prefactor. Cross correlations between transversal and downstream components are strongly asymmetric and provide a clear indication of non-normal amplification. We suggest experimental tests of our predictions. Received 26 February 2002 / Received in final form 11 March 2003 Published online 20 June 2003 RID="a" ID="a"e-mail: bruno.eckhardt@physik.uni-marburg.de RID="b" ID="b"Also at: Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Bangalore, India     

Bounded rational driver models

This paper introduces a car following model where the driving scheme takes into account the deficiencies of human decision making in a general way. Additionally, it improves certain shortcomings of most of the models currently in use: it is stochastic but has a continuous acceleration. This is achieved at the cost of formulating the model in terms of the time derivative of the acceleration, making it non-Newtonian. However, the recipe for construction of bounded rational driver models proposed in this paper seems to be very general and can be applied to most, if not all of the traditional car-following models. Received 18 November 2002 / Received in final form 6 February 2003 Published online 1st April 2003 RID="a" ID="a"e-mail: ialub@fpl.gpi.ru RID="b" ID="b"e-mail: peter.wagner@dlr.de RID="c" ID="c"e-mail: reinhard.mahnke@physik.uni-rostock.de     

On the stability of the critical state with inhomogeneous temperature in composite superconductors

The problem of the thermal and magnetic destruction of the critical state in composite superconductors is investigated. The initial distributions of temperature and electromagnetic field are assumed to be essentially inhomogeneous. The limit of the thermomagnetic instability in quasi-stationary approximation is determined. The obtained integral criterion, unlike the analogous criterion for a homogeneous temperature profile, is shown to take into account the influence of any part of the superconductor on the threshold for critical-state instability. Received 11 October 2001 / Received in final form 30 November 2002 Published online 14 February 2003 RID="a" ID="a"e-mail: taylanov@iaph.tkt.uz     

Quantum topological excitations: from the sawtooth lattice to the Heisenberg chain

From the recently determined structure of the delafossite YCuO_2.5, we argue that the Cu-O network has nearly independent Δ chains but with different interactions between the s = 1/2 spins. Motivated by this observation, we study the Δ chain for different ratios of the base-base and base-vertex interactions, J _bb/J _bv. By exact diagonalization and extrapolation, we show that the elementary excitation spectrum is the same for total spins S _tot = 0 and 1, but not for S _tot = 2, and has a gap only in the interval 0.4874(1) ⩽ J _bb/J _bv ⩽ 1.53(1). The gap, known to be dispersionless for J _bb = J _bv, is found to acquire increasing k-dependence as J _bb/J _bv moves away from unity. Received 29 October 2002 / Received in final form 14 January 2003 Published online 6 March 2003 RID="a" ID="a"e-mail: sblundell@cea.fr RID="b" ID="b"e-mail: nunezreg@lps.u-psud.fr     

Gaussian Effective Potential and superconductivity

The Gaussian Effective Potential in a fixed transverse unitarity gauge is studied for the static three-dimensional U(1) scalar electrodynamics (Ginzburg-Landau phenomenological theory of superconductivity). In the broken-symmetry phase the mass of the electromagnetic field (inverse penetration depth) and the mass of the scalar field (inverse correlation length) are both determined by solution of the coupled variational equations. At variance with previous calculations, the choice of a fixed unitarity gauge prevents from the occurrence of any unphysical degree of freedom. The theory provides a nice interpolation of the experimental data when approaching the critical region, where the standard mean-field method is doomed to failure. Received 18 November 2002 / Received in final form 26 March 2003 Published online 20 June 2003 RID="a" ID="a"e-mail: giuseppe.angilella@ct.infn.it     

Vortex matter in lead nanowires

Theoretical and experimental magnetizations of lead nanowire arrays well below the superconducting transition temperature T_c are described. The magnetic response of the array was investigated with a SQUID magnetometer. Hysteretic behaviour and phase transitions have been observed in sweeping up and down the external magnetic field at different temperatures. The Meissner and Abrikosov states were also experimentally observed in this apparently type-I superconductor. This fact brings to the fore the non-trivial behaviour of the critical boundary κ _c ( = 1/ in bulk materials) between type-I and type-II phase transitions at mesoscopic scales. The time-independent Ginzburg-Landau equations particularized to cylindrically symmetric configurations enable one to explain and reproduce the experimental magnetization curves within 10% of error. Received 16 January 2003 / Received in final form 27 March 2003 Published online 23 May 2003 RID="a" ID="a"e-mail: stenuit@fynu.ucl.ac.be     

Wigner lattice of ripplopolarons in a multielectron bubble in helium

The properties of ripplonic polarons in a multielectron bubble in liquid helium are investigated on the basis of a path-integral variational method. We find that the two-dimensional electron gas can form deep dimples in the helium surface, or ripplopolarons, to solidify as a Wigner crystal. We derive the experimental conditions of temperature, pressure and number of electrons in the bubble for this phase to be realized. This predicted state is distinct from the usual Wigner lattice of electrons: it melts by dissociation of the ripplopolarons when the electrons shed their localizing dimple as the pressure on the multielectron bubble drops below a critical value. Received 20 February 2003 Published online 11 April 2003 RID="a" ID="a"Also at: TU Eindhoven, Eindhoven, The Netherlands e-mail: devreese@uia.ua.ac.be     

Giant entropy change at the co-occurrence of structural and magnetic transitions in the Ni Mn Ga Heusler alloy

We have studied the isothermal entropy change around a first-order structural transformation and in correspondence to the second-order Curie transition in the ferromagnetic Heusler alloy Ni_2.15Mn_0.85Ga. The results have been compared with those obtained for the composition Ni_2.19Mn_0.81Ga, in which the martensitic structural transformation and the magnetic transition occur simultaneously. With a magnetic field span from 0 to 1.6 T, the magnetic entropy change reaches the value of 20 J/kg K when transitions are co-occurring, while 5 J/kg K is found when the only structural transition occurs. Received 27 September 2002 / Received in final form 17 February 2003 Published online 11 April 2003 RID="a" ID="a"e-mail: solzi@fis.unipr.it     

Interface phonon assisted transition in double quantum well

A detailed calculation of interface phonon assisted electron intersubband transition in double GaAs/AlGaAs quantum well structure is presented. Our calculation concentrates on the lowest two subbands which can be designed to be in resonance with a given interface phonon mode. Various phonon mode profiles display quasi-symmetric or quasi-antisymmetric shapes. The quasi-antisymmetric phonon modes give rise to much larger transition rates than those assisted by quasi-symmetric ones. The transition rate reaches a maximum when the subband separation coincides with a given phonon mode energy. The calculation procedure presented here can be easily applied to the design and simulation of other low dimensional semiconductor structures, such as quantum cascade lasers. Received 22 December 2002 Published online 23 May 2003 RID="a" ID="a"e-mail: bhwu@263.net     

End-chain segment ordering in lamellar sublayers of a diblock copolymer

The segmental ordering within a lamellar polystyrene-polydimethylsiloxane diblock (PS-PDMS) was examined by NMR. A non-uniform stretching of the PDMS chains was evidenced. Although chain segments displaying isotropic reorientational motions are present along the chains, relaxation measurements on the free PDMS extremities demonstrate that these latter are oriented and submitted to a non-zero constraint. This specific result allows to precise some features of the order distribution within the lamellae. Received: 27 March 2003 / Accepted: 9 May 2003 / Published online: 4 June 2003 RID="a" ID="a"e-mail: deloche@lps.u-psud.fr     

Metastable states of the Ising chain with Kawasaki dynamics

We consider a ferromagnetic Ising chain evolving under Kawasaki dynamics at zero temperature. We investigate the statistics of the blocking time, as well as various characteristics of the metastable configurations reached by the system, including the statistics of the final energy, the spin correlations, and the distribution of domain sizes. Results of extensive numerical simulations are compared with analytical predictions made for the a priori ensemble of all blocked configurations with equal weights. Qualitative differences are found, e.g. in the domain sizes, which are found to be neither statistically independent nor exponentially distributed. Received 24 October 2002 / Received in final form 13 January 2003 Published online 1st April 2003 RID="a" ID="a"e-mail: luck@spht.saclay.cea.fr RID="b" ID="b"URA 2306 of CNRS     

$\mathsf{La_{0.5}Sr_{0.5}CoO_{3}}$: A ferromagnet with strong irreversibility

Large spin systems as given by magnetic macromolecules or two-dimensional spin arrays rule out an exact diagonalization of the Hamiltonian. Nevertheless, it is possible to derive upper and lower bounds of the minimal energies, i.e. the smallest energies for a given total spin S. The energy bounds are derived under additional assumptions on the topology of the coupling between the spins. The upper bound follows from “n-cyclicity", which roughly means that the graph of interactions can be wrapped round a ring with n vertices. The lower bound improves earlier results and follows from “n-homogeneity", i.e. from the assumption that the set of spins can be decomposed into n subsets where the interactions inside and between spins of different subsets fulfill certain homogeneity conditions. Many Heisenberg spin systems comply with both concepts such that both bounds are available. By investigating small systems which can be numerically diagonalized we find that the upper bounds are considerably closer to the true minimal energies than the lower ones. Received 22 October 2002 / Received in final form 4 April 2003 Published online 20 June 2003 RID="a" ID="a"e-mail: jschnack@uos.de     

Osmotic force resisting chain insertion in a colloidal suspension

We consider the problem of inserting a stiff chain into a colloidal suspension of particles that interact with it through excluded volume forces. The free energy of insertion is associated with the work of creating a cavity devoid of colloid and sufficiently large to accommodate the chain. The corresponding work per unit length is the force that resists the entry of the chain into the colloidal suspension. In the case of a hard sphere fluid, this work can be calculated straightforwardly within the scaled particle theory; for solutions of flexible polymers, on the other hand, we employ simple scaling arguments. The forces computed in these ways are shown, for nanometer chain and colloid diameters, to be of the order of tens of pN for solution volume fractions of a few tenths. These magnitudes are argued to be important for biophysical processes such as the ejection of DNA from viral capsids into the cell cytoplasm. Received 18 December 2002 Published online: 16 April 2003 RID="a" ID="a"e-mail: castel@chem.ucla.edu RID="b" ID="b"Present address: Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, NYU, New York, New York 10012, USA     

Tomographic-probability description of solitons in Bose-Einstein condensates

The influence of a weight-dependent spike-timing dependent plasticity (STDP) rule on the temporal evolution and equilibrium state of a certain synapse is investigated. We show that under certain conditions, a spike-induced rate-learning scheme could be achieved. Through studying the situation when a single Hodgkin-Huxley neuron is driven by a large ensemble of input neurons, we find that synchronized firing of a sub population of input neurons may be important to information processing in the nervous system. Using simulations, we show that the temporal structure of the spike trains of these synchronized input neurons can be transmitted reliably; further, synapses from these neurons will increase stably due to the STDP rule and this may provide a mechanism for learning and information storage in biologically plausible network models. Received 12 September 2002 / Received in final form 12 December 2002 Published online 14 February 2003 RID="a" ID="a"e-mail: huang_yue@netease.com     

LOCV calculation for the uniform electron fluid at finite temperature

The free energy of the homogeneous electron fluid at finite temperature is obtained using the lowest order constrained variational (LOCV) method. In order to test the convergence of cluster expansion series the three-body cluster terms are calculated with the LOCV correlation functions. The results agree reasonably with those of Monte Carlo, coupled-cluster, perturbational expansion etc, techniques at zero temperature. The flashing and critical temperatures as well as the critical exponent are found to be about 0.6, 1.3 eV and 0.384 respectively. A similar liquid-gas phase transition to that of nuclear matter and liquid He³ is observed. Received 15 April 2002 / Received in final form 19 October 2002 Published online 4 February 2003 RID="a" ID="a"e-mail: modarres@khayam.ut.ac.ir     

Measuring a colloidal particle's interaction with a flat surface under nonequilibrium conditions

A new and general approach is proposed to analyze the dynamics of a colloidal particle interacting with a nearby wall. This analysis can be used to determine the acting forces even when the system is non-stationary. As an illustration, we use total internal reflection microscopy to investigate the forces acting on a polystyrene sulfate latex particle as it is receding from a charged glass surface. Received 10 October 2002 Published online: 16 April 2003 RID="a" ID="a"Present address: Department of Polymer Physics, BASF Aktiengesellschaft, 67056 Ludwigshafen, Germany RID="b" ID="b"Present address: Arryx. Inc., Chicago, IL 60601, USA