arXiv subjects

Dan Liu

Publications and source records attributed to Dan Liu.

At least 91 records · Page 5Linked to original sources

arXiv2017

Ultralow thermal conductivity of single crystalline porous silicon nanowires

Porous materials provide a large surface to volume ratio, thereby providing a knob to alter fundamental properties in unprecedented ways. In thermal transport, porous nanomaterials can reduce thermal conductivity by not only enhancing phonon scattering from the boundaries of the pores and therefore decreasing the phonon mean free path, but also by reducing the phonon group velocity. Here we establish a structure-property relationship by measuring the porosity and thermal conductivity of individual electrolessly etched single crystalline silicon nanowires using a novel electron beam heating technique. Such porous silicon nanowires exhibit extremely low diffusive thermal conductivity (as low as 0.33 Wm-1K-1 at 300K for 43% porosity), even lower than that of amorphous silicon. The origin of such ultralow thermal conductivity is understood as a reduction in the phonon group velocity, experimentally verified by measuring the Young modulus, as well as the smallest structural size ever reported in crystalline Silicon (less than 5nm). Molecular dynamics simulations support the observation of a drastic reduction in thermal conductivity of silicon nanowires as a function of porosity. Such porous materials provide an intriguing platform to tune phonon transport, which can be useful in the design of functional materials towards electronics and nano-electromechanical systems.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2017

Engineering the thermal conductivity along an individual silicon nanowire by selective helium ion irradiation

The ability to engineer the thermal conductivity of materials allows us to control the flow of heat and derive novel functionalities such as thermal rectification, thermal switching, and thermal cloaking. While this could be achieved by making use of composites and metamaterials at bulk scales, engineering the thermal conductivity at micro- and nano-scale dimensions is considerably more challenging. In this work we show that the local thermal conductivity along a single Si nanowire can be tuned to a desired value (between crystalline and amorphous limits) with high spatial resolution through selective helium ion irradiation with a well-controlled dose. The underlying mechanism is understood through molecular dynamics simulations and quantitative phonon-defect scattering rate analysis, where the behavior of thermal conductivity with dose is attributed to the accumulation and agglomeration of scattering centers at lower doses. Beyond a threshold dose, a crystalline-amorphous transition was observed.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2017

Long-wavelength deformations and vibrational modes in empty and liquid-filled microtubules and nanotubes: A theoretical study

We propose a continuum model to predict long-wavelength vibrational modes of empty and liquid-filled tubules that are very hard to reproduce using the conventional force-constant matrix approach based on atomistic ab initio calculation. We derive simple quantitative expressions for long-wavelength longitudinal and torsional acoustic modes, flexural acoustic modes, as well as the radial breathing mode of empty or liquid-filled tubular structures that are based on continuum elasticity theory expressions for a thin elastic plate. We furthermore show that longitudinal and flexural acoustic modes of tubules are well described by those of an elastic beam resembling a nanowire. Our numerical results for biological microtubules and carbon nanotubes agree with available experimental data.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv2016

Unusually stable helical coil allotrope of phosphorus

We have identified an unusually stable helical coil allotrope of phosphorus. Our ab initio Density Functional Theory calculations indicate that the uncoiled, isolated straight 1D chain is equally stable as a monolayer of black phosphorus dubbed phosphorene. The coiling tendency and the attraction between adjacent coil segments add an extra stabilization energy of about 12 meV/atom to the coil allotrope, similar in value to the approximately 16 meV/atom inter-layer attraction in bulk black phosphorus. Thus, the helical coil structure is essentially as stable as black phosphorus, the most stable phosphorus allotrope known to date. With an optimum radius of 2.4 nm, the helical coil of phosphorus may fit well and even form inside wide carbon nanotubes.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2016

Neural Networks Models for Entity Discovery and Linking

This paper describes the USTC_NELSLIP systems submitted to the Trilingual Entity Detection and Linking (EDL) track in 2016 TAC Knowledge Base Population (KBP) contests. We have built two systems for entity discovery and mention detection (MD): one uses the conditional RNNLM and the other one uses the attention-based encoder-decoder framework. The entity linking (EL) system consists of two modules: a rule based candidate generation and a neural networks probability ranking model. Moreover, some simple string matching rules are used for NIL clustering. At the end, our best system has achieved an F1 score of 0.624 in the end-to-end typed mention ceaf plus metric.

cs.CL↗

arXiv2016

Continuum approach for long-wavelength acoustic phonons in quasi-2D structures

As an alternative to atomistic calculations of long-wavelength acoustic modes of atomically thin layers, which are known to converge very slowly, we propose a quantitatively predictive and physically intuitive approach based on continuum elasticity theory. We describe a layer, independent of its thickness, by a membrane, characterize its elastic behavior by a $(3{\times}3)$ elastic matrix as well as the flexural rigidity. We present simple quantitative expressions for frequencies of long-wavelength acoustic modes, which we determine using 2D elastic constants calculated by {\em ab initio} Density Functional Theory. The calculated spectra accurately reproduce observed and calculated long-wavelength phonon spectra of graphene and phosphorene, the monolayer of black phosphorus. Our approach also correctly describes the observed dependence of the radial breathing mode frequency on the diameter of carbon fullerenes and nanotubes.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2016

X-ray spectropolarimetric signature of a warped disk around a stellar-mass black hole

Black holes in X-ray binaries are often assumed to be rotating perpendicular to the plane of the accretion disk and parallel to the orbital plane of the binary. While the Bardeen-Petterson effect forces the inner part of the accretion disk to be aligned with the equatorial plane of a spinning black hole, the disk may be warped such that the inclination angle of the outer part is different from that of the inner part. In this paper, we identify a possible observational signature of a warped accretion disk in the spectrum of the polarization degree of the continuum. Such a signature would provide direct evidence for the presence of a warped disk and, potentially, even a measure of the warp radius, which, in turn, could be used to infer the viscosity parameter of the disk.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2016

Two-dimensional phosphorus carbide: Competition between sp2 and sp3 bonding

We propose previously unknown allotropes of phosphorus carbide (PC) in the stable shape of an atomically thin layer. Different stable geometries, which result from the competition between sp2 bonding found in graphitic C and sp3 bonding found in black P, may be mapped onto 2D tiling patterns that simplify categorizing of the structures. Depending on the category, we identify 2D-PC structures that can be metallic, semi-metallic with an anisotropic Dirac cone, or direct-gap semiconductors with their gap tunable by in-layer strain.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2015

X-ray spectropolarimetric measurements of the Kerr metric

It is thought that the spacetime geometry around black hole candidates is described by the Kerr solution, but an observational confirmation is still missing. Today, the continuum-fitting method and the analysis of the iron K$α$ line cannot unambiguously test the Kerr paradigm because of the degeneracy among the parameters of the system, in the sense that it is impossible with current X-ray data to distinguish a Kerr black hole from a non-Kerr object with different values of the model parameters. In this paper, we study the possibility of testing the Kerr nature of black hole candidates with X-ray spectropolarimetric measurements. Within our simplified model that does not include the effect of returning radiation, we find that it is impossible to test the Kerr metric and the problem is still the strong correlation between the spin and possible deviations from the Kerr geometry. Moreover, the correlation is very similar to that of other two techniques, which makes the combination of different measurements not very helpful. Nevertheless, our results cannot be taken as conclusive and, in order to arrive at a final answer, the effect of returning radiation should be properly taken into account.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2015

Designing isoelectronic counterparts to layered group V semiconductors

In analogy to III-V compounds, which have significantly broadened the scope of group IV semiconductors, we propose IV-VI compounds as isoelectronic counterparts to layered group V semiconductors. Using {\em ab initio} density functional theory, we study yet unrealized structural phases of silicon mono-sulfide (SiS). We find the black-phosphorus-like $α$-SiS to be almost equally stable as the blue-phosphorus-like $β$-SiS. Both $α$-SiS and $β$-SiS monolayers display a significant, indirect band gap that depends sensitively on the in-layer strain. Unlike 2D semiconductors of group V elements with the corresponding nonplanar structure, different SiS allotropes show a strong polarization either within or normal to the layers. We find that SiS may form both lateral and vertical heterostructures with phosphorene at a very small energy penalty, offering an unprecedented tunability in structural and electronic properties of SiS-P compounds.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2014

Testing a class of non-Kerr metrics with hot spots orbiting SgrA$^*$

SgrA$^*$, the supermassive black hole candidate at the Galactic Center, exhibits flares in the X-ray, NIR, and sub-mm bands that may be interpreted within a hot spot model. Light curves and images of hot spots orbiting a black hole are affected by a number of special and general relativistic effects, and they can be potentially used to check whether the object is a Kerr black hole of general relativity. However, in a previous study we have shown that the relativistic features are usually subdominant with respect to the background noise and the model-dependent properties of the hot spot, and eventually it is at most possible to estimate the frequency of the innermost stable circular orbit. In this case, tests of the Kerr metric are only possible in combination with other measurements. In the present work, we consider a class of non-Kerr spacetimes in which the hot spot orbit may be outside the equatorial plane. These metrics are difficult to constrain from the study of accretion disks and indeed current X-ray observations of stellar-mass and supermassive black hole candidates cannot put interesting bounds. Here we show that near future observations of SgrA$^*$ may do it. If the hot spot is sufficiently close to the massive object, the image affected by Doppler blueshift is brighter than the other one and this provides a specific observational signature in the hot spot's centroid track. We conclude that accurate astrometric observations of SgrA$^*$ with an instrument like GRAVITY should be able to test this class of metrics, except in the more unlikely case of a small viewing angle.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2014

Manipulating Steady Heat Conduction by Sensu-shaped Thermal Metamaterials

The ability to design the control of heat flow has innumerable benefits in the design of electronic systems such as thermoelectric energy harvesters, solid-state lighting, and thermal imagers, where the thermal design plays a key role in performance and device reliability. However, to realize one advanced control function of thermal flux, one needs to design one sophisticated, multilayered and inhomogeneous thermal structure with different composition/shape at different regions of one device. In this work, we employ one identical sensu-unit with facile natural composition to experimentally realize a new class of thermal metamaterials for controlling thermal conduction (e.g., thermal concentrator, focusing/resolving, uniform heating), only resorting to positioning and locating the same unit element of sensu-shape structure. The thermal metamaterial unit and the proper arrangement of multiple identical units are capable of transferring, redistributing and managing thermal energy in a versatile fashion. It is also shown that our sensu-shape unit elements can be used in manipulating dc currents without any change in the layout for the thermal counterpart. The proposed scheme can also be applied to control dc electric currents and dc magnetic fields that governed by Laplace equation. These could markedly enhance the capabilities in thermal sensing, thermal imaging, thermal-energy storage, thermal packaging, thermal therapy, and more domains beyond.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2014

Asynchronous Transmission of Wireless Multicast System with Genetic Joint Antennas Selection

Optimal antenna selection algorithm of multicast transmission can significantly reduce the number of antennas and can acquire lower complexity and high performance which is close to that of exhaustive search. An asynchronous multicast transmission mechanism based on genetic antenna selection is proposed. The computational complexity of genetic antenna selection algorithm remains moderate while the total number of antennas increases comparing with optimum searching algorithm. Symbol error rate (SER) and capacity of our mechanism are analyzed and simulated, and the simulation results demonstrate that our proposed mechanism can achieve better SER and sub-maximum channel capacity in wireless multicast systems.

cs.NI↗

arXiv2014

Disks in a narrow channel jammed by gravity and centrifuge: profiles of pressure, mass density and entropy density

This work investigates jammed granular matter under conditions that produce heterogeneous mass distributions on a mesoscopic scale. We consider a system of identical disks that are confined to a narrow channel, open at one end and closed off at the other end. The disks are jammed by the local pressure in a gravitational field or centrifuge. All surfaces are hard and frictionless. We calculate the profiles of pressure, mass density, and entropy density on a mesoscopic length scale under the assumption that the jammed states are produced by random agitations of uniform intensity along the channel. These profiles exhibit trends and features governed by the balancing of position-dependent forces and potential energies. The analysis employs a method of configurational statistics that uses interlinking two-disk tiles as the fundamental degrees of freedom. Configurational statistics weighs the probabilities of tiles according to competing potential energies associated with gravity and centrifugation. Amendments account for the effects of the marginal stability of some tiles due to competing forces.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2013

Jammed disks in narrow channel: criticality and ordering tendencies

A system of identical disks is confined to a narrow channel, closed off at one end by a stopper and at the other end by a piston. All surfaces are hard and frictionless. A uniform gravitational field is directed parallel to the plane of the disks and perpendicular to the axis of the channel. We employ a method of configurational statistics that interprets jammed states as configurations of floating particles with structure. The particles interlink according to set rules. The two jammed microstates with smallest volume act as pseudo-vacuum. The placement of particles is subject to a generalized Pauli principle. Jammed macrostates are generated by random agitations and specified by two control variables. One is a measure of the intensity of random agitations at given pressure. The other is a measure of the change in gravitational potential energy in units of compression work when one particle is excited. In this two-dimensional space of variables there exists a critical point. The jammed macrostate realized at the critical point depends on the path of approach. We describe all jammed macrostates by volume and entropy. Both are functions of the average population densities of particles. Approaching the critical point in an extended space of control variables generates two types of jammed macrostates: states with random heterogeneities in mass density and states with domains of uniform mass density.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2012

Interlinking motifs and entropy landscapes of statistically interacting particles

The s=1/2 Ising chain with uniform nearest-neighbor and next-nearest-neighbor coupling is used to construct a system of floating particles characterized by motifs of up to six consecutive local spins. The spin couplings cause the assembly of particles which, in turn, remain free of interaction energies even at high density. All microstates are configurations of particles from one of three different sets, excited from pseudo-vacua associated with ground states of periodicities one, two, and four. The motifs of particles and elements of pseudo-vacuum interlink in two shared site variables. The statistical interaction between particles is encoded in a generalized Pauli principle, describing how the placement of one particle modifies the options for placing further particles. In the statistical mechanical analysis arbitrary energies can be assigned to all particle species. The entropy is a function of the particle populations. The statistical interaction specifications are transparently built into that expression. The energies and structures of the particles alone govern the ordering at low temperature. Under special circumstances the particles can be replaced by more fundamental particles with shorter motifs that interlink in only one shared site variable. Structures emerge from interactions on two levels: particles with shapes from coupled spins and long-range ordering tendencies from statistically interacting particles with shapes.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2011

Generalized Pauli principle for particles with distinguishable traits

The s=3/2 Ising spin chain with uniform nearest-neighbor coupling, quadratic single-site potential, and magnetic field is shown to be equivalent to a system of 17 species of particles with internal structure. The same set of particles (with different energies) is shown to generate the spectrum of the s=1/2 Ising chain with dimerized nearest-neighbor coupling. The particles are free of interaction energies even at high densities. The mutual exclusion statistics of particles from all species is determined by their internal structure and encoded in a generalized Pauli principle. The exact statistical mechanical analysis can be performed for thermodynamically open or closed systems and with arbitrary energies assigned to all particle species. Special circumstances make it possible to merge two or more species into a single species. All traits that distinguish the original species become ignorable. The particles from the merged species are effectively indistinguishable and obey modified exclusion statistics. Different mergers may yield the same endproduct, implying that the inverse process (splitting any species into subspecies) is not unique. In a macroscopic system of two merged species at thermal equilibrium, the concentrations of the original species satisfy a functional relation governed by their mutual statistical interaction. That relation is derivable from an extremum principle. In the Ising context the system is open and the particle energies depend on the Hamiltonian parameters. Simple models of polymerization and solitonic paramagnetism each represent a closed system of two species that can transform into each other. Here they represent distinguishable traits with different energies of the same physical particle.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2011

Taxonomy of particles in Ising spin chains

The statistical mechanics of particles with shapes on a one-dimensional lattice is investigated in the context of the $s=1$ Ising chain with uniform nearest-neighbor coupling, quadratic single-site potential, and magnetic field, which supports four distinct ground states: $|\uparrow\downarrow\uparrow\downarrow...>$, $|\circ\circ...>$, $|\uparrow\uparrow...>$, $|\uparrow\circ\uparrow\circ...>$. The complete spectrum is generated from each ground state by particles from a different set of six or seven species. Particles and elements of pseudo-vacuum are characterized by motifs (patterns of several consecutive site variables). Particles are floating objects that can be placed into open slots on the lattice. Open slots are recognized as permissible links between motifs. The energy of a particle varies between species but is independent of where it is placed. Placement of one particle changes the open-slot configuration for particles of all species. This statistical interaction is encoded in a generalized Pauli principle, from which the multiplicity of states for a given particle combination is determined and used for the exact statistical mechanical analysis. Particles from all species belong to one of four categories: compacts, hosts, tags, or hybrids. Compacts and hosts find open slots in segments of pseudo-vacuum. Tags find open slots inside hosts. Hybrids are tags with hosting capability. In the taxonomy of particles proposed here, `species' is indicative of structure and `category' indicative of function. The hosting function splits the Pauli principle into exclusion and accommodation parts. Near phase boundaries, the state of the Ising chain at low temperature is akin to that of miscible or immiscible liquids with particles from one species acting as surfactant molecules.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗