Quantum inelastic conductance through molecular wires

We calculate non-perturbatively the inelastic effects on the conductance through a conjugated molecular wire-metal heterojunction, including realistic electron-phonon coupling. We show that at sub-band-gap energies the current is dominated by quantum coherent transport of virtual polarons through the molecule. In this regime, the tunneling current is strongly increased relative to the case of elastic scattering. It is essential to describe the full quantum coherence of the polaron formation and transport in order to obtain correct physics. Our results are generally applicable to one-dimensional atomic or molecular wires.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in Physical Review Letter

Passer coûte que coûte

Des jeunes lorrains rencontrent à Metz des migrants fraîchement arrivés en Lorraine ou résidents de plus longue date. Cet accueil se traduit par la réalisation en commun d'un spectacle où les souvenirs des uns et des autres se mêlent à leur existence actuelle, la sédentarité des premiers au désir de fuir et de passer les fron­tières des seconds. Les migrants ne sont condamnés ni à l’errance ni a l’enferme­ment aux portes de l’Europe ou à l’intérieur de l’Europe. Ils aspirent à incarner leur mise en mouvement et, en passant, à penser les mondes qu’ils traversent.Young locals from Lorraine are brought together with newly-arrived migrants and long-time residents. The meeting is manifested by everybody putting on a show in which their memories are intermixed with their present conditions, in which the sedentary lifestyle of the former is confronted to the aspirations of the latter. In their wish to cross frontiers, migrants are doomed to neither perpetual flight or confine­ment. They need to flesh out their being put into motion and, on the way, to think out the worlds they are going through

Dialogue entre Lui et Moi 2

Moi : Je me souviens votre excitation lorsque vous avez appris que vous étiez à Tokyo en même temps que Jean-Luc Nancy au printemps 2017. Vous n’imaginiez pas tout de même tomber sur lui au détour d’une rue dans cette fourmilière de plus de trente millions d’habitants ? Lui : Accusez-moi de donner dans le sous-genre midinette-philosophique ! Il en va de tout autre chose. Je venais d’écouter une conférence que Jean-Luc Nancy avait donnée à l’Université Paul Verlaine de Metz… Moi : …sous le tit..

Dialogue entre Catherine, Lui et Moi 4

Moi : Les conseils de Nicolas Depoutot sont précieux pour vous, qui n’avez pas l’œil facile avec l’architecture ! Lui : Devant ce continent japonais si innovant, riche, complexe et nouveau pour moi, j’ai renvoyé à d’autres voyages futurs de lever l’impasse et m’y intéresser comme il le faudrait, après une approche plus basique de la matière-japon. Moi : En quoi certainement vous vous trompiez, car si j’ai compris une petite chose de votre expérience toute touristique au Japon, c’est bien l’ab..

Dialogue entre Lui et Moi 5

Moi : Ravi que Bertrand Grimonprez vous ait donné envie de lire Le Maître ou le tournois de go de Kawabata! Lui : Je vous rassure, je ne suis pas pour autant devenu un joueur de go! Mais bien un admirateur de ce jeu transcendé par Kawabata. Ce n’est pas tant que je ne reconnaisse pas le go comme un jeu, mais plutôt que la magnifique évocation littéraire qui en est donnée là, m’ait fait comprendre à quel point le go est japonais et prend place parmi les rituels les plus élevés, avec le Nô, la ..

Coherent electron-phonon coupling and polaron-like transport in molecular wires

We present a technique to calculate the transport properties through one-dimensional models of molecular wires. The calculations include inelastic electron scattering due to electron-lattice interaction. The coupling between the electron and the lattice is crucial to determine the transport properties in one-dimensional systems subject to Peierls transition since it drives the transition itself. The electron-phonon coupling is treated as a quantum coherent process, in the sense that no random dephasing due to electron-phonon interactions is introduced in the scattering wave functions. We show that charge carrier injection, even in the tunneling regime, induces lattice distortions localized around the tunneling electron. The transport in the molecular wire is due to polaron-like propagation. We show typical examples of the lattice distortions induced by charge injection into the wire. In the tunneling regime, the electron transmission is strongly enhanced in comparison with the case of elastic scattering through the undistorted molecular wire. We also show that although lattice fluctuations modify the electron transmission through the wire, the modifications are qualitatively different from those obtained by the quantum electron-phonon inelastic scattering technique. Our results should hold in principle for other one-dimensional atomic-scale wires subject to Peierls transitions.Comment: 21 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. B (to appear march 2001

Autant que nous le sachions, le Japon passe pour être une île

La proposition de piloter un numéro sur le Japon dans la revue Le Portique est née d’une expérience toute personnelle : le choc vécu lors d’un premier voyage en 2017, bien au-delà de ce que m’en promettait un intérêt développé depuis longtemps pour l’histoire, la culture, l’art, le mode de vie nippons. Non seulement ce voyage a augmenté ma puissance de sentir, en m’offrant tant de nouvelles images, sonorités, fragrances, saveurs, toutes devenues de nouvelles perceptions haptiques, mais encore..

John Calvin

French-born Protestant Reformer, John Calvin, led a sweeping reformation of law, politics, and society in sixteenth-century Geneva. Building on classical and earlier Christian sources, Calvin developed an innovative and integrative theory of rights and liberties, church and state, authority and power, natural law and positive law. Particular striking was his use of the Decalogue as a source and summary of natural law, and as a template for spiritual and civil laws and rights in a Christian republic. Also novel was his theory of the uses of natural and positive law to cultivate a baseline civil morality and an aspirational spiritual morality for each member of the community. Calvin and his followers believed in law, as a deterrent against sin, an inducement to grace, and a teacher of Christian virtue. They also believed in liberty, structuring their churches and states alike to minimize the sins of their rulers and to maximize the liberties of their subjects. Calvin distilled his legal teachings into sundry public, private, penal, and procedural laws for Geneva, and he broadcast them widely among other French and other European jurists, theologians, and political leaders of his day. His work helped shape Western legal thought and practice until the modern Enlightenment, and several of his basic teachings about law, politics, and society still live on today both in secular legal thought and in modern Protestant churches