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Zhiming Shi

Publications and source records attributed to Zhiming Shi.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

Interlayer Coupling in Two-Dimensional Semiconductor Materials

Two-dimensional (2D) graphene-like layered semiconductors provide a new platform for materials research because of their unique mechanical, electronic and optical attributes. Their in-plane covalent bonding and dangling-bond-free surface allow them to assemble various van der Waals heterostructures (vdWHSs) with sharply atomic interfaces that are not limited by lattice matching and material compatibility. Interlayer coupling, as a ubiquitous phenomenon residing among 2D materials (2DMs) systems, controls a thin layer exfoliation process and the assembly of vdWHSs and behaves with a unique degree of freedom for engineering the properties of 2DMs. Interlayer coupling provides an opportunity to observe new physics and provides a novel strategy to modulate the electronic and optoelectronic properties of materials for practical device applications. We herein review recent progress in the exploration of interlayer coupling in 2D semiconducting vdWHSs for potential applications in electronics and optoelectronics.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci

First measurement of surface nuclear recoil background for argon dark matter searches

One major background in direct searches for weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) comes from the deposition of radon progeny on detector surfaces. The most dangerous surface background is the $^{206}$Pb recoils produced by $^{210}$Po decays. In this letter, we report the first characterization of this background in liquid argon. The scintillation signal of low energy Pb recoils is measured to be highly quenched in argon, and we estimate that the 103keV $^{206}$Pb recoil background will produce a signal equal to that of a ~5keV (30keV) electron recoil ($^{40}$Ar recoil). In addition, we demonstrate that this dangerous $^{210}$Po surface background can be suppressed by a factor of ~100 or higher using pulse shape discrimination methods, which can make argon dark matter detectors near background-free and enhance their potential for discovery of medium- and high-mass WIMPs. We also discuss the impact on other low background experiments.

physics.ins-det

Effects of Collisional Decoherence on Multipartite Entanglement - How would entanglement not be relatively common?

We consider the collision model of Ziman {\em et al.} and study the robustness of $N$-qubit Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ), W, and linear cluster states. Our results show that $N$-qubit entanglement of GHZ states would be extremely fragile under collisional decoherence, and that of W states could be more robust than of linear cluster states. We indicate that the collision model of Ziman {\em et al.} could provide a physical mechanism to some known results in this area of investigations. More importantly, we show that it could give a clue as to how $N$-partite distillable entanglement would be relatively rare in our macroscopic classical world.

quant-ph