Band-tail shape and transport near the metal-insulator transition in Si-doped

In the present work, an infrared light-emitting diode is used to photodope molecular-beam-epitaxy-grown Si: Al0.3Ga0.7As, a well-known persistent photoconductor, to vary the effective electron concentration of samples in situ. Using this technique, we examine the transport properties of two samples containing different nominal doping concentrations of Si [1 x 10(19) cm(-3) for sample 1 (S1) and 9 x 10(17) cm(-3) for sample 2 (S2)] and vary the effective electron density between 10(14) and 10(18) cm(-3). The metal-insulator transition for S1 is found to occur at a critical carrier concentration of 5.7 x 10(16) cm(-3) at 350 mK. The mobilities in both samples are found to be limited by ionized impurity scattering in the temperature range probed, and are adequately described by the Brooks-Herring screening theory for higher carrier densities. The shape of the band tail of the density of states in Al0.3Ga0.7As is found electrically through transport measurements. It is determined to have a power-law dependence, with an exponent of -1.25 for S1 and -1.38 for S2.

Electric field driven quantum phase transition between band insulator and topological insulator

We demonstrate theoretically that electric field can drive a quantum phase transition between band insulator to topological insulator in CdTe/HgCdTe/CdTe quantum wells. The numerical results suggest that the electric field could be used as a switch to turn on or off the topological insulator phase, and temperature can affect significantly the phase diagram for different gate voltage and compositions. Our theoretical results provide us an efficient way to manipulate the quantum phase of HgTe quantum wells.

Electron injection assisted phase transition in a nano-Au-VO2 junction

The semiconductor-metal transition of vanadium dioxide (VO2) thin films epitaxially grown on C-plane sapphire is studied by depositing Au nanoparticles onto the thermochromic films forming a metal-semiconductor contact, namely, a nano-Au-VO2 junction. It reveals that Au nanoparticles have a marked effect on the reduction in the phase transition temperature of VO2. A process of electron injection in which electrons flow from Au to VO2 due to the lower work function of the metal is believed to be the mechanism. The result may support the Mott-Hubbard phase transition model for VO2.

Electrical and Optical Phase Transition Properties of Nano Vanadium Dioxide Thin Films

Nano-vanadium dioxide thin films were prepared through thermal annealing vanadium oxide thin films deposited by dual ion beam sputtering. The nano-vanadium dioxide thin films changed its state from semiconductor phase to metal phase through heating by homemade system. Four point probe method and Fourier transform infrared spectrum technology were employed to measure and anaylze the electrical and optical semiconductor-to-metal phase transition properties of nano-vanadium dioxide thin films, respectively. The results show that there is an obvious discrepancy between the semiconductor-to-metal phase transition properties of electrical and optical phase transition. The nano-vanadium dioxide thin films' phase transiton temperature defined by electrical phase transiton property is 63 degrees C, higher than that defined by optical phase transiton property at 5 mu m, 60 degrees C; and the temperature width of electrical phase transition duration is also wider than that of optical phase transiton duration. The semiconductor-to-metal phase transiton temperature defined by optical properties increases with increasing wavelength in the region of infrared wave band, and the occuring temperature of phase transiton from semiconductor to metal also increases with wavelength increasing, but the duration temperature width of transition decreases with wavelength increasing. The phase transition properties of nano-vanadium dioxide thin film has obvious relationship with wavelength in infrared wave band. The phase transition properties can be tuned through wavelength in infrared wave band, and the semiconductor-to-metal phase transition properties of nano vanadiium dioxide thin films can be better characterized by electrical property.

Deconfinement phase Transition including perturbative QCD corrections in (proto)neutron star matter

Deconfinement phase transition and neutrino trapping in (proto)neutron star matter are investigated in a chiral hadronic model (also referred to as the FST model) for the hadronic phase (HP) and in the color-flavor-locked (CFL) quark model for the deconfined quark phase. We include a perturbative QCD correction parameter alpha(s) in the CFL quark matter equation of states. It is shown that the CFL quark core with K-0 condensation forms in neutron star matter with the large value of alpha(s). If the small value of alpha(s) is taken, hyperons suppress the CFL quark phase and the HP is dominant in the high-density region of (proto)neutron star matter. Neutrino trapping makes the fraction of the CFL quark matter decrease compared with those without neutrino trapping. Moreover, increasing the QCD correction parameter alpha(s) or decreasing the bag constant B and the strange quark mass m(s) can make the fraction of the CFL quark matter increase, simultaneously, the fraction of neutrino in protoneutron star matter increases, too. The maximum masses and the corresponding radii of (proto)neutron stars are not sensitive to the QCD correction parameter alpha(s).

Electrical properties in vanadyl-phthalocyanine-based metal-insulator-semiconductor devices

We investigated electrical properties of vanadyl phthalocyanine (VOPc) metal-insulator-semiconductor (MIS) devices by the measurement of capacitance and conductance, which were fabricated on ordered para-sexiphenyl (p-6P) layer by weak epitaxy growth method. The VOPc/p-6P MIS diodes showed a negligible hysteresis effect at a gate voltage of +/- 20 V and small hysteresis effect at a gate voltage of +/- 40 V due to the low interface trap state density of about 1x10(10) eV(-1) cm(-2). Furthermore, a high transition frequency of about 10 kHz was also observed under their accumulation mode. The results indicated that VOPc was a promising material and was suitable to be applied in active matrix liquid crystal displays and organic logic circuits.

THE EFFECTS OF LANTHANIDE IONS AND THEIR COMPLEXES ON THE PHASE-TRANSITION PROPERTY OF DIPALMITOYLPHOSPHATIDYLETHANOLAMINE LIPOSOMES

The effects of metal ions and lanthanide complexes on the gel-to-liquid crystal phase transition temperature T-m of dipalmitoylphosphatidylethanolamine liposomes have been studied by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) method. The results show that the addition of metal ions to the dipalmitoylphosphatidylethanolamine (DPPE) liposomes dispersions increases the main phase transition temperature T-m in the order of monovalent< divalent< trivalent cations. The enhancement of T-m is not large as increasing the lanthanide ions concentration. The enhancement of Pr3+ is larger than that of La3+. Remarkable differences were observed between La-citrate and La-lactate complexes at different pH solutions. At pH 7.0, La-citrate complex has no effect on the T-m, La-lactate complex, however, increases the T-m value, and the increase is larger than that of free lanthanide ions at the same concentration. The decrease of pH of complexes solutions lowers the phase transition temperature. We have preliminarily discussed the mechanism of the enhancements of lanthanide ions and the synergism of lanthanide ion and lactate ligand follow the ion induced dehydration of lipid and the potential effects of ion-lipid interaction.

Displacive To Order-Disorder Two-Step Phase Transition Model For Para-Ferroelectric Transition

Two-step phase transition model, displacive to order-disorder, is proposed. The driving forces for these two transitions are fundamentally different. The displacive phase transition is one type of the structural phase transitions. We clearly define the structural phase transition as the symmetry broking of the unit cell and the electric dipole starts to form in the unit cell. Then the dipole-dipole interaction takes place as soon as the dipoles in unit cells are formed. We believe that the dipole-dipole interaction may cause an order-disorder phase transition following the displacive phase transition. Both structural and order-disorder phase transition can be first-order or second-order or in between. We found that the structural transition temperatures can be lower or equal or higher than the order-disorder transition temperature. The para-ferroelectric phase transition is the combination of the displacive and order-disorder phase transitions. It generates a variety of transition configurations along with confusions. In this paper, we discuss all these configurations using our displacive to order-disorder two-step phase transition model and clarified all the confusions.

Intrinsic spin hall effect induced by quantum phase transition in HgCdTe quantum wells

The spin Hall effect can be induced by both extrinsic impurity scattering and intrinsic spin-orbit coupling in the electronic structure. The HgTe/CdTe quantum well has a quantum phase transition where the electronic structure changes from normal to inverted. We show that the intrinsic spin Hall effect of the conduction band vanishes on the normal side, while it is finite on the inverted side. By tuning the Cd content, the well width, or the bias electric field across the quantum well, the intrinsic spin Hall effect can be switched on or off and tuned into resonance under experimentally accessible conditions.

Disentanglement of two qubits coupled to an XY spin chain: Role of quantum phase transition

We study the disentanglement evolution of two spin qubits which interact with a general XY spin-chain environment. The dynamical process of the disentanglement is numerically and analytically investigated in the vicinity of a quantum phase transition (QPT) of the spin chain in both weak and strong coupling cases. We find that the disentanglement of the two spin qubits may be greatly enhanced by the quantum critical behavior of the environmental spin chain. We give a detailed analysis to facilitate the understanding of the QPT-enhanced decaying behavior of the coherence factor. Furthermore, the scaling behavior in the disentanglement dynamics is also revealed and analyzed.

Strain status in ZnO film on sapphire substrate with a GaN buffer layer grown by metal-source vapor phase epitaxy

ZnO film of 8 mu m thickness was grown on a sapphire (0 0 1) substrate with a GaN buffer layer by a novel growth technique called metal-source vapor phase epitaxy (MVPE). The surface of ZnO film measured by scanning electron microscope (SEM) is smooth and shows many regular hexagonal features. The full width at half maximum (FWHM) of ZnO(0 0 2) and (1 0 2) omega-scan rocking curves are 119 and 202 arcsec, corresponding a high crystal quality. The status of the strain in ZnO thick film was particularly analyzed by X-ray diffraction (XRD) omega-20 scanning. The results show that the strain in ZnO film is compressive, which is also supported by Raman scattering spectroscopy. The compressive strain can solve the cracking problem in the quick growth of ZnO thick film. (c) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Loschmidt echo and Berry phase of a quantum system coupled to an XY spin chain: Proximity to a quantum phase transition

We study the Loschmidt echo (LE) of a coupled system consisting of a central spin and its surrounding environment described by a general XY spin-chain model. The quantum dynamics of the LE is shown to be remarkably influenced by the quantum criticality of the spin chain. In particular, the decaying behavior of the LE is found to be controlled by the anisotropy parameter of the spin chain. Furthermore, we show that due to the coupling to the spin chain, the ground-state Berry phase for the central spin becomes nonanalytical and its derivative with respect to the magnetic parameter lambda in spin chain diverges along the critical line lambda=1, which suggests an alternative measurement of the quantum criticality of the spin chain.

Nitrogen vacancy scattering in GaN grown by metal-organic vapor phase epitaxy

Electron mobility limited by nitrogen vacancy scattering was taken into account to evaluate the quality of n-type GaN grown by metal-organic vapor phase epitaxy. Two assumptions were made for this potential for the nitrogen vacancy (1) it acts in a short range, and (2) does not diverge at the vacancy core. According to the above assumptions, a general expression to describe the scattering potential U(r) = - U-0 exp[- (r/beta)(n)], (n = 1, 2,...,infinity) was constructed, where beta is the potential well width. The mobilities for n = 1, 2, and infinity were calculated based on this equation, corresponding to the simple exponential, Gaussian and square well scattering potentials, respectively. In the limiting case of kbeta << 1 (where k is the wave vector), all of the mobilities calculated for n = 1, 2, and infinity showed a same result but different prefactor. Such difference was discussed in terms of the potential tail and was found that all of the calculated mobilities have T-1/2 temperature and beta(-6) well width dependences. A mobility taking account of a spatially complicate scattering potential was studied and the same temperature dependence was also found. A best fit between the calculated results and experimental data was obtained by taking account of the nitrogen vacancy scattering. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.