arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to P. J. Heard.
Scanning microphotoluminescence is used to characterise the fluorescence from a dye-loaded polymer deposited on a 5 x 5 nanoantenna dipole array. Vertical and horizontal scans show anisotropic emission patterns.
The characteristics of mid-infrared laser diodes have been investigated before and after the patterning of sub-wavelength metallic apertures on the emitting facet. Before modification of the facet the emitted spectrum consisted of a large number of peaks associated with different spatial modes, whereas afterwards the spectrum was dominated by a single peak. Simulations showed that the patterning of the facet caused the effective reflectivity to be different for each lateral mode, suggesting that the peak in the measured spectra is associated with the single lateral mode which is most strongly reflected from the modified facet.
We present the results of experimental investigations of magnetic switching and magnetotransport in a new generation of magnetic devices containing artificially patterned domains. Our devices are realised by locally reducing the coercive field of a perpendicularly magnetised Pt (3.5 nm)/Co (0.5 nm)/Pt (1.6 nm) trilayer structure using a gallium focused ion beam (FIB). Artificial domain walls are created at the interfaces between dosed and undosed regions when an external magnetic field switches the former but not the latter. We have exploited this property to create stripe-like domains with widths down to sub-micron lengthscales, separated by undosed regions. Using the extraordinary Hall effect to monitor the local magnetisation we have investigated the reversal dynamics of these artificial domains by measuring major and minor hysteresis loops. The coercive field of regions irradiated with identical doses systematically increases as their size decreases. In the lower branch of minor loops, reversal is seen to occur via a few large Barkhausen events. Preliminary measurements of transport across domain walls reveal a positive domain wall resistance, that does not change sign from 4.2 K to 300 K.
We report the observation of Shubnikov-de Haas oscillations in the underdoped cuprate superconductor YBa$_2$Cu$_4$O$_8$ (Y124). For field aligned along the c-axis, the frequency of the oscillations is $660\pm 30$ T, which corresponds to $\sim 2.4$ % of the total area of the first Brillouin zone. The effective mass of the quasiparticles on this orbit is measured to be $2.7\pm0.3$ times the free electron mass. Both the frequency and mass are comparable to those recently observed for ortho-II YBa$_2$Cu$_3$O$_{6.5}$ (Y123-II). We show that although small Fermi surface pockets may be expected from band structure calculations in Y123-II, no such pockets are predicted for Y124. Our results therefore imply that these small pockets are a generic feature of the copper oxide plane in underdoped cuprates.
In this article we report on the experimental realization of dimensional crossover phenomena in the chain compound PrBa$_2$Cu$_4$O$_8$ using temperature, high magnetic fields and disorder as independent tuning parameters. In purer crystals of PrBa$_2$Cu$_4$O$_8$, a highly anisotropic three-dimensional Fermi-liquid state develops at low temperatures. This metallic state is extremely susceptible to disorder however and localization rapidly sets in. We show, through quantitative comparison of the relevant energy scales, that this metal/insulator crossover occurs precisely when the scattering rate within the chain exceeds the interchain hopping rate(s), i.e. once carriers become confined to a single conducting element.
We exploit the ability to precisely control the magnetic domain structure of perpendicularly magnetized Pt/Co/Pt trilayers to fabricate artificial domain wall arrays and study their transport properties. The scaling behaviour of this model system confirms the intrinsic domain wall origin of the magnetoresistance, and systematic studies using domains patterned at various angles to the current flow are excellently described by an angular-dependent resistivity tensor containing perpendicular and parallel domain wall resistivities. We find that the latter are fully consistent with Levy-Zhang theory, which allows us to estimate the ratio of minority to majority spin carrier resistivities, rho-down/rho-up~5.5, in good agreement with thin film band structure calculations.