Institut für Physik und Astronomie
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We discuss the coherent splitting and recombining of a nanoparticle in a mesoscopic "closed-loop" Stern-Gerlach interferometer in which the observable is the spin of a single impurity embedded in the particle.
This spin, when interacting with a pulsed magnetic gradient, generates the force on the particle.
We calculate the internal decoherence, which arises as the displaced impurity excites internal degrees of freedom (phonons) that may provide WelcherWeg information and preclude interference.
We estimate the constraints this decoherence channel puts on future interference experiments with massive objects. We find that for a wide range of masses, forces, and temperatures, phonons do not inhibit Stern-Gerlach interferometry with micro-scale objects.
However, phonons do constitute a fundamental limit on the splitting of larger macroscopic objects if the applied force induces phonons.
When two initially thermal many-body systems start to interact strongly, their transient states quickly become non-Gibbsian, even if the systems eventually equilibrate. To see beyond this apparent lack of structure during the transient regime, we use a refined notion of thermality, which we call g-local. A system is g-locally thermal if the states of all its small subsystems are marginals of global thermal states. We numerically demonstrate for two harmonic lattices that whenever the total system equilibrates in the long run, each lattice remains g-locally thermal at all times, including the transient regime. This is true even when the lattices have long-range interactions within them. In all cases, we find that the equilibrium is described by the generalized Gibbs ensemble, with three-dimensional lattices requiring special treatment due to their extended set of conserved charges. We compare our findings with the well-known two-temperature model. While its standard form is not valid beyond weak coupling, we show that at strong coupling it can be partially salvaged by adopting the concept of a g-local temperature.
Ultrafast X-ray diffraction is used to quantify the transport of energy in laser-excited nanoscale gold-nickel (Au-Ni) bilayers.
Electron transport and efficient electron-phonon coupling in Ni convert the laser-deposited energy in the conduction electrons within a few picoseconds into a strong non-equilibrium between hot Ni and cold Au phonons at the bilayer interface.
Modeling of the subsequent equilibration dynamics within various two-temperature models confirms that for ultrathin Au films, the thermal transport is dominated by phonons instead of conduction electrons because of the weak electron-phonon coupling in Au.
We report the detection of electron spin resonance (ESR) in individual dimers of the stable free radical 2,2,6,6tetramethyl-piperidine-1-oxyl (TEMPO). ESR is measured by the current fluctuations in a scanning tunneling microscope (ESR-STM method). The multipeak power spectra, distinct from macroscopic data, are assigned to dimers having exchange and Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interactions in the presence of spin-orbit coupling. These interactions are generated in our model by interfering electronic tunneling pathways from tip to sample via the dimer???s two molecules. This is the first demonstration that tunneling via two spins is a valid mechanism of the ESR-STM method.
We consider a system of two spins under a scanning tunneling microscope bias and derive its master equation. We find that the tunneling elements to the electronic contacts (tip and substrate) generate an exchange interaction between the spins as well as a Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction in the presence of spin-orbit coupling. The tunnel current spectrum then shows additional lines compared to conventional spin-resonance experiments. When the spins have degenerate Larmor frequencies and equal tunneling amplitudes (without spin orbit), there is a dark state with a vanishing decay rate. The coupling to the electronic environment generates significant spin-spin entanglement via the dark state, even if the initial state is nonentangled.
Modelling of an open quantum system requires knowledge of parameters that specify how it couples to its environment. However, beyond relaxation rates, realistic parameters for specific environments and materials are rarely known. Here we present a method of inferring the coupling between a generic system and its bosonic (e.g., phononic) environment from the experimentally measurable density of states (DOS). With it we confirm that the DOS of the well-known Debye model for three-dimensional solids is physically equivalent to choosing an Ohmic bath. We further match a real phonon DOS to a series of Lorentzian coupling functions, allowing us to determine coupling parameters for gold, yttrium iron garnet (YIG) and iron as examples. The results illustrate how to obtain material-specific dynamical properties, such as memory kernels. The proposed method opens the door to more accurate modelling of relaxation dynamics, for example for phonon-dominated spin damping in magnetic materials.
We derive modified reflection coefficients for electromagnetic waves in the THz and far infrared range. The idea is based on hydrodynamic boundary conditions for metallic conduction electrons. The temperature-dependent part of the Casimir pressure between metal plates is evaluated. The results should shed light on the "thermal anomaly," where measurements deviate from the standard fluctuation electrodynamics for conducting metals.
We construct an expression for the Green function of a differential operator satisfying nonlocal, homogeneous boundary conditions starting from the fundamental solution of the differential operator. This also provides the solution to the boundary value problem of an inhomogeneous partial differential equation with inhomogeneous, nonlocal boundary conditions. The construction applies for a broad class of linear partial differential equations and linear boundary conditions.
Polarization controlled fine structure of diffraction spots from an optically induced grating
(2020)
We report on the remote control of the fine structure of a diffraction spot from optically induced dual gratings within a photosensitive polymer film. The material contains azobenzene in the polymer side chains and develops a surface relief under two-beam holographic irradiation. The diffraction of a polarized probe beam is sensitive to the orientation of the azobenzene groups forming a permanently stored birefringence grating within the film. We demonstrate that the fine structure of the probe diffraction spot switches from a Gaussian to a hollow or a hollow to a "Saturn"-like structure by a change in polarization. This makes it potentially useful in photonic devices because the beam shape can be easily inverted by an external stimulus.
We study the peculiar response of photo-sensitive polymer films irradiated with a certain type of interference pattern where one interfering beam is S-polarized, while the second one is P-polarized. The polymer film, although in a glassy state, deforms following the local polarization distribution of the incident light, and a surface relief grating (SRG) appears whose period is half the optical one. All other types of interference patterns result in the matching of both periods. The topographical response is triggered by the alignment of photo-responsive azobenzene containing polymer side chains orthogonal to the local electrical field, resulting in a bulk birefringence grating (BBG). We investigate the process of dual grating formation (SRG and BBG) in a polymer film utilizing a dedicated set-up that combines probe beam diffraction and atomic force microscopy (AFM) measurements, and permits acquiring in situ and in real-time information about changes in local topography and birefringence. We find that the SRG maxima appear at the positions of linearly polarized light (tilted by 45 degrees relative to the grating vector), causing the formation of the half-period topography. This permits to inscribe symmetric and asymmetric topography gratings with sub-wavelength period, while changing only slightly the polarization of one of the interfering beams. We demonstrate an easy generation of sawtooth profiles (blazed gratings) with adjustable shape. With these results, we have taken a significant step in understanding the photo-induced deformation of azo-polymer films.