On the environmental decoherence and spin interference in mesoscopic loop structures

Mechanisms of ‘environmental decoherence’ such as surface scattering, Elliot–Yafet process and precession mechanisms, as well as their influence on the spin phase relaxation are considered and compared. It is shown that the ‘spin ballistic’ regime is possible, when the phase relaxation length for the spin part of the wave function (L^(s)) is much greater than the phase relaxation length for the ‘orbital part’ (L^(e)). In the presence of an additional magnetic field, the spin part of the electron's wave function (WF) acquires a phase shift due to additional spin precession about that field. If the structure length L is chosen to be L^(s)>L>L^(e), it is possible to ‘wash out’ the quantum interference related to the phase coherence of the ‘orbital part’ of the WF, retaining at the same time that related to the phase coherence of the spin part and, hence, to reveal corresponding conductance oscillations.     

WZW–Poisson manifolds

We observe that a term of the WZW-type can be added to the Lagrangian of the Poisson σ-model in such a way that the algebra of the first class constraints remains closed. This leads to a natural generalization of the concept of Poisson geometry. The resulting “WZW–Poisson” manifold M is characterized by a bivector Π and by a closed three-form H such that 1/2[Π,Π]_Schouten=H,ΠΠΠ.     

Photo-induced evolution of copper sheets from cluster molecules and its application to photolithographic copper patterning

UV photoexcitation of (t-butylethynyl copper)₂₄ cluster films induces segregation of the crystals into metallic and organic phases and leads to evolve the metallic sheets sandwiched by organic polymers. The growth of the metallic crystals in the plane of the photo-electromagnetic field is attributed due to plasmon-plasmon interaction among nanoparticles embedded in dielectric polymer matrices. The surface enhanced photochemical reaction of residual cluster molecules on the photon incident direction is expected to take an important role for joining the metal particles to produce a metallic sheet. We can apply this phenomenon for photolithographic copper pattern generation on a flexible base plate.     

Thermal conductance for single wall carbon nanotubes

We report a theoretical analysis of the phonon thermal conductance, κ(T), for single wall carbon nanotubes (SWCN). In a range of low temperatues up to 100 K, κ(T) of perfect SWCN is found to increase with temperature, approximately, in a parabolic fashion. This is qualitatively consistent with recent experimental measurements where the tube-tube interactions are negligibly weak. When the carbon-carbon bond length is slightly varied, κ(T) is found to be qualitatively unaltered which implies that the anharmonic effect does not change the qualitative behavior of κ(T). Received 12 June 2001     

Charge density fluctuation of low frequency in a dusty plasma

The charge density fluctuation of low frequency in a dusty plasma, which is derived from the longitudinal dielectric permittivity of the dusty plasma, has been studied by kinetic theory. The results show that theP value, which describes the relative charge density on the dust in the plasma, and the charging frequency of a dust particle Ω _c , which describes the ratio of charge changing of the dust particles, determine the character of the charge density fluctuation of low frequency. For a dusty plasma ofP≪1, when the charging frequency Ω _c , is much smaller than the dusty plasma frequency ω_d, there is a strong charge density fluctuation which is of character of dust acoustic eigenwave. For a dusty plasma ofP≫1, when the frequency Ω _c , is much larger than ω _d there are weaker fluctuations with a wide spectrum. The results have been applied to the ionosphere and the range of radius and density of dust particles is found, where a strong charge density fluctuation of low frequency should exist.     

Anderson transition in dilute systems with pure exponential interactions

Summary Assuming a completely disordered lattice it is shown that all the states are localized when the disorder parameterx=a ₀/0 reachesthe value 0.31, wherea is the mean atomic separation anda ₀ is the Bohr radius.     

Wave-vector diagrams for two-dimensional photonic crystals

Photonic crystals exhibit band gaps, meaning that electromagnetic fields cannot propagate in them for specific ranges of wavelengths and directions. The calculation of band structure diagrams has been intensively studied and is now well understood. In contrast to that, so-called wave-vector diagrams (i.e. dispersion surfaces, depicting the loci of all relevant wave vectors at a fixed wavelength) are less known and used. In principle, they show how the effective index of the structure depends on the direction of propagation. A method to calculate explicitly wave-vector diagrams for two-dimensional photonic crystals is derived which leads finally to quadratic eigenvalue problems. Results for square and triangular lattices are presented and some applications are discussed.     

Thermal and chemical nanofractal relaxation

We studied shape relaxation of nano-fractal islands, during annealing, after their growth from antimony cluster deposition on graphite surface. Annealing at 180^°C shows evidence of an increase of the fractal branch width with time followed by branch fragmentation, without changing the fractal dimension. The time evolution of the width of the arm suggests the surface self-diffusion mechanism as the main relaxation process. With Monte Carlo simulations, we confirmed the observed behavior. Comparison is done with our previous results on fragmentation of nano-fractal silver islands when impurity added to the incident cluster promotes rapid fragmentation by surface self-diffusion enhancement [1].