Results from Super-Kamiokande and K2K

Results from Super-Kamiokande-I’s entire 1496 live days of solar neutrino data are presented, including the absolute flux, energy spectrum, zenith angle (day/night) and seasonal variation. The possibility of MSW and vacuum oscillations is discussed in light of these results. Results from the first 1289 days of Super-K-I’s atmospheric neutrino analysis are also presented, including the evidence for ν_μ →ν _τ oscillations, against ν_μ → ν_sterile oscillations, and the current limits on proton decay. Finally, results based on 56 × 10¹⁹ protons on target are given for the K2K long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiment.     

Classical and quantum limitations on energy consumption in computation

Fundamental limitations on the energy dissipated during one elementary logical operation are discussed. A model of a real physical device (parametric quantron) based on the Josephson effect in superconductors is used throughout the discussion. This device is shown to be physically reversible, and moreover it can serve as the clementary cell of a logically reversible computer, both these properties being necessary to achieve the fundamental limits of energy dissipation. These limits due to classical and quantum statistics are shown to lie well below the earlier estimates,k _B T and , respectively.     

Experimental study of resistive bistability in metal oxide junctions

We have studied resistive bistability (memory) effects in junctions based on metal oxides, with a focus on sample-to-sample reproducibility, which is necessary for the use of such junctions as crosspoint devices of hybrid CMOS/nanoelectronic circuits. Few-nm-thick layers of NbO _x , CuO _x and TiO _x have been formed by thermal and plasma oxidation, at various deposition and oxidation conditions, both with and without rapid thermal post-annealing. The resistive bistability effect has been observed for all these materials, with particularly high endurance (over 10³ switching cycles) obtained for single-layer TiO₂ junctions, and the best reproducibility reached for multi-layer junctions of the same material. Fabrication optimization has allowed us to improve the OFF/ON resistance ratio to about 10³, but the sample-to-sample reproducibility is so far lower than that required for large-scale integration.