arXiv subjects

H. Q. Nguyen

Publications and source records attributed to H. Q. Nguyen.

14 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2024

Thermoelectric transport across a tunnel contact between two charge Kondo circuits: beyond perturbation theory

Following a theoretical proposal on multi-impurity charge Kondo circuits [T. K. T. Nguyen and M. N. Kiselev, Phys. Rev. B {\bf 97}, 085403 (2018)] and the experimental breakthrough in fabrication of the two-site Kondo simulator [W. Pouse {\it et al}, Nat. Phys. (2023)] we investigate a thermoelectric transport through a double-dot charge Kondo quantum nano-device in the strong coupling operational regime. We focus on the fingerprints of the non-Fermi liquid and its manifestation in the charge and heat quantum transport. We construct a full-fledged quantitative theory describing crossovers between different regimes of the multi-channel charge Kondo quantum circuits and discuss possible experimental realizations of the theory.

cond-mat.str-el↗

arXiv2023

Charge Kondo circuit as a detector for electron-electron interactions in a Luttinger Liquid

We investigate the effects of the electron-electron interactions on the quantum transport through a charge Kondo circuit. The setup consists of a quantum dot sandwiched between two leads by two nearly transparent single mode quantum point contacts. The size of the interacting area $L$ in the Luttinger liquid formed in the vicinities of the narrow constrictions is assumed to be much smaller compared to the size of the quantum dot $a$. We predict that the interplay between the electron-electron interactions in the Luttinger liquid and the fingerprints of the non-Fermi liquid behavior in the vicinity of the two channel Kondo intermediate coupling fixed point allows one to determine the interaction strength through the power-law temperature scaling of the electric conductance.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2022

Electrostatic control of quasiparticle poisoning in a hybrid semiconductor-superconductor island

The performance of superconducting devices is often degraded by the uncontrolled appearance and disappearance of quasiparticles, a process known as poisoning. We demonstrate electrostatic control of quasiparticle poisoning in the form of single-charge tunneling across a fixed barrier onto a Coulomb island in an InAs/Al hybrid nanowire. High-bandwidth charge sensing was used to monitor charge occupancy of the island across Coulomb blockade peaks, where tunneling rates were maximal, and Coulomb valleys, where tunneling was absent. Electrostatic gates changed on-peak tunneling rates by two orders of magnitude for a barrier with fixed normal-state resistance, which we attribute to gate dependence of the size and softness of the induced superconducting gap on the island, corroborated by separate density-of-states measurements. Temperature and magnetic field dependence of tunneling rates are also investigated.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2021

Modified Erlang loss system for cognitive wireless networks

This paper considers a modified Erlang loss system for cognitive wireless networks and related applications. A primary user has preemptive priority over secondary users and the primary customer is lost if upon arrival all the channels are used by other primary users. Secondary users cognitively use idle channels and they can wait at an infinite buffer in cases idle channels are not available upon arrival or they are interrupted by primary users. We obtain explicit stability condition for the cases where arrival processes of primary users and secondary users follow Poisson processes and their service times follow two distinct arbitrary distributions. The stability condition is insensitive to the service time distributions and implies the maximal throughout of secondary users. For a special case of exponential service time distributions, we analyze in depth to show the effect of parameters on the delay performance and the mean number of interruptions of secondary users. Our simulations for distributions rather than exponential reveal that the mean number of terminations for secondary users is less sensitive to the service time distribution of primary users.

cs.PF↗

arXiv2019

Detecting parity effect in a superconducting device in the presence of parity switches

We present a superconducting device showing a clear parity effect in the number of electrons, even when there is, on average, a single nonequilibrium quasiparticle present and the parity of the island switches due to quasiparticles tunneling in and out of the device at rates on the order of 100 Hz. We detect the switching by monitoring in real time the charge state of a superconducting island connected to normal leads by tunnel junctions. The quasiparticles are created by Cooper pairs breaking on the island at a rate of a few kHz. We demonstrate that the pair breaking is caused by the backaction of the single-electron transistor used as a charge detector. With sufficiently low probing currents, our superconducting island is free of quasiparticles 97% of the time.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2016

A cascade electronic refrigerator using superconducting tunnel junctions

Micro-refrigerators that operate in the sub-kelvin regime are a key device in quantum technology. A well-studied candidate, an electronic cooler using Normal metal - Insulator - Superconductor (NIS) tunnel junctions offers substantial performance and power. However, its superconducting electrodes are severely overheated due to exponential suppression of their thermal conductance towards low temperatures, and the cooler performs unsatisfactorily - especially in powerful devices needed for practical applications. We employ a second NIS cooling stage to thermalize the hot superconductor at the backside of the main NIS cooler. Not only providing a lower bath temperature, the second stage cooler actively evacuates quasiparticles out of the hot superconductor, especially in the low temperature limit. The NIS cooler approaches its ideal theoretical expectations without compromising cooling power. This cascade design can also be employed to manage excess heat in other cryo-electronic devices.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2015

Superconductor to Insulator Transition Tuned by Random Gauge Fields

Typically the disorder that alters the interference of particle waves to produce Anderson localization is potential scattering from randomly placed impurities. Here we show that disorder in the form of random gauge fields that act directly on particle phases can also drive localization. We present evidence of a superfluid bose glass to insulator transition at a critical level of this gauge field disorder in a nano-patterned array of amorphous Bi islands. This transition shows signs of metallic transport near the critical point characterized by a resistance of order 0.5 h/4e^2 , indicative of a quantum phase transition. The critical disorder also depends on interisland coupling in agreement with recent Quantum Monte Carlo simulations. Finally, these experiments are uniquely connected to theory because they employ a method for controlling a disorder parameter that coincides directly with a term that appears in model Hamiltonians. This correspondence will enable further high fidelity comparisons between theoretical and experimental studies of disorder effects on quantum critical systems.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2015

Disorder Influences the Quantum Critical Transport at a Superconductor to Insulator Transition

We isolated flux disorder effects on the transport at the critical point of the quantum magnetic field tuned Superconductor to Insulator transition (BSIT). The experiments employed films patterned into geometrically disordered hexagonal arrays. Spatial variations in the flux per unit cell, which grow in a perpendicular magnetic field, constitute flux disorder. The growth of flux disorder with magnetic field limited the number of BSITs exhibited by a single film due to flux matching effects. The critical metallic resistance at successive BSITs grew with flux disorder contrary to predictions of its universality. These results open the door for controlled studies of disorder effects on the universality class of an ubiquitous quantum phase transition.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2014

Sub-50 mK electronic cooling with large-area superconducting tunnel junctions

In electronic cooling with superconducting tunnel junctions, the cooling power is counterbalanced by the interaction with phonons and by the heat flow from the overheated leads. We study aluminium-based coolers that are equipped with a suspended normal metal and an efficient quasi-particle drain. At intermediate temperatures, the phonon bath of the suspended normal metal is cooled. At lower temperatures, by adjusting the junction transparency, we control the injection current, and thus the superconductor temperature. The device shows a strong cooling from 150 mK down to about 30 mK, a factor of five in temperature. We suggest that spatial non-uniformity in the superconductor gap limits the cooling toward lower temperatures.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2013

Trapping hot quasi-particles in a high-power superconducting electronic cooler

The performance of hybrid superconducting electronic coolers is usually limited by the accumulation of hot quasi-particles in the superconducting leads. This issue is all the more stringent in large-scale and high-power devices, as required by applications. Introducing a metallic drain connected to the superconducting electrodes via a fine-tuned tunnel barrier, we efficiently remove quasi-particles and obtain electronic cooling from 300 mK down to 130 mK with a 400 pW cooling power. A simple thermal model accounts for the experimental observations.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2013

Non-equilibrium and proximity effects in superconductor-normal metal junctions

We study the consequences of non-equilibrium heating and inverse proximity effect in normal metal - insulator - superconductor - insulator - normal metal (NISIN) junctions with a simple quasi-one-dimensional model. We especially focus on observables and parameter regions that are of interest in the design of SINIS coolers with quasiparticle traps. We present numerical results calculated by solving the Usadel equation and also present analytical approximations in two limiting cases: a short junction with a non-negligible resistance in both ends and a long junction with a transparent contact at one end.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2011

Cooper pair insulator in amorphous films induced by nanometer-scale thickness variations

Unusual transport properties of superconducting (SC) materials, such as the under doped cuprates, low dimensional superconductors in strong magnetic fields, and insulating films near the Insulator Superconductor Transition (IST), have been attributed to the formation of inhomogeneous phases. Difficulty correlating the behaviors with observations of the inhomogeneities make these connections uncertain. Of primary interest here are proposals that insulating films near the IST, which show an activated resistance and giant positive magnetoresistance, contain islands of Cooper Pairs (CPs). Here we present evidence that these types of inhomogeneities are essential to such an insulating phase in amorphous Bi (a-Bi) films deposited on substrates patterned with nanometer-sized holes. The patterning induces film thickness variations, and corresponding coupling constant variations, that transform the composition of the insulator from localized electrons to CPs. Analyses near the thickness-tuned ISTs of films on nine different substrates show that weak links between SC islands dominate the transport. In particular, the ISTs all occur when the link resistance approaches the resistance quantum for pairs. These observations lead to a detailed picture of CPs localized by spatial variations of the superconducting coupling constant.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2009

Observation of Giant Positive Magnetoresistance in a Cooper Pair Insulator

Ultrathin amorphous Bi films, patterned with a nano-honeycomb array of holes, can exhibit an insulating phase with transport dominated by the incoherent motion of Cooper pairs of electrons between localized states. Here we show that the magnetoresistance of this Cooper pair insulator phase is positive and grows exponentially with decreasing temperature, for temperatures well below the pair formation temperature. It peaks at a field estimated to be sufficient to break the pairs and then decreases monotonically into a regime in which the film resistance assumes the temperature dependence appropriate for weakly localized single electron transport. We discuss how these results support proposals that the large MR peaks in other unpatterned, ultrathin film systems disclose a Cooper Pair Insulator phase and provide new insight into the Cooper pair localization.

cond-mat.supr-con↗

arXiv2008

Innovative in silico approaches to address avian flu using grid technology

The recent years have seen the emergence of diseases which have spread very quickly all around the world either through human travels like SARS or animal migration like avian flu. Among the biggest challenges raised by infectious emerging diseases, one is related to the constant mutation of the viruses which turns them into continuously moving targets for drug and vaccine discovery. Another challenge is related to the early detection and surveillance of the diseases as new cases can appear just anywhere due to the globalization of exchanges and the circulation of people and animals around the earth, as recently demonstrated by the avian flu epidemics. For 3 years now, a collaboration of teams in Europe and Asia has been exploring some innovative in silico approaches to better tackle avian flu taking advantage of the very large computing resources available on international grid infrastructures. Grids were used to study the impact of mutations on the effectiveness of existing drugs against H5N1 and to find potentially new leads active on mutated strains. Grids allow also the integration of distributed data in a completely secured way. The paper presents how we are currently exploring how to integrate the existing data sources towards a global surveillance network for molecular epidemiology.

q-bio.PE↗