微观下的热

在日常生活中,热传导现象很常见。宏观上热传导被看作能量在温度梯度场下的扩散行为,而这一输运过程取决于傅里叶定律给出的材料热导率。由傅里叶定律与能量守恒定律所衍生出的热传导方程,则描绘了温度在时间与空间中的分布。
    但是,这个宏观热传导方程留下了很多未解之谜。例如,为什么金刚石具有极高的热导率,而和它具有相同晶体结构的砷化镓则只具有普通的热导率？晶格振动被认为是固体热传导的主要物理机制,但在所有的振动模式中,究竟哪些对热传导起主要作用？不同振动模式的输运距离又是多少？     

Irreversibility of the threshold field for dendritic flux avalanches in superconductors

Hysteretic effects are seen in the upper and lower threshold fields for the appearance of dendritic flux instabilities, first explained in Yurchenko et al. [Phys. Rev. B 76 (2007) 092504], in NbN-films. We have measured the threshold fields at increasing and decreasing applied fields at different temperatures and proposed a mechanism explaining how the hysteresis arises by analyzing the field profiles inside the sample.     

Tunneling through a coherent "Quantum antidot molecule"

We report experiments on resonant tunneling through a quantum antidot in the fractional quantum Hall regime. The envelope of the conductance peaks indicates tunneling via two resonant states, one of them bound on the lithographic antidot, the other on a hill of the disorder potential. Moreover, our analysis indicates that the coherent tunneling rate between the two states is an order of magnitude higher than the phase breaking rate, thus giving evidence for a coherently coupled "antidot molecule."     

Influence of phonon dimensionality on electron energy relaxation

We studied experimentally the role of phonon dimensionality on electron-phonon (e-p) interaction in thin copper wires evaporated either on suspended silicon nitride membranes or on bulk substrates, at sub-Kelvin temperatures. The power emitted from electrons to phonons was measured using sensitive normal metal-insulator-superconductor tunnel junction thermometers. Membrane thicknesses ranging from 30 to 750 nm were used to clearly see the onset of the effects of two-dimensional (2D) phonon system. We observed for the first time that a 2D phonon spectrum clearly changes the temperature dependence and strength of the e-p scattering rate, with the interaction becoming stronger at the lowest temperatures below approximately 0.5 K for the 30 nm membranes.