Micro‐Raman study of orbiton–phonon coupling in YbVO3

First‐order and multiphonon Raman active excitations are studied in YbVO₃ as a function of temperature in the orthorhombic and monoclinic phases. Below T ≃ 170 K, a G‐type orbital ordering with a concomitant monoclinic transition occurs. They enhance the phonon polarizabilities, allowing the resolution of room‐temperature bands, and activate new excitations around 700 cm⁻¹. Below T ∼ 65 K, the 700 cm⁻¹ excitations disappear, indicating a C‐type orbital ordering and a return to the orthorhombic structure. The observed phonon combinations around 1400 cm⁻¹ with a dominant Jahn‐Teller vibration at ∼690 cm⁻¹ reflect a possible orbiton‐phonon coupling. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Neutrons for probing the ice nucleation on atmospheric soot particles

Soot resulting from combustion of kerosene in aircraft engines can act as condensation nuclei for water/ice in the atmosphere and promote the formation of contrails that turn into artificial cirrus clouds and affect the climate. The mechanisms of nucleation of water/ice particles are not well identified. Studies ??in situ?? are difficult to realize, so we try to determine by neutron diffraction the nucleation of water/ice adsorbed on soot collected at the outlet of an aircraft engine combustor within the conditions of the upper troposphere. The results are compared with those obtained on model laboratory soot. The comparison highlights the role of chemical impurities and structural defects of original aircraft engine soot on the nucleation of water/ice in atmospheric conditions.     

Scaled silicon MOSFET's: universal mobility behavior

We use a fully quantum-mechanical model to study the inversion layer mobility in a silicon MOS structure. The importance of depletion charge and surface-roughness scattering on the effective electron mobility is examined. The magnitude of the mobility is found to be considerably reduced by both depletion charge and interface-roughness scattering. The appropriate weighting coefficients a and b for the inversion and depletion charge densities in the definition of the effective electric field, which eliminate the doping dependence of the effective electron mobility, are also calculated. These are found to differ from the commonly used values of 0.5 and 1. In addition, the weighting coefficient for the depletion charge density is found to be significantly influenced by the actual shape of the doping profile and can be either >1 or <1     

Position broadening effect in hot-electron transport

We utilize the Kadanoff-Baym-Keldysh methods to develop a formalism appropriate for high, homogeneous fields. The aim is to derive a spectral density model which can account for both the energy dependence of the collision rate and the intracollisional field effect in a relatively simple and rigorous way. We solve the appropriate Dyson's equation in the first Born approximation for the case of scattering mechanisms described by a momentum-independent self-energy. We obtain an analytical expression for the spectral density and derive an integral equation for the correlation function G^<, which is proportional to the density of particles. We show that the field, acting in conjunction with the phonons, leads to an effective quantization of the energy in the direction of the electric field suggesting the presence of a novel quantum effect consisting in a discontinuous trajectory of the electron along this direction.     

Role of structure sizes in determining the characteristics of the resonant tunneling diode

Using the Wigner function formalism, we study the effects of structural parameters on the DC I-V characteristics and on the large-signal transient response of the resonant tunneling diode. We model two types of structures of GaAs/Al_xGa_1-xAs; first, with symmetric barriers ranging from 3 to 8 nanometers in thickness separated by a 5 nanometer well, and second with a well varying from 3 to 8 nanometers between 3 nanometer barriers. Experimental variation of the barrier thickness and height changes the peak-to-valley ratio in the I-V curve, as predicted by elementary models of tunneling structures. This stems directly from the changes in tunneling probabilities. For the DC studies, we show that the peak-to-valley ratio in the I-V curve is a function of the resonance width, which depends both on the well and barrier thickness. The location of the peak on the I-V curve depends on the location of the resonant energy, which is a function of the well width. Transient switching behavior is compared to earlier numerical studies of tunneling times of wave packets. Charge storage stabilizes the position of the resonant state, thus damping the transients. Consequently, wider barriers yield faster transient settling times, in agreement with the tunneling time results which predicted longer charge storage times for thicker barriers.     

Optimizing the NIR Fluence Threshold for Nanobubble Generation by Controlled Synthesis of 10–40 nm Hollow Gold Nanoshells

The laser fluence to trigger nanobubbles around hollow gold nanoshells (HGN) with near infrared light is examined through systematic modification of HGN size, localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR), HGN concentration, and surface coverage. Improved temperature control during silver template synthesis provides monodisperse, silver templates as small as 9 nm. 10 nm HGN with <2 nm shell thickness are prepared from these templates with a range of surface plasmon resonances from 600 to 900 nm. The fluence of picosecond near infrared (NIR) pulses to induce transient vapor nanobubbles decreases with HGN size at a fixed LSPR wavelength, unlike solid gold nanoparticles of similar dimensions that require an increased fluence with decreasing size. Nanobubble generation causes the HGN to melt with a blue shift of the LSPR. The nanobubble threshold fluence increases as the irradiation wavelength moves off the nanoshell LSPR. Surface treatment does not influence the threshold fluence. The threshold fluence increases with decreasing HGN concentration, suggesting that light localization through multiple scattering plays a role. The nanobubble threshold to rupture liposomes is four times smaller for 10 nm than for 40 nm HGN at a given LSPR, allowing us to use HGN size, LSPR, laser wavelength and fluence to control nanobubble generation.