Nanoscale reversible mass transport for archival memory.

We report on a simple electromechanical memory device in which an iron nanoparticle shuttle is controllably positioned within a hollow nanotube channel. The shuttle can be moved reversibly via an electrical write signal and can be positioned with nanoscale precision. The position of the shuttle can be read out directly via a blind resistance read measurement, allowing application as a nonvolatile memory element with potentially hundreds of memory states per device. The shuttle memory has application for archival storage, with information density as high as 10(12) bits/in(2), and thermodynamic stability in excess of one billion years.

Energy minimization and ac demagnetization in a nanomagnet array.

We study ac demagnetization in frustrated arrays of single-domain ferromagnetic islands, exhaustively resolving every (Ising-like) magnetic degree of freedom in the systems. Although the net moment of the arrays is brought near zero by a protocol with sufficiently small step size, the final magnetostatic energy of the demagnetized array continues to decrease for finer-stepped protocols and does not extrapolate to the ground-state energy. The resulting complex disordered magnetic state can be described by a maximum-entropy ensemble constrained to satisfy just nearest-neighbor correlations.

Artificial 'spin ice' in a geometrically frustrated lattice of nanoscale ferromagnetic islands.

Frustration, defined as a competition between interactions such that not all of them can be satisfied, is important in systems ranging from neural networks to structural glasses. Geometrical frustration, which arises from the topology of a well-ordered structure rather than from disorder, has recently become a topic of considerable interest. In particular, geometrical frustration among spins in magnetic materials can lead to exotic low-temperature states, including 'spin ice', in which the local moments mimic the frustration of hydrogen ion positions in frozen water. Here we report an artificial geometrically frustrated magnet based on an array of lithographically fabricated single-domain ferromagnetic islands. The islands are arranged such that the dipole interactions create a two-dimensional analogue to spin ice. Images of the magnetic moments of individual elements in this correlated system allow us to study the local accommodation of frustration. We see both ice-like short-range correlations and an absence of long-range correlations, behaviour which is strikingly similar to the low-temperature state of spin ice. These results demonstrate that artificial frustrated magnets can provide an uncharted arena in which the physics of frustration can be directly visualized.

Strong superconductivity with local Jahn-Teller phonons in C60 solids.

We analyze fulleride superconductivity at experimental doping levels, treating the electron-electron and electron-phonon interactions on an equal footing, and demonstrate that the Jahn-Teller phonons create a local (intramolecular) pairing which is surprisingly resistant to the Coulomb repulsion, despite the weakness of retardation in these low-bandwidth systems. The requirement for coherence throughout the solid then yields a very strong doping dependence to T(c), one consistent with experiment and much stronger than expected from standard Eliashberg theory.

Smallest nanotube: breaking the symmetry of sp(3) bonds in tubular geometries.

We describe how sp(2) carbon, threefold coordinated by other carbons, can be replaced by sp(3) carbon, also threefold carbon coordinated, to produce extremely small-diameter ( approximately 0.4 nm) carbon nanowires with only minimal bond-angle distortion. Under a naming convention analogous to that for ordinary carbon nanotubes, the smallest sp(3) tubes have wrapping indices (3,0) and (2,2). These systems have large band gaps and a stiffness larger even than that of traditional sp(2)-bonded carbon nanotubes. They therefore form the stiffest one-dimensional systems known.

Stochastic heterostructures and diodium in B/N-doped carbon nanotubes.

Carbon nanotubes are one dimensional and very narrow. These obvious facts imply that, under doping with boron and nitrogen, microscopic doping inhomogeneity is much more important than for bulk semiconductors. We consider the possibility of exploiting such fluctuations to create interesting devices. Using the self-consistent tight-binding technique, we study heavily doped highly compensated nanotubes, revealing the spontaneous formation of structures resembling chains of random quantum dots, or nanoscale diodelike elements in series. We also consider truly isolated impurities, revealing simple scaling properties of bound state sizes and energies.

Computational design of direct-bandgap semiconductors that lattice-match silicon.

Crystalline silicon is an indirect-bandgap semiconductor, making it an inefficient emitter of light. The successful integration of silicon-based electronics with optical components will therefore require optically active (for example, direct-bandgap) materials that can be grown on silicon with high-quality interfaces. For well ordered materials, this effectively translates into the requirement that such materials lattice-match silicon: lattice mismatch generally causes cracks and poor interface properties once the mismatched overlayer exceeds a very thin critical thickness. But no direct-bandgap semiconductor has yet been produced that can lattice-match silicon, and previously suggested structures pose formidable challenges for synthesis. Much recent work has therefore focused on introducing compliant transition layers between the mismatched components. Here we propose a more direct solution to integrating silicon electronics with optical components. We have computationally designed two hypothetical direct-bandgap semiconductor alloys, the synthesis of which should be possible through the deposition of specific group-IV precursor molecules and which lattice-match silicon to 0.5-1% along lattice planes with low Miller indices. The calculated bandgaps (and hence the frequency of emitted light) lie in the window of minimal absorption in current optical fibres.

Helium in one-dimensional nanopores: free dispersion, localization, and commensurate/incommensurate transitions with nonrigid orbitals.

The single-particle states of helium within a bundle of carbon nanotubes can range from nearly free-particle dispersion to localization, even within a single bundle. At intermediate effective masses, the corrugation in the external potential can be comparable to the intrasite He-He hard-core interaction. This results in a commensurate/incommensurate transition, where the mobility of the doubly occupied domain-wall solitons at high density greatly exceeds the corresponding hole mobility below the transition.

Tuning Fermi-surface properties through quantum confinement in metallic metalattices: new metals from old atoms.

We describe a new class of nanoscale structured metals wherein the effects of quantum confinement are combined with dispersive metallic electronic states to induce modifications to the fundamental low-energy microscopic properties of a three-dimensional metal: the density of states, the distribution of Fermi velocities, and the collective electronic response.

Boron nitride nanotubes.

The successful synthesis of pure boron nitride (BN) nanotubes is reported here. Multi-walled tubes with inner diameters on the order of 1 to 3 nanometers and with lengths up to 200 nanometers were produced in a carbon-free plasma discharge between a BN-packed tungsten rod and a cooled copper electrode. Electron energy-loss spectroscopy on individual tubes yielded B:N ratios of approximately 1, which is consistent with theoretical predictions of stable BN tube structures.

Synthesis and Electronic Transport of Single Crystal K3C60.

Sizable single crystals of C(6O) have been synthesized and doped with potassium. Above the superconducting transition temperature T(c), the electrical resistivity p(T) displays a classic metal-like temperature dependence. The transition to the superconducting state at T(c) = 19.8 K is extremely sharp, with a transition width DeltaT < 200 mK. In contrast to transport behavior of doped polycrystalline and granular thin films, no anomalous fluctuations are observed near T(c) in single crystal specimens.