1,194 research outputs found

    Electric field effect and superconducting–insulating transition in ‘123’ cuprate superconductors

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    The physics of high critical temperature superconductors (HTS) remains a fascinating but undisclosed issue in condensed matter. One of the most interesting topics is the transition from the insulating phase of the parent compound, having long range antiferromagnetic order, to the superconducting phase. A method to investigate in detail the superconducting to insulating (SIT) transition in HTS is to control the doping of the CuO(2) planes in a fine way. Here, by using the electric field effect on thin Nd(1)Ba(2)Cu(3)O(7) films, we present a study of the HTS phase diagram close to the SIT with unprecedented detail. By virtue of these data, we will show that doping of holes in samples located at the boundary separating the superconducting and insulating regions produces changes in the transport characteristic consistent with an electronic phase separation scenario. Some consequences of these data are the failure of standard 2D quantum scaling theory and the possible coexistence of superconducting and weakly insulating phases in this region of the phase diagram. A continuous transition between the two competing phases as a function of doping place evident constraints on the mechanism of superconductivity

    On the introduction of canny operator in an advanced imaging algorithm for real-time detection of hyperbolas in ground-penetrating radar data

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    This paper focuses on the use of the Canny edge detector as the first step of an advanced imaging algorithm for automated detection of hyperbolic reflections in ground-penetrating radar (GPR) data. Since the imaging algorithm aims to work in real time; particular attention is paid to its computational efficiency. Various alternative criteria are designed and examined, to fasten the procedure by eliminating unnecessary edge pixels from Canny-processed data, before such data go through the subsequent steps of the detection algorithm. The effectiveness and reliability of the proposed methodology are tested on a wide set of synthetic and experimental radargrams with promising results. The finite-difference time-domain simulator gprMax is used to generate synthetic radargrams for the tests, while the real radargrams come from GPR surveys carried out by the authors in urban areas. The imaging algorithm is implemented in MATLAB

    Electronic phase separation near the superconductor-insulator transition of Nd1+xBa2−xCu3O7−δ thin films studied by an electric-field-induced doping effect

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    We report a detailed study of the transport properties of Nd(1+x)Ba(2-x)Cu(3)O(7-delta) thin films with doping changed by field effect. The data cover the whole superconducting to insulating transition and show remarkable Similarities with the effect of chemical doping in high critical temperature superconductors. The results suggest that the add-on of carriers is accompanied by an electronic phase separation, independent on the details of the doping mechanism

    Photodoping and in-gap interface states across the metal-insulator transition in LaAlO3/SrTiO3 heterostructures

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    By using scanning tunneling microscopy/spectroscopy we show that the interface between LaAlO3 and SrTiO3 band insulators is characterized by in-gap interface states. These features were observed in insulating as well as conducting LaAlO3/SrTiO3 bilayers. The data show how the interface density of states evolves across the insulating to metal transition, demonstrating that nanoscale electronic inhomogeneities in the system are induced by spatially localized electrons

    3D Simulation of the Effects of Surface Defects on Field Emitted Electrons

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    The ev­er-grow­ing de­mand for high­er beam en­er­gies has dra­mat­i­cal­ly in­creased the risk of RF break­down, lim­it­ing the max­i­mum achiev­able ac­cel­er­at­ing gra­di­ent. Field emis­sion is the most fre­quent­ly en­coun­tered RF break­down where it oc­curs at re­gions of lo­cal­ly en­hanced elec­tric field. Elec­trons ac­cel­er­at­ed across the cav­i­ty as they tun­nel through the sur­face in the pres­ence of mi­cro­scop­ic de­fects. Upon Im­pact, most of the ki­net­ic en­er­gy is con­vert­ed into heat and stress. This can in­flict ir­re­versible dam­age to the sur­face, cre­at­ing ad­di­tion­al field emis­sion sites. This work aims to in­ves­ti­gate, through sim­u­la­tion, the physics in­volved dur­ing both emis­sion and im­pact of elec­trons. A newly de­vel­oped 3D field model of an 805 MHz cav­i­ty is gen­er­at­ed by COM­SOL Mul­ti­physics. Elec­tron track­ing is per­formed using a Mat­lab based code, cal­cu­lat­ing the rel­e­vant pa­ram­e­ters need­ed by em­ploy­ing fourth Order Runge Kutta in­te­gra­tion. By study­ing such be­haviours in 3D, it is pos­si­ble to iden­ti­fy how the cav­i­ty sur­face can alter the local RF field and lead to break­down and sub­se­quent dam­ages. The ul­ti­mate aim is to in­tro­duce new sur­face stan­dards to en­sure bet­ter cav­i­ty per­for­mance

    Local Site Distribution of Oxygen in Silicon-Rich Oxide Thin Films: A Tool to Investigate Phase Separation

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    Thin films of nonstoichiometric silicon oxide (SiOx with x < 2) have been studied extensively during the past few decades because of their importance in many electronic and optoelectronic applications, and particular attention has been paid to models that can better describe their global structure. Herein, we present a detailed study of SiOx films deposited on silicon(111) and silica substrates using the low-pressure chemical vapor deposition (LPCVD) method by thermal oxidation of silane in an oxygen atmosphere at a temperature of 570 °C. The oxygen and silane flows in the reactor were varied to obtain films with different values of oxygen content x. Ellipsometry and m-line measurements were used to determine the complex refractive index of the deposited films. The oxygen contents in the films were measured by infrared spectroscopy, energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), and time-of-flight elastic recoil detection analysis (TOF-ERDA). The oxygen contents in the films were also estimated from the measured values of the complex refractive indices using Bruggeman’s effective-medium aproximation (EMA). All of the results were in good agreement, except for those obtained from infrared spectroscopy, which corresponded to systematically higher oxygen contents. This effect was interpreted as being due to an inhomogeneous distribution of oxygen atoms in the films (phase separation). This issue was confirmed by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analysis of the Si 2p core levels, which showed an almost-complete phase separation of the silicon-rich oxides into amorphous silicon and silicon dioxide, indicating that the mixture model is the most appropriate for the present films

    The effects of field emitted electrons on RF surfaces

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    The ever-growing demand for higher RF gradients has considerably increased the risk of breakdown in accelerating structures. Field emission is the most common form of RF breakdown that generates free electrons capable of inflicting irreversible damages on the RF surface. This paper presents a systematic experimental and simulation programme to understand possible sources and their influence on RF cavity operation

    Bernoulli Particle/Box-Particle Filters for Detection and Tracking in the Presence of Triple Measurement Uncertainty

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    This work presents sequential Bayesian detection and estimation methods for nonlinear dynamic stochastic systems using measurements affected by three sources of uncertainty: stochastic, set-theoretic and data association uncertainty. Following Mahler’s framework for information fusion, the paper develops the optimal Bayes filter for this problem in the form of the Bernoulli filter for interval measurements. Two numerical implementations of the optimal filter are developed. The first is the Bernoulli particle filter (PF), which turns out to require a large number of particles in order to achieve a satisfactory performance. For the sake of reduction in the number of particles, the paper also develops an implementation based on box particles, referred to as the Bernoulli Box-PF. A box particle is a random sample that occupies a small and controllable rectangular region of non-zero volume in the target state space. Manipulation of boxes utilizes the methods of interval analysis. The two implementations are compared numerically and found to perform remarkably well: the target is reliably detected and the posterior probability density function of the target state is estimated accurately. The Bernoulli Box-PF, however, when designed carefully, is computationally more efficient
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