Physics Commons^™

Measurement Of Conductivity And Charge Storage In Insulators Related To Spacecraft Charging, A Robb Frederickson, Jr Dennison

Journal Articles

Improved experimental methods are discussed for laboratory measurement of conductivity and electric field in insulating spacecraft material intended for space radiation and plasma environments. These measurement techniques investigate the following features: 1) Measurements of conductivity are up to four orders of magnitude smaller than those determined by existing standard methods. 2) Conductivity is altered as radiation accumulates and trapping states fill with electrons. 3) With intense keV electron irradiation, electrons are continually emitted for hours from the irradiated surface after the irradiation ceases. 4) Charging induced by electron irradiation is strongly modified by the electron-hole pairs that the irradiation generates …

Theoretical Investigation Of The Surface Vibrational Modes In Germanium Nanocrystals, Shang-Fen Ren, Wei Cheng, Peter Y. Yu

Faculty publications – Physics

We have used a microscopic lattice dynamical model to study phonon modes in germanium (Ge) NC with size varying between 47 to 7289 atoms (diametersimilar to6.8 nm). By separating these atoms into bulk and surface atoms we have found that surface modes can exist in Ge NC both at low frequencies (<50>cm(-1)) and at high frequency (similar to260 cm(-1)). The latter mode is a resonant mode which occurs in the "pseudogap" between the acoustic and optical phonon branches in bulk Ge. From the low frequency surface modes we have been able to reconstruct the spheroidal and torsional Lamb modes …

Measurement Of Conductivity And Charge Storage In Insulators Related To Spacecraft Charging, A. R. Frederickson, Jr Dennison

Conference Proceedings

Several methods have been combined to measure conductivity and charge storage in insulating spacecraft materials. In order to avoid insulator problems, the motions of conducting electrons and holes must prevent the development of large electric fields exceeding 1E5 V/cm, where problems occur in spacecraft insulators. Approximate knowledge of the electric fields is important. One must consider generation of mobile electrons and holes, their trapping, thermal de-trapping, mobility and recombination.

Classical methods to measure thin film insulator conductivity apply a constant voltage to two electrodes on the sample and measure the resulting current for tens of minutes. Under constant voltage, a …

Refrigerator With Phonon Filters: An Application Of The Phonon Deficit Effect In Superconducting Tunnel Junctions, G. G. Melkonyan, Armen Gulian

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

Nonequilibrium phenomena in thin solid films can result in cooling effects. These types of effects were predicted theoretically a while ago, and only recently were demonstrated experimentally in superconductor-insulator-normal metal (SIN) tunnel junctions. Since then, there is a growing interest in tunneling effects for the purpose to develop on-chip refrigerators. Thin film devices have the advantage of being extremely compact, operate in a continuous mode, dissipate little power, and can easily be integrated in cryogenic detectors. Currently these refrigerators can generate cooling in the order of 100 mK in an environment of 0.3–0.5 K. There are reasons to expect that …

Triplet Superconductors From The Viewpoint Of Basic Elements For Quantum Computers, Armen M. Gulian, Kent S. Wood

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

We discuss possibilities of utilizing superconductors with Cooper condensates in triplet pairing states (where the spin of condensate pairs is S=1) for practical realization of quantum computers. Superconductors with triplet pairing condensates have features that are unique and cannot be found in the usual (singlet pairing, S=0) superconductors. The symmetry of the order parameter in some triplet superconductors (e.g., ruthenates) corresponds to doubly-degenerate chiral states. These states can serve as qubit base states for quantum computing.

Comment On: 'Depolarization Corrections To The Coercive Field In Thin-Film Ferroelectrics', Stephen Ducharme, Vladimir Fridkin

Stephen Ducharme Publications

The Letter by Dawber et al. [J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 15 L393 (2003)] notes that incomplete screening in the electrodes of a ferroelectric capacitor can result in an underestimate for the true coercive field in films of nanometer thickness. We show that their estimate of the magnitude of this correction it too large in the case of ferroelectric copolymer Langmuir- Blodgett films and, as a result, invalidates the claim that finite-size scaling of the ferroelectric coercive field is evident in films thinner than 15 nm.

Ferroelectricity In Free Niobium Clusters, Ramiro Moro, Xiaoshan Xu, Shuangye Yin, Walt A. De Heer

Xiaoshan Xu Papers

Electric deflections of gas-phase, cryogenically cooled, neutral niobium clusters [Nb_N; number of atoms (N) = 2 to 150, temperature (T) = 20 to 300 kelvin], measured in molecular beams, show that cold clusters may attain an anomalous component with very large electric dipole moments. In contrast, room-temperature measurements show normal metallic polarizabilities. Characteristic energies k_BT_G(N) [Boltzmann constant k_B times a transition temperature T_G(N)] are identified, below which the ferroelectric-like state develops. Generally, T_G decreases [110 > T_G(N) > 10K] as …

Spin-Dependent Tunneling In Magnetic Tunnel Junctions, Evgeny Y. Tsymbal, O. N. Mryasov, Patrick R. Leclair

Evgeny Tsymbal Publications

The phenomenon of electron tunneling has been known since the advent of quantum mechanics, but continues to enrich our understanding of many fields of physics, as well as creating sub-fields on its own. Spin-dependent tunneling in magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs) has recently aroused enormous interest and has developed in a vigorous field of research. The large tunneling magnetoresistance (TMR) observed in MTJs garnered much attention due to possible applications in non-volatile random access memories and next-generation magnetic field sensors. This led to a number of fundamental questions regarding the phenomenon of spindependent tunneling. In this review article we present an …

Thermoelectric Cooling At Cryogenic Temperatures, S. R. Harutyunyan, V. H. Vardanyan, A. S. Kuzanyan, V. R. Nikoghosyan, S. Kunii, K. S. Wood, Armen Gulian

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

Experimental results demonstrating Peltier cooling below 10 K are reported, using crystals of the thermoelectric cerium hexaboride (CeB₆). Direct measurements of the Peltier cooling showed δT up to ∼0.2 K in magnitude at T∼4–5 K. All three kinetic parameters: resistivity (ρ), heat conductivity (k), and Seebeck coefficient (S), characterizing the thermoelectric figure of merit ZT=S²T/ρk, were measured, giving high-confidence results.