Excitons in insulating cuprates

We study the electronic excitations near the charge-transfer gap in insulating CuO$_2$ planes, starting from a six-band model which includes $p_\pi$ and $d_{xy}$ orbitals and Cu-O nearest-neighbor repulsion $U_{pd}$. While the low lying electronic excitations in the doped system are well described by a modified $t-J$ model, the excitonic states of the insulator include hybrid $d_{xy}-$ $p_\pi$ states of $A_{2g}$ symmetry. We also obtain excitons of symmetries $B_{1g}$ and $E_u$, and eventually $A_{1g}$, which can be explained within a one-band model. The results agree with observed optical absorption and Raman excitations.Comment: 10 pages and 3 figures in postscript format, compressed with uufile

Attempts to identify Cassava Brown Streak Virus in western Democratic Republic of Congo

Open Access ArticleRoot necrosis similar to those of the cassava brown streak disease (CBSD) were observed on cassava in western provinces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR.Congo) in the early 2000’s. However molecular laboratory diagnosis were not able to detect any causative agent responsible for the attacks, hence, the disease related to these symptoms was named CBSD-like disease. In order to assess the distribution and the incidence of the CBSD-like disease, surveys were carried out in four western provinces, comprising, Kwango and Kwilu, Sud Ubangi, Kinshasa and Kongo Central. CBSD-like disease was observed in all surveyed provinces on the basis of root symptoms because foliar symptoms were different to those of the documented cases of CBSD in other parts of east Africa. CBSD-like disease incidence was high in Kongo Central and Sud Ubangi, exceeding an average of 50 %, but low in Kwango and Kwilu (32.8%) and in Kinshasa (19.1%). During the surveys, cassava leaf samples were collected for lab identification of the causal agent. PCR diagnosis was done on these samples using primers specific for the two known CBSVs. All samples tested negative with no amplification of DNA fragments of the correct size. Thus, further analysis on the causative organism is needed using Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) approaches. NGS approaches will help also to identify the causative organism in other Central Africa countries (Angola, Congo-Brazzaville and Gabon) where such cassava root necrosis have been reported or are suspected

The dimerized phase of ionic Hubbard models

We derive an effective Hamiltonian for the ionic Hubbard model at half filling, extended to include nearest-neighbor repulsion. Using a spin-particle transformation, the effective model is mapped onto simple spin-1 models in two particular cases. Using another spin-particle transformation, a slightly modified model is mapped into an SU(3) antiferromagnetic Heisenberg model whose exact ground state is known to be spontaneously dimerized. From the effective models several properties of the dimerized phase are discussed, like ferroelectricity and fractional charge excitations. Using bosonization and recent developments in the theory of macroscopic polarization, we show that the polarization is proportional to the charge of the elementary excitations

Self-Similarity and Localization

The localized eigenstates of the Harper equation exhibit universal self-similar fluctuations once the exponentially decaying part of a wave function is factorized out. For a fixed quantum state, we show that the whole localized phase is characterized by a single strong coupling fixed point of the renormalization equations. This fixed point also describes the generalized Harper model with next nearest neighbor interaction below a certain threshold. Above the threshold, the fluctuations in the generalized Harper model are described by a strange invariant set of the renormalization equations.Comment: 4 pages, RevTeX, 2 figures include

Interaction Between Hot Carrier Aging and PBTI Degradation in nMOSFETs: Characterization, Modelling and Lifetime Prediction

Modelling of the interaction between Hot Carrier Aging (HCA) and Positive Bias Temperature Instability (PBTI) has been considered as one of the main challenges in nanoscale CMOS circuit design. Previous works were mainly based on separate HCA and PBTI instead of Interacted HCA-PBTI Degradation (IHPD). The key advance of this work is to develop a methodology that enables accurate modelling of IHPD through understanding the charging/discharging and generation kinetics of different types of defects during the interaction between HCA and PBTI. It is found that degradation during alternating HCA and PBTI stress cannot be modelled by independent HCI/PBTI. Different stress sequence, i.e. HCA-PBTI-HCA and PBTI-HCA-PBTI, lead to completely different degradation kinetics. Based on the Cyclic Anti-neutralization Model (CAM), for the first time, IHPD has been accurately modelled for both short and long channel devices. Complex degradation mechanisms and kinetics can be well explained by our model. Our results show that device lifetime can be underestimated by one decade without considering interaction

Quasiparticle photoemission intensity in doped two-dimensional quantum antiferromagnets

Using the self-consistent Born approximation, and the corresponding wave function of the magnetic polaron, we calculate the quasiparticle weight corresponding to destruction of a real electron (in contrast to creation of a spinless holon), as a funtion of wave vector for one hole in a generalized $t-J$ model and the strong coupling limit of a generalized Hubbard model. The results are in excellent agreement with those obtained by exact diagonalization of a sufficiently large cluster. Only the Hubbard weigth compares very well with photoemission measurements in Sr_2CuO_2Cl_2.Comment: 11 pages, latex, 3 figure

Effect of magnetic frustration on single-hole spectral function in the t-t'-t''-J model

We examine the effect of the magnetic frustration J' on the single-hole spectral function in the t-t'-t''-J model. At zero temperature, the exact diagonalization (ED) and the self-consistent Born approximation (SCBA) methods are used. We find that the frustration suppresses the quasiparticle (QP) weight at small momentum k, whereas the QP peak at k=(pi/2,pi/2) remains sharp. We also show the temperature dependence of the single-hole spectral function by using the ED method. It is found that the lineshapes at (pi/2,0) and (pi/2,pi/2) show different temperature dependence. These findings are consistent with the angle-resolved photoemission data on Sr2CuO2Cl2, and indicate the importance of the magnetic frustration on the electronic states of the insulating cuprates.Comment: 5 pages, 3 EPS figures, REVTeX, To be published in Phys. Rev. B, Vol. 59, Num. 3 (15 Jan. 1999

Spectral density for a hole in an antiferromagnetic stripe phase

Using variational trial wave function based on the string picture we study the motion of a single mobile hole in the stripe phase of the doped antiferromagnet. The holes within the stripes are taken to be static, the undoped antiferromagnetic domains in between the hole stripes are assumed to have alternating staggered magnetization, as is suggested by neutron scattering experiments. The system is described by the t-t'-t''-J model with realistic parameters and we compute the single particle spectral density.Comment: RevTex-file, 9 PRB pages with 15 .eps and .gif files. To appear in PRB. Hardcopies of figures (or the entire manuscript) can be obtained by e-mail request to: [email protected]