Shallow Donors and Deep-Level Color Centers in Bulk AlN Crystals: EPR, ENDOR, ODMR and Optical Studies

The results of studies of shallow donors and deep-level color centers in bulk AlN crystals are presented. Two shallow donors (presumably oxygen located on the nitrogen site and carbon located on the aluminum site) are suggested to exhibit the DX-relaxation. Third shallow donor (presumably silicon on the Al site) shows the shallow donor behavior up to the room temperature and can be observed without light excitation at temperatures above 200 K. The values of the Bohr radius of the shallow donors are estimated. The structure of deep-level color centers (neutral nitrogen vacancy V _N) in bulk AlN crystals is determined and analyzed by electron paramagnetic resonance, electron-nuclear double resonance, optical absorption and thermoluminescence induced by X-ray irradiation. Spin-dependent recombination processes in AlN crystals are studied by means of optically detected magnetic resonance.     

A model for the dissociative adsorption of N2O on Cu(1 0 0) using a continuous potential energy surface

For the first time, a continuous ab initio potential energy surface (PES) taking into account all molecular degrees of freedom is built and used to model the reaction of a polyatomic molecule with a surface. DFT slab calculations are used to sample the configuration space of the system N₂O/Cu(1 0 0), and the PES function is built with a method of Manzhos and Carrington [J. Chem. Phys. 127 (2007) 014103] using dimensionality reduction from only 4300 single-point energies. Molecular dynamics simulations are performed on the PES to calculate the probability of dissociative adsorption.     

Towards an explanation of the mesoscopic double-slit experiment: A new model for charging of a quantum Dot

For a quantum dot (QD) in the intermediate regime between integrable and fully chaotic, the widths of single-particle levels naturally differ by orders of magnitude. In particular, the width of one strongly coupled level may be larger than the spacing between other, very narrow, levels. In this case many consecutive Coulomb blockade peaks are due to occupation of the same broad level. Between the peaks the electron jumps from this level to one of the narrow levels, and the transmission through the dot at the next resonance essentially repeats that at the previous one. This offers a natural explanation to the recently observed behavior of the transmission phase in an interferometer with a QD.     

Switchable lasing in multimode microcavities

We propose the new concept of a switchable multimode microlaser. As a generic, realistic model of a multimode microresonator a system of two coupled defects in a two-dimensional photonic crystal is considered. We demonstrate theoretically that lasing of the cavity into one selected resonator mode can be caused by injecting an appropriate optical pulse at the onset of laser action (injection seeding). Temporal mode-to-mode switching by reseeding the cavity after a short cooldown period is demonstrated by direct numerical solution. A qualitative analytical explanation of the mode switching in terms of the laser bistability is presented.     

Nonvolatile memory elements based on the intercalation of organic molecules inside carbon nanotubes

We propose a novel class of nonvolatile memory elements based on the modification of the transport properties of a conducting carbon nanotube by the presence of an encapsulated molecule. The guest molecule has two stable orientational positions relative to the nanotube that correspond to conducting and nonconducting states. The mechanism, governed by a local gating effect of the molecule on the electronic properties of the nanotube host, is studied using density functional theory. The mechanisms of reversible reading and writing of information are illustrated with a F4TCNQ molecule encapsulated inside a metallic carbon nanotube. Our results suggest that this new type of nonvolatile memory element is robust, fatigue-free, and can operate at room temperature.     

Raman amplification with reduced polarization impairments in the fibre with tailored spin profile

By using two-section fibre where the first section has no spin and the second one is periodically spun, we demonstrate reduced polarization dependent gain and polarization mode dispersion (0.3 dB and 0.0072 ps·km^−1/2 correspondently) in a distributed fibre Raman amplifier.     

Electron irradiation effects in doped high temperature superconductors YBa2Cu3? x M x O y (M = Fe, Ni; x=0; x =0:01)

The influence of irradiation by electrons with an energy of 8 MeV, at dose intervals between 10¹³ and 2×10¹⁸el/cm², on the properties of impurity doped, high-temperature superconductor YBa₂Cu_3−x M _x O _y (M = Fe, Ni; x=0; x=0:01) ceramics has been studied. It has been established that, as the irradiation dose is increased, the onset temperature of the transition to the superconducting state (T _c ^on ), and the intergranular weak link coupling temperature between granules (T _m ^J ), exhibit an oscillation around their initial values of approximately about 1–1.5 K. This oscillation indicates that the process of radiation defect formation in HTSC occurs in multiple stages. It was also found that the critical current (J _c )decreases with an increase of the irradiation dose, and exhibits a local minimum at a dose of 8×10¹⁶el/cm²coinciding with minima for T _c ^on and T _m ^J at this dose. It was found that the introduction of Fe atoms to the ceramic decreases T _m ^J , while introducing Ni atoms decreases both T _c ^on and T _m ^J ; it is suggested that this is a result of Ni substitution of Cu both in Cu2 plane sites and Cu1 chain sites. The introduction of Ni causes a large change in the intergranular critical current density, J _c . A critical irradiation dose is obtained (2×10¹⁸)after which all HTSC parameters strongly decrease, i. e. the superconductivity of HTSC is destroyed.      

Computing homotopic shortest paths in the plane

We address the problem of computing homotopic shortest paths in the presence of obstacles in the plane. Problems on homotopy of paths received attention very recently [Cabello et al., in: Proc. 18th Annu. ACM Sympos. Comput. Geom., 2002, pp. 160–169; Efrat et al., in: Proc. 10th Annu. European Sympos. Algorithms, 2002, pp. 411–423]. We present two output-sensitive algorithms, for simple paths and non-simple paths. The algorithm for simple paths improves the previous algorithm [Efrat et al., in: Proc. 10th Annu. European Sympos. Algorithms, 2002, pp. 411–423]. The algorithm for non-simple paths achieves O(log²n) time per output vertex which is an improvement by a factor of O(n/log²n) of the previous algorithm [Hershberger, Snoeyink, Comput. Geom. Theory Appl. 4 (1994) 63–98], where n is the number of obstacles. The running time has an overhead O(n²⁺) for any positive constant . In the case k<n²⁺, where k is the total size of the input and output, we improve the running to O((n+k+(nk)^2/3)log^O(1)n).