Annals of physics

Understanding the correlation between magnetic properties and nanostructure involves collaborative efforts between chemists, physicists, and materials scientists to study both fundamental properties and potential applications. This article introduces a classification of nanostructure morphology according to the mechanism responsible for the magnetic properties. The fundamental magnetic properties of interest and the theoretical frameworks developed to model these properties are summarized. Common chemical and physical techniques for the fabrication of magnetic nanostructures are surveyed, followed by some examples of recent investigations of magnetic systems with structure on the nanometer scale. The article concludes with a brief discussion of some promising experimental techniques in synthesis and measurements.

Magnetic Properties of Nanostructured Materials

The transport properties of disordered solids have been the subject of much work since at least the 1950s, but with a new burst of activity during the 1980s which has survived up to the present day. There have been numerous reviews of a more or less specialized nature. The present review aims to fill the niche for a non-specialized review of this very active area of research. The basic concepts behind the theory are introduced with more detailed sections covering experimental results, one-dimensional localization, scaling theory, weak localization, magnetic field effects and fluctuations.

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0034-4885/56/12/001/pdf

Localization: theory and experiment

We review some electron transport experiments on few-electron, vertical quantum dot devices. The measurement of current versus source–drain voltage and gate voltage is used as a spectroscopic tool to investigate the energy characteristics of interacting electrons confined to a small region in a semiconducting material. Three energy scales are distinguished: the single-particle states, which are discrete due to the confinement involved; the direct Coulomb interaction between electron charges on the dot; and the exchange interaction between electrons with parallel spins. To disentangle these energies, a magnetic field is used to reorganize the occupation of electrons over the single-particle states and to induce changes in the spin states. We discuss the interactions between small numbers of electrons (between 1 and 20) using the simplest possible models. Nevertheless, these models consistently describe a large set of experiments. Some of the observations resemble similar phenomena in atomic physics, such as shell structure and periodic table characteristics, Hund’s rule, and spin singlet and triplet states. The experimental control, however, is much larger than for atoms: with one device all the artificial elements can be studied by adding electrons to the quantum dot when changing the gate voltage.

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0034-4885/64/6/201/pdf

Few-electron quantum dots

TOPICAL REVIEW: Nanomagnetics

We describe classical chaotic motion in terms of diffusion in configurational space. This approach is illustrated for chaotic billiards and an oscillator with anharmonic coupling. It is argued that in the quantum limit, physical phenomena ordinarily associated with disordered metals, such as localization and mesoscopic phenomena, carry over to chaotic systems in general which are in the universality class of the nonlinear σ model.

Quantum Limit of Chaotic Systems as Quantum Diffusion

We study previously un-researched second order statistics - correlation function of spectral staircase and global level number variance - in generic integrable systems with no extra degeneracies. We show that the global level number variance oscillates persistently around the saturation spectral rigidity. Unlike other second order statistics - including correlation function of spectral staircase - which are calculated over energy scales much smaller than the running spectral energy, these oscillations cannot be explained within the diagonal approximation framework of the periodic orbit theory. We give detailed numerical illustration of our results using four integrable systems: rectangular billiard, modified Kepler problem, circular billiard and elliptic billiard.

/pdf/global-level-number-variance-in-integrable-systems-168tqno1db.pdf

Global Level Number Variance in Integrable Systems

We use Generalized Beta Prime distribution, also known as GB2, for fitting response time distributions. This distribution, characterized by one scale and three shape parameters, is incredibly flexible in that it can mimic behavior of many other distributions. GB2 exhibits power-law behavior at both front and tail ends and is a steady-state distribution of a simple stochastic differential equation. We apply GB2 in contrast studies between two distinct groups -- in this case children with dyslexia and a control group -- and show that it provides superior fitting. We compare aggregate response time distributions of the two groups for scale and shape differences (including several scale-independent measures of variability, such as Hoover index), which may in turn reflect on cognitive dynamics differences. In this approach, response time distribution of an individual can be considered as a random variate of that individual's group distribution.

Modeling Response Time Distributions with Generalized Beta Prime

For a modified Kepler problem, we reexamine jumps in the saturation spectral rigidity and large oscillations of the level number variance with near zero minima. Earlier discrepancy between the periodic orbit theory and numerical calculation is cleared by a quantum mechanical calculation. A new class of radial periodic orbits is included establishing a complete correspondence between the periodic orbit theory and the quantum mechanical approach. We show that the diagonal approximation for the level density in the periodic orbit theory already gives a good fit with the numerical calculation. Even greater accuracy is achieved by considering coherent interference between the classical periodic orbits term and the Balian-Bloch term. This procedure produces improved results for the hard-wall rectangular billiards as well.

Quantum mechanical calculation of spectral statistics of a modified Kepler problem.

We investigate the semiclassical energy spectrum of quantum elliptic billiard. The nearest neighbor spacing distribution, level number variance and spectral rigidity support the notion that the elliptic billiard is a generic integrable system. However, second order statistics exhibit a novel property of long-range oscillations. Classical simulation shows that all the periodic orbits except two are not isolated. In Fourier analysis of the spectrum, all the peaks correspond to periodic orbits. The two isolated periodic orbits have small contribution to the fluctuation of level density, while non-isolated periodic orbits have the main contribution. The heights of the majority of the peaks match our semiclassical theory except for type-O periodic orbits. Elliptic billiard is a nontrivial integrable system that will enrich our understanding of integrable systems.

R. A. Serota

Papers

Quantum Limit of Chaotic Systems as Quantum Diffusion

Global Level Number Variance in Integrable Systems

Modeling Response Time Distributions with Generalized Beta Prime

Quantum mechanical calculation of spectral statistics of a modified Kepler problem.

Elliptic billiard - a non-trivial integrable system