Brownian refrigerator

Onsager symmetry implies that a Brownian motor, driven by a temperature gradient, will also perform a refrigerator function upon loading. We analytically calculate the corresponding heat flow for an exactly solvable microscopic model and compare it with molecular dynamics simulations.     

Spin current through a tunnel junction

We derive an expression for the spin current through a tunnel barrier in terms of many-body Green’s functions. The spin current has two possible contributions. One is associated with angular momentum transfer due to spin-polarized charge current crossing the junction. If there are magnetic moments on both sides of the tunnel junction, due to spin accumulation or ferromagnetic ordering, then there is a second contribution related to the exchange coupling between the moments.     

Graphene-based tunnel junction

The tunneling current in a junction formed by graphene half-planes and bilayer graphene with two possible packing types and two possible orientations of the crystal lattice is calculated by the Green’s function technique in the framework of the tight-binding approximation. It is shown that the band structure of graphene oriented toward the junction by the armchair-type edges leads to a power-law dependence of the tunneling current on applied voltage being specific for each specific kind of graphene. The characteristic features of this dependence are determined by the change in the number of transport channels with the growth of the applied voltage. For all junctions under study with zigzag edges oriented toward each other, it is found that the tunneling current exhibits characteristic peaks related to the existence of the localized edge states. The effects induced by the gate voltage are also studied. For the structures with zigzag edges, it is shown that the effect of switching off/on takes place for the junctions. The junctions formed by the graphene armchair edges do not exhibit any pronounced switching phenomena and the growth of the bias voltage results in higher values of the conductivity.     

Brownian motion on a manifold as a limit of Brownian motions with drift

Let ?ⁿ be n-dimensional Euclidean space and let M ? ?ⁿ be a smooth compact m-dimensional Riemannian manifold (without boundary) embedded in ?ⁿ. By a Brownian motion on M we mean a Markovian process whose transition semigroup is defined by the generator ?½Δ_M, where Δ_M stands for the Laplace-Beltrami operator on M (see, e.g., [2]). This note extends a series of papers in which a measure generated by a Brownian motion on M on the space of trajectories (with values in M) can be represented as the weak limit of measures on the space of trajectories in the ambient space ?ⁿ (see [7–10]). Namely, we claim that a sequence of diffusion processes on ?n which are Brownian motions with drift (in the direction of the manifold) with infinitely increasing modulus converges in distribution to a Brownian motion on the manifold.     

Electron and phonon cooling in a superconductor-normal-metal-superconductor tunnel junction

We present evidence for the cooling of normal-metal phonons, in addition to the well-known electron cooling, by electron tunneling in a superconductor-normal-metal-superconductor tunnel junction. The normal-metal electron temperature is extracted by comparing the device current-voltage characteristics to the theoretical prediction. We use a quantitative model for the heat transfer that includes the electron-phonon coupling in the normal metal and the Kapitza resistance between the substrate and the metal. It gives a very good fit to the data and enables us to extract an effective phonon temperature in the normal metal.     

Quantum modulation effect in a graphene-based magnetic tunnel junction

The electronic (quantum) transport in a NG/F_B/FG tunnel junction (where NG, F_B and FG are a normal graphene layer, a ferromagnetic barrier connected to a gate and a ferromagnetic graphene layer, respectively) is investigated. The motions of the electrons in the graphene layers are taken to be governed by the Dirac Equation. Parallel (P) and antiparallel alignment (AP) of the magnetizations in the barrier and in the ferromagnetic graphene are considered. Our work focuses on the oscillation of the electrical conductance (Gq), of the spin conductance (Gs) and of the tunneling magneto resistance (TMR) of this magnetic tunnel junction. We find that, the quantum modulation due to the effect of the exchange field in F_B will be seen in the plots the conductance and of the TMR as functions of the thickness of ferromagnetic barrier (L). The period of two multiplied sinusoidal terms of the modulation are seen to be controlled by varying the gate potential and the exchange field of the F_B layer. The phenomenon, a quantum beating, is built up with two oscillating spin conductance components which have different periods of oscillation related to the splitting of Dirac's energies in the F_B region. The amplitudes of oscillations of Gq, Gs and TMR are not seen to decrease as the thickness increases. The decaying behaviors seen in the conventional transport through an insulator do not appear.     

Large oscillating tunnel magnetoresistance in ferromagnetic graphene single tunnel junction

Spin-polarized transports of relativistic electrons through graphene-based ferromagnet/insulator/ferromagnet (FG/IG/FG) single junctions have been investigated theoretically. Large oscillating tunnel magnetoresistance (TMR) has been found in monolayer and bilayer FG/IG/FG junctions. The oscillating amplitudes of TMR do not decrease with the increase of the thickness and the height of barrier, in contrast to the exponential decay in conventional ferromagnet/insulator/ferromagnet single junction. The physical origin for such a phenomenon has also been analyzed. It is anticipated to apply such a phenomenon to design the spin-polarized electron device based on the graphene materials.     

Coherent multiple charge transfer in a superconducting NbN tunnel junction

We measured shot noise and submillimeter-wave response in a superconducting NbN tunnel junction that had a subharmonic gap structure on the current-voltage (I-V) curve. We found that the observed effective charge, defined from the noise-current ratio, tends to a steplike function of voltage. In the presence of submillimeter-wave radiation of frequency v, novel step structures spaced by hv/2e below and above the half-gap voltage clearly appeared on the I-V curve, overlapping the ordinary photon-assisted tunneling steps spaced by hv/e. Observation of these features provides clear evidence that coherent multiple Andreev reflection processes occur in the NbN tunnel junction with low barrier transparency.     

一维介观结链中电荷孤子的控制

研究了一维介观结链中的电势分布随各岛上门电压和电子数分布的变化关系,并发现在一个岛上加一个门电压会产生一个静电势孤子.通过调节门电压可以较好地控制静电势孤子的形状及其位置,从而达到对电荷孤子的有效控制. 关键词： 电荷孤子 介观结 单电荷隧穿     

Controlling single-molecule negative differential resistance in a double-barrier tunnel junction

We observed the transition from negative differential resistance (NDR) to the absence of NDR in the differential conductance (dI/dV) spectra of single copper-phthalocyanine (CuPc) molecules adsorbed on one, two, and three atomic layers of NaBr grown on a NiAl(110) substrate. Through numerical simulation, this transition is attributed to two phenomena in the double-barrier tunnel junction: (i) the opposite bias dependence of the vacuum and NaBr barrier heights, and (ii) the changing barrier widths for CuPc molecules adsorbed on different layers of NaBr.     

Measurement of counting statistics of electron transport in a tunnel junction

We present measurements of the time-dependent fluctuations of electrical current in a voltage-biased tunnel junction. We were able to simultaneously extract the first three moments of the current counting statistics. Detailed comparison of the second and the third moments reveals that the statistics is accurately described as Poissonian, expected for spontaneous current fluctuations due to electron charge discreteness, realized in tunneling transport at negligible coupling to environment.     

极低温散粒噪声测试系统及隧道结噪声测量

介观体系输运过程中载流子的离散性导致了散粒噪声.通过测量散粒噪声可以得到传统的基于时间平均值的电导测量无法得到的随时间涨落信息,因而作为一种重要手段在极低温量子输运研究中得到了一定的应用.极低温环境下的噪声测量是一种难度很大的极端条件下的微弱信号测量,通常需要在低温端安装前置放大器并且尽量靠近待测器件以提高测量信噪比和带宽,因此对放大器的噪声水平和功耗都有严格的要求.提出了在稀释制冷机内搭建的散粒噪声测量系统,以及利用此套系统得到了在mK温区超导隧道结散粒噪声的测量结果.自行研制的高电子迁移率晶体管低温前置放大器采用整体封装,便于安装在商用干式稀释制冷机的4 K温区,本底电压噪声为0.25 nV/√Hz,功耗仅为0.754 mW.通过对隧道结进行散粒噪声测量,得到的Fano因子和理论计算吻合.     

Dynamics of quantum noise in a tunnel junction under ac excitation

We report the first measurement of the dynamical response of shot noise (measured at frequency omega) of a tunnel junction to an ac excitation at frequency omega0. The experiment is performed in the quantum regime, variant Planck's over 2piomega approximately variant Planck's over 2piomega0>kBT at very low temperature T=35 mK and high frequency omega0/2pi=6.2 GHz. We observe that the noise responds in phase with the excitation, but not adiabatically. The results are in very good agreement with a prediction based on a new current-current correlator.     

A dual resonance model as a Brownian process

A dual resonance model is formulated as a Brownian motion of strings on a flow of some material. It obeys the Mayer-Montroll equation of classical statistical mechanics which enables us to make a fugacity expansion. Certain divergences in the conventional loop expansion are absent in each term of the fugacity expansion, thus showing that the Kikkawa-Sakita-Virasoro dual amplitude is, by itself, free from these divergences, if all the diagrams are added and rearranged properly. In particular the first order term of the fugacity expansion reproduces the renormalized Neveu-Scherk one-loop amplitude, when the dimension of space-time is twelve.     

Tunneling magnetothermopower in magnetic tunnel junction nanopillars

We study tunneling magnetothermopower (TMTP) in CoFeB/MgO/CoFeB magnetic tunnel junction nanopillars. Thermal gradients across the junctions are generated by an electric heater line. Thermopower voltages up to a few tens of μV between the top and bottom contact of the nanopillars are measured which scale linearly with the applied heating power and hence the thermal gradient. The thermopower signal varies by up to 10 μV upon reversal of the relative magnetic configuration of the two CoFeB layers from parallel to antiparallel. This signal change corresponds to a large spin-dependent Seebeck coefficient of the order of 100 μV/K and a large TMTP change of the tunnel junction of up to 90%.