Muonium formation via charge transport in solids and liquids

We review our recent experimental studies on delayed muonium formation in insulators and semiconductors. This involves the positive muon capturing one of the excess electrons liberated in its own ionization track and competes with recombination or escape of the electrons. The muon is generally found to thermalise well “downstream” from the center of the electron distribution, so that the transport mechanism of the electrons is a crucial factor. This is discussed in terms of the different tendencies to localization (as polarons in solids or in bubbles in liquids) vs. band‐like propagation. Studies of Van der Waals cryocrystals and cryoliquids are reviewed and some preliminary results reported for sapphire and silicon. Transport distances and times are determined from the variation of μSR signal amplitudes with applied electric and magnetic fields, respectively, enabling the development of a new technique for measuring electron mobilities on a microscopic scale. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Electronic transport and localization in low mobility solids and liquids

This article is concerned with the electronic transport properties of the large group of solids (and also some liquids) which possess carrier mobilities from 10 cm²V^-1sec^-1 to many orders below that value. Its main aim is to trace the close relation between transport and localization. To this end the physical basis of three important localization models is discussed and the predicted transport mechanisms are reviewed in the light of the experimental information. After a brief summary of the experimental methods, the first subject is the localization arising from strong electron-phonon interaction. Here we consider in some detail the formation of a small polaron in a molecular crystal and its transport by phonon-assisted intermolecular hopping. The second part of the paper deals with the localization of an electron in a so-called electronic bubble, which occurs for example in simple liquids such as Ne or He. The stability and transport of this entity is discussed. The third section is devoted to non-crystalline solids. In these localization is associated with the lack of long-range order and does not depend on phonon interaction. The transport through the various parts of the density of states spectrum is summarized and the suggested models are reviewed on the basis of recent experimental work on amorphous silicon. Finally, the possibility of polaron formation and transport in some chalcogenide alloy glasses is briefly considered. The paper leads to the conclusion that available experimental evidence supports the general validity of the above three models, although it must be emphasized that this is based on an as yet limited range of experimental information.     

Fast anion transport in solids

The role of lattice simulation in the development and understanding of anionic conduction in the fluorite structure oxides is reviewed in this paper. The major influence of dopant-vacancy interactions in determining the activation energy for conduction is stressed, with reference to recent calculations on the effect of cation size on defect pair binding energies. Finally the relationship between the pair bonding energy and deviations from Vegard's law in these oxides is explored.     

Photoacoustic spectroscopy of solids immersed in transparent liquids

A method is developed to obtain the photoacoustic spectra of solids by immersing them in a liquid cell with a submersed tranducer and detecting the acoustic pulse generated due to bulk absorption of pulsed laser radiation in the solids. Proper choice of liquids enables spectra to be obtained which are independent of the optical properties of the solid surfaces of the surrounding liquid. This technique is compared to other established PAS methods.     

Proton transport in ordered hydrogen-bonded solids

The proton transfer is considered in hydrogenbonded chains with asymmetric double-minimum potentials for proteons. The transport is described by the kinksoliton propagation in an energetically asymmetric double-well potential for a proton. The asymmetry can be caused by the spontaneous polarization in hydrogenbonded ferroelectrics, medium polarization in nonferroelectric hydrogen-bonded solids, crystallographic structure, geometry of the proton neighbourhood and internal electric field in biological macromolecules. The soliton dynamics of the system is analytically studied including the influence of a constant external electric field and damping mechanism. The velocity, energy, momentum and mobility of kinks are calculated.     

Nanoparticle formation during laser ablation of solids in liquids

The experimental data on the generation of metal and semiconductor nanoparticles during their laser ablation in liquids is reviewed. The dependence of the morphology of noble metal nanoparticles on the liquid type and laser parameters is discussed. The data on the kinetics of the formation of alloyed Au-Ag nanoparticles under laser irradiation of a mixture of colloid solutions of individual nanoparticles are presented. The effect of femtosecond laser beam self-action during metal ablation in liquids via the second harmonic generation at Ag nanoclusters is discussed. The data on the generation of core-shell nanoparticles during laser ablation of alloys and in the presence of the chemical interaction of formed nanoparticles with surrounding liquid are presented. It was shown that laser ablation of CdS and ZnSe crystals leads to the formation of quantum dots of these semiconductors in solution. The parameters controlling the properties of nanoparticles during ablation in liquids and possible applications of the method are discussed.     

Electron energy-loss spectroscopy applied to solids

Several illustrating examples of recent electron energy-loss investigations of the electronic structure of solids are reviewed. In particular, studies on rare-gas bubbles in metals, on conducting polymers, and onL _2,3 edges of 3d transition metals are reported. Moreover, the electron energy-loss spectrometer, which was used for these investigations, is described briefly.     

Electron states near surfaces of solids

The mathematical theory of electron eigenstates near the surfaces of solids is developed in stages. The first stage is the study of the eigenstates of solids which terminate at a surface but are otherwise unperturbed; it is proved that near the surface the three-dimensional band edges are “softened” and that van Hove's singularities in the density of states are eliminated. A set of “vacuum states” lying primarily outside the solid is constructed out of plane waves orthogonalized to the eigenstates of the solid. This set of vacuum states is not orthonormal, and it must be orthonormalized by a procedure different from that of Schmidt (which is unsuitable). Effects of surface perturbations are studied. An exact method is elaborated for obtaining eigenfunctions in closed form, for a variety of perturbing potentials that extend arbitrary distances from the surface and include interband matrix elements. It consists of calculating the effects of one surface layer at a time and cumulating the results. The intrinsic instability of certain surfaces against the formation of bands of surface states is shown to be the consequence of the vanishing of a bulk quantity α_zz, one of the components of the inverse-effective mass tensor, at certain points in the B.Z.     

Dissipation functions and conservation laws of molecular liquids and solids

Thermodynamics of molecular liquids (anisotropic liquids, liquid crystals, etc.) and molecular solids (e.g. dielectrics, pyroelectrics, molecular crystals) are treated in a unified way, using an internal energy potentialU and a dissipation functionD. Assuming that the motion of the mass points making up the molecule is essential in determiningU we write down the appropriate field equations of motion and the entropy equation. With the assumed invariance ofU under a group of space-time transformations and the invariance ofD under rigid body uniform motions, we derive the conservation laws of mass, momentum, energy and angular momentum. In particular, we show that the total stress tensor is asymmetric.Furthermore, a symmetric stress tensor does not guarantee angular momentum conservation. The complete specification ofD leads to symmetry relations between the dissipative coefficients in an unambiguous way, without invoking the concept of so called forces and fluxes, in contrast to the conventional Onsager approach. Our formalism allows for a class of different dissipation functions, and is applicable to linear or nonlinear molecular media of arbitrary symmetry. It covers simple materials as special cases.     

Generalized Master Equations and Boltzmann-like transport in solids

Solution of the linearized Generalized Master Equations and that of the linearized Boltzmann equation are compared in the vicinity of the dc limit. In addition to straightforward higher-order corrections, the former solution is shown to differ from the latter by an additional term which is made explicit for the dc conductivity to the lowest order in coupling to static random short-range impurities. Numerical estimate shows that this term (proportional to the first power of impurity concentration) may become non-negligible in realistic situations.     

Electron temperature scaling in laser interaction with solids

A precise knowledge of the temperature and number of hot electrons generated in the interaction of short-pulse high-intensity lasers with solids is crucial for harnessing the energy of a laser pulse in applications such as laser-driven ion acceleration or fast ignition. Nevertheless, present scaling laws tend to overestimate the hot electron temperature when compared to experiment and simulations. We present a novel approach that is based on a weighted average of the kinetic energy of an ensemble of electrons. We find that the scaling of electron energy with laser intensity can be derived from a general Lorentz invariant electron distribution ansatz that does not rely on a specific model of energy absorption. The scaling derived is in perfect agreement with simulation results and clearly follows the trend seen in recent experiments, especially at high laser intensities where other scalings fail to describe the simulations accurately.     

Determination of the temperature distribution in liquids and solids using holographic interferometry

It is shown that holographic interferometry can be applied to solve two problems: heating of a glass plate by a complex heat source and nonisothermal flow of a submerged jet around a wedge. The process of isolating and numbering the skeletal lines on the interferograms is automated and direct calculations are made of the temperature fields. Zh. Tekh. Fiz. 69, 106–111 (June 1999)     

Electron transport in nanotube-ribbon hybrids

The electronic and transport properties of nanotube-ribbon hybrids subject to the influences of a transverse electric field are investigated theoretically. The energy dispersion relations are found to exhibit rich dependence on the nanotube-ribbon interactions, the field strength, and the geometry of the hybrids. The nanotube-ribbon coupling will modify the subband curvature, create additional band-edge states, and change the subband spacing or energy gap. The bandstructures are asymmetric and symmetric about the Fermi energy when the interactions are turned on and off, respectively. The inclusion of a transverse electric field will further alter the bandstructures and lift the degeneracy of the partial flat bands in hybrid (IV). The chemical-potential-dependent electrical and thermal conductance exhibit a stepwise increase behavior. Variations in the electronic structures with field strength will be reflected in the electrical and thermal conductance. Prominent peaks, as well as single-shoulder and multi-shoulder structures in the electrical and thermal conductance are predicted when varying the electric field strength and the nanotube location. The features of the conductance are found to be strongly dependent on the field strength, the geometry and the temperature.     

Electron transport in nanogranular ferromagnets

We study electronic transport properties of ferromagnetic nanoparticle arrays and nanodomain materials near the Curie temperature in the limit of weak coupling between the grains. We calculate the conductivity in the Ohmic and non-Ohmic regimes and estimate the magnetoresistance jump in the resistivity at the transition temperature. The results are applicable for many emerging materials, including artificially self-assembled nanoparticle arrays and a certain class of manganites, where localization effects within the clusters can be neglected.     

Electron transport in granular metals

We consider thermodynamic and transport properties of a long granular array with strongly connected grains (intergrain conductance g>1). We find that the system's conductance and differential capacitance exhibits activated behavior, approximately exp([-T(*)/T]. The gap T(*) represents the energy needed to create a long single-electron charge soliton propagating through the array. This scale is parametrically larger than the energy at which conventional perturbation theory breaks down.     

Electron transport in amorphous metals

Electron transport measurements—resistivity, thermopower, magnetoresistivity and Hall effect—in non-magnetic amorphous metals are surveyed and compared with predictions from several theoretical models proposed to describe electron scattering in highly disordered metals.