Thesis (M.A.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1967. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

Le sujet principal de la thèse est le transport dans les systèmes mésoscopiques. Dans une première partie de lathèse, on étudie le cas d’un branchement adiabatique d’un biais de potentiel sur un système unidiensionnel sansrépartition initiale. On démontre que le courant complet est uniformément borné par rapport à la vitesse debranchement adiabatique, lorsque celle-ci tend vers zéro. On démontre l’existence de la partie linéaire de l’étatet du courant. La seconde partie de la thèse a donné lieu à a publication d’un article et elle consiste en l’étuded’un modèle discret, sans répartition initiale. On démontre que, dans ce système et après une perturbationélectrochimique, il existe un état stationnaire hors équilibre, et on retrouve la formule de Landauer-Büttikerpour ce modèle. La dernière partie de la thèse, qui a également donné lieu à un article, porte sur l’étude del’approximation des guides d’onde quantiques par des graphes quantiques. On s’intéresse à un guide d’ondelocalement torsadé. On étudie moins le Laplacien sur ce guide d’onde torsadé. Lorsque e diamètre du guidetend vers zéro et, simultanément, lorqsue le support de la courbure tend vers zéro, on démontre que le graphelimite est la ligne droite, et que l’opérateur limite est moins le Laplacien sur L2 (R) plus une condition deDirichlet à l’origine. Cette condition de Dirichlet est la conséquence des rétrécissements faits. En Annexe, ondonne des démonstrations et explications plus détaillées et utiles pour la compréhension de points clés de lathèse. / The main topic of the thesis is the transport in mesoscopic systems. In the first part of the work, we study thecase of a connection through an adiabatic potential on a one dimensional system without initial distribution, wesaid a “partition-free approach”. It is shown that the full current is uniformly bounded with respect to theadiabatic speed of connection, when it goes to zero. We prove the existence of the linear part of the state andcurrent. The second part of the thesis has led to publication of an article and deals with the study of a discretemodel without initial distribution. We prove that in this system and after an electrochemical disturbance thereexists a nonequilibrium steady state, and the Landauer-Büttiker formula is demonstrated for this model.The last part of the thesis, which also has led to an article, concerns the study of the approximation of quantumwaveguides by quantum graphs. We are interested in a waveguide locally twisted. We studyminus theLaplacian on this locally twisted waveguide. When the diameter of the guide goes to zero and simultaneouslywhen the support of the twisting goes to zero, we prove that the limit graph is the straight line, and the limitoperator is minus the Laplacian on the straight line plus a Dirichlet condition at the origin. The Dirichletcondition is the consequence of the shrinking done. In the appendix, we

We developed and implemented a first-principles based theory of the Landauer ballistic conductance, to determine the transport properties of nanostructures and molecular-electronics devices. Our approach starts from a quantum-mechanical description of the electronic structure of the system under consideration, performed at the density-functional theory level and using finite-temperature molecular dynamics simulations to obtain an ensemble of the most likely microscopic configurations. The extended Bloch states are then converted into maximally-localized Wannier functions to allow us to construct the Green’s function of the conductor, from which we obtain the density of states (confirming the reliability of our microscopic calculations) and the Landauer conductance. A first application is presented to the case of carbon nanotubes. / Singapore-MIT Alliance (SMA)

We determined the Landauer ballistic conductance of pristine nanotubes at finite temperature via a novel scheme that combines ab-initio molecular dynamics, maximally-localized Wannier functions, and a tight-binding formulation of electronic transport in nanostructures. Large-scale ab-initio molecular dynamics simulations are used to obtain efficiently accurate trajectories in phase space. The extended Bloch orbitals for states along these trajectories are converted into maximally-localized orbitals, providing an exact mapping of the ground-state electronic structure onto a short-ranged Hamiltonian. Green's functions, self-energies, and ballistic conductance can then be obtained for any given configuration, and averaged over the appropriate statistical ensemble. / Singapore-MIT Alliance (SMA)

Maxwell&rsquo / s thought experiment on a demon performing microscopic actions and violating the second law of thermodynamics has been a challenging paradox for a long time. It is finally resolved in the seventies and eighties by using Landauer&rsquo / s principle, which state that erasing information is necessarily accompanied with a heat dumped to the environment. The purpose of this study is to describe the heat dumped to the environment associated with erasure operations on quantum systems. To achieve this, first a brief introduction to necessary tools like density matrix formalism, quantum operators and entropy are given. Second, the Maxwell&rsquo / s demon and Szilard model is described. Also the connection between information theory and physics is discussed via this model. Finally, heat transfer operators associated with quantum erasure operations are defined and all of their properties are obtained.

Landauer's principle states that it costs at least k_BT ln 2 of work to reset one bit in the presence of a heat bath at temperature T. The bound of k_BT ln 2 is achieved in the unphysical infinite-time limit. Here we consider two different finite-time protocols - one with discretised time and the second in the continuous limit. We prove analytically that the discrete time protocol enables one to reset a bit with a work cost close to k_BT ln 2 in a finite time. We construct an explicit protocol that achieves this, which involves thermalising and changing the system's Hamiltonian so as to avoid quantum coherences. Using concepts and techniques pertaining to single-shot statistical mechanics, we furthermore prove that the heat dissipated is exponentially close to the minimal amount possible not just on average, but guaranteed with high confidence in every run. Moreover we exploit the protocol to design a quantum heat engine that works near the Carnot efficiency in finite time. We further contrast this to a continuous time version of the protocol which is substantially less energy sufficient. We also consider the fluctuations in the work cost, and calculate how their magnitude is suppressed by a factor depending on the length of the protocol. We demonstrate with an experiment how molecules are a natural test-bed for probing fundamental quantum thermodynamics. Single-molecule spectroscopy has undergone transformative change in the past decade with the advent of techniques permitting individual molecules to be distinguished and probed. By considering the time-resolved emission spectrum of organic molecules as arising from quantum jumps between states, we demonstrate that the quantum Jarzynski equality is satisfied in this set-up. This relates the heat dissipated into the environment to the free energy difference between the initial and final state. We demonstrate also how utilizing the quantum Jarzynski equality allows for the detection of energy shifts within a molecule, beyond the relative shift.

A condutância de fios quânticos definidos em uma geometria de \"split gate\" varia em platôs quantizados de 2e2/h em relação à ocupação dos seus modos transversais [van Wees et al. Phys. Rev. Lett. 60, 848 (1988) & Wharam et al. J. Phys. C: solid state phys. 21, L209 (1988)]. Em gráficos da condutância esta ocupação é dada pelo potencial aplicado aos eletrodos que formam o fio. Em 1996 observou-se experimentalmente nestes gráficos [Thomas et al. Phys. Rev. Lett. 77, 135 (1996)] que quando apenas um modo transversal é ocupado a condutância exibe um platô anômalo adicional em 0.7X2e2/h. Desde então, a origem desta anomalia 0.7 é associada a fenômenos dependentes de spin, porém sua descrição teórica permanece como importante objeto de pesquisa. Recentemente, observou-se que na presença de altos campos magnéticos, cruzamentos de modos transversais de spins opostos também geram estruturas anômalas no gráfico da condutância [Graham etal. Phys. Rev. Lett. 91, 136404 (2003)]. Os análogos 0.7, assim chamados devido à semelhança com a anomalia 0.7, são usualmente relacionados ou como anti-crossings ou como transições de fase magnética. Motivado pela concordância quantitativa com experimentos de um trabalho anterior em magnetotransporte em 2DEGs e transições de fase de ferromagnetismo de efeito Hall quântico via teoria do funcional da densidade dependente de spin (SDFT) [Freire e Egues, Phys. Rev. Lett. 99, 026801 (2007) & Ferreira et al. Phys. Stat. Sol. (c) 3, 4364 (2006)], propomos aqui um modelo similar para estudar na magnetocondutância de fios quânticos. Utilizamos (i) a SDFT resolvendo as equações de Kohn-Sham autoconsistentemente dentro da aproximação de densidade local de spin para obter a estrutura eletrônica do fio quântico e (ii) o formalismo de Landauer-Büttiker para calcular a condutância do fio no regime de resposta linear. Em nosso modelo, a anomalia e os análogos 0.7 aparecem devido a transições ferromagnéticas que rearranjam de forma abrupta os modos transversais do fio quântico próximos ao nível de Fermi. Nossos resultados teóricos apresentam boa concordância com os dados de Graham et al. / At low temperatures the conductance of a quantum wires exhibits plateaus at integer multiples of 2e2/h due to the quantization of the transverse modes [van Wees et al. Phys. Rev. Lett. 60, 848 (1988) & Wharam et al. J. Phys. C: solid state phys. 21, L209 (1988)]. This conductance behavior is understood within an independent particles model. In 1996 Thomas et al.[Phys. Rev. Lett. 77, 135 (1996)] showed experimentally that when only one transverse mode is occupied, the conductance displays an additional plateau at 0.7 X 2e2/h the so-called 0.7 anomaly. Further experiments have shown that in the presence of high in-plane magnetic fields, similar structures also appear in the conductance near the crossings of spin-split transverse modes [Graham et al. Phys. Rev. Lett. 91, 136404 (2003)]. These so-called 0.7 analogs, due to their similarity to the 0.7 anomaly, are usually related to either anti-crossings or magnetic phase transitions. Motivated by the quantitative agreement with experiments of a previous theoretical work on magnetotransport in 2DEGs and quantum Hall ferromagnetic phase transitions via the Spin Density Functional Theory (SDFT) [Freire and Egues, Phys. Rev. Lett. 99, 026801 (2007) & Ferreira et al. Phys. Stat. Sol. (c) 3, 4364 (2006)], here we propose a similar model to investigate the magnetoconductance of interacting quantum wires. We use (i) the SDFT via the Kohn-Sham self-consistent scheme within the local spin density approximation to obtain the quantum wire electronic structure and (ii) the Landauer-Büttiker formalism to calculate the conductance of a quantum wire in the linear response regime. Our results show good agreement with the data of Graham et al.

A condutância de fios quânticos definidos em uma geometria de \"split gate\" varia em platôs quantizados de 2e2/h em relação à ocupação dos seus modos transversais [van Wees et al. Phys. Rev. Lett. 60, 848 (1988) & Wharam et al. J. Phys. C: solid state phys. 21, L209 (1988)]. Em gráficos da condutância esta ocupação é dada pelo potencial aplicado aos eletrodos que formam o fio. Em 1996 observou-se experimentalmente nestes gráficos [Thomas et al. Phys. Rev. Lett. 77, 135 (1996)] que quando apenas um modo transversal é ocupado a condutância exibe um platô anômalo adicional em 0.7X2e2/h. Desde então, a origem desta anomalia 0.7 é associada a fenômenos dependentes de spin, porém sua descrição teórica permanece como importante objeto de pesquisa. Recentemente, observou-se que na presença de altos campos magnéticos, cruzamentos de modos transversais de spins opostos também geram estruturas anômalas no gráfico da condutância [Graham etal. Phys. Rev. Lett. 91, 136404 (2003)]. Os análogos 0.7, assim chamados devido à semelhança com a anomalia 0.7, são usualmente relacionados ou como anti-crossings ou como transições de fase magnética. Motivado pela concordância quantitativa com experimentos de um trabalho anterior em magnetotransporte em 2DEGs e transições de fase de ferromagnetismo de efeito Hall quântico via teoria do funcional da densidade dependente de spin (SDFT) [Freire e Egues, Phys. Rev. Lett. 99, 026801 (2007) & Ferreira et al. Phys. Stat. Sol. (c) 3, 4364 (2006)], propomos aqui um modelo similar para estudar na magnetocondutância de fios quânticos. Utilizamos (i) a SDFT resolvendo as equações de Kohn-Sham autoconsistentemente dentro da aproximação de densidade local de spin para obter a estrutura eletrônica do fio quântico e (ii) o formalismo de Landauer-Büttiker para calcular a condutância do fio no regime de resposta linear. Em nosso modelo, a anomalia e os análogos 0.7 aparecem devido a transições ferromagnéticas que rearranjam de forma abrupta os modos transversais do fio quântico próximos ao nível de Fermi. Nossos resultados teóricos apresentam boa concordância com os dados de Graham et al. / At low temperatures the conductance of a quantum wires exhibits plateaus at integer multiples of 2e2/h due to the quantization of the transverse modes [van Wees et al. Phys. Rev. Lett. 60, 848 (1988) & Wharam et al. J. Phys. C: solid state phys. 21, L209 (1988)]. This conductance behavior is understood within an independent particles model. In 1996 Thomas et al.[Phys. Rev. Lett. 77, 135 (1996)] showed experimentally that when only one transverse mode is occupied, the conductance displays an additional plateau at 0.7 X 2e2/h the so-called 0.7 anomaly. Further experiments have shown that in the presence of high in-plane magnetic fields, similar structures also appear in the conductance near the crossings of spin-split transverse modes [Graham et al. Phys. Rev. Lett. 91, 136404 (2003)]. These so-called 0.7 analogs, due to their similarity to the 0.7 anomaly, are usually related to either anti-crossings or magnetic phase transitions. Motivated by the quantitative agreement with experiments of a previous theoretical work on magnetotransport in 2DEGs and quantum Hall ferromagnetic phase transitions via the Spin Density Functional Theory (SDFT) [Freire and Egues, Phys. Rev. Lett. 99, 026801 (2007) & Ferreira et al. Phys. Stat. Sol. (c) 3, 4364 (2006)], here we propose a similar model to investigate the magnetoconductance of interacting quantum wires. We use (i) the SDFT via the Kohn-Sham self-consistent scheme within the local spin density approximation to obtain the quantum wire electronic structure and (ii) the Landauer-Büttiker formalism to calculate the conductance of a quantum wire in the linear response regime. Our results show good agreement with the data of Graham et al.

<div>The rapid advance in modern electronics and photonics is pushing device design to the micro- and nano-scale, and the resulting high power density imposes immense challenges to thermal management. Promising materials like carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and graphene offer high thermal conductivity in the axial (or in-plane) directions, but their thermal transport in the radial (or cross-plane) directions are poor, limiting their applications. Hierarchical structures like pillared graphene, which is composed of many CNT-graphene junctions, have been proposed. However, thermal</div><div>interfacial resistance is a critical issue for thermal management of these systems. In this work, we have systematically explored thermal transport across interfaces,</div><div>particularly in pillared graphene and silicon/heavy-silicon.</div><div><br></div><div><div>First, by recognizing that thermal resistance of the 3D pillared graphene architecture primarily comes from CNT-graphene junctions, a simple network model of thermal transport in pillared graphene structure is developed. Using non-equilibrium molecular dynamics (NEMD), the resistance across an individual CNT-graphene junction with sp2 covalent bonds is found to be around 6 × 10−11 m2K/W, which is significantly lower than typical values reported for planar interfaces between dissimilar materials. Interestingly, when the CNT pillar length is small, the interfacial resistance</div><div>of the sp2 covalent junction is found to decrease as the CNT pillar length decreases, suggesting the presence of coherence effects. The junction resistance Rj is eventually</div><div>used in the network model to estimate the effective thermal conductivity, and the results agree well with direct MD simulation data, demonstrating the effectiveness of our model.</div></div><div><br></div><div><div>Then we identify three different mechanisms which can lead to thermal resistances across the pillared graphene junction: the material mismatch (phonon propagates from CNT to graphene), the non-planar junction (the phonon propagation direction must change), and defects (there are six heptagons at each junction). The NEMD results show that three mechanisms lead to similar resistance at the CNT-graphene junction, each at around 2.5 × 10−11 m2K/W.</div></div><div><br></div><div><div>Further, we have predicted the transmission function of individual phonon mode using the wave packet method at CNT-graphene junction. Intriguing phonon polarization conversion behavior is observed for most incident phonon modes. It is found that the polarization conversion dominates the transmission and is more significant at larger phonon wavelength. We attribute such unique phonon polarization conversion behavior to the dimensional mismatch across CNT-graphene interface. It is found that the transmission functions at the junction cannot be predicted by the conventional acoustic mismatch models due to the existence of dimensional mismatch. Further analysis shows that, the dimensionally mismatched interface, on one hand tends to reduce the transmission and conductance due to defects and the change of phonon propagation direction at the interface, while on the other hand tends to enhance the transmission and conductance due to the new phonon transport channel introduced by polarization conversion.</div></div><div><br></div><div><div>Finally, we address that many recent experiments have shown that the measured thermal boundary conductances (TBCs) significantly exceed those calculated using the Landauer approach. We identify that a key assumption that an interface is a local equilibrium system (different modes of phonons on each side of the interfaces are at the emitted phonon temperature Te), is generally invalid and can contribute to the discrepancy. We show that the measurable temperature for each individual mode is the ”modal equivalent equilibrium temperature” T rather than Te. Also,</div><div>due to the vast range of transmission functions, different phonon modes are out of local thermal equilibrium. Hence, the total conductance cannot be simply calculated as a summation of individual modal conductance. We modify the Landauer approach to include these effects and name it the ”Nonequilibrium Landauer approach”. Our approach has been used on the carbon nanotube (CNT)/graphene and Si/heavy-Si interfaces which are matched interfaces, and it gives 310% increases in TBC as compared to the conventional Landauer approach at CNT-graphene junction and even higher increase for Si/heavy-Si with small mass ratios. A convenient chart is created to estimate the conductance correction based on our approach, and it yields quite accurate results. Our work indicate that the measured high TBCs in experiments can be due to this nonequilibrium effect rather than the other proposed mechanisms, like inelastic phonon transmission and cross-interface electron-phonon coupling.</div></div><div><br></div><div><div>The results obtained in this study will provide a deeper understanding of nanoscale thermal transport across interfaces. This research also provides new perspectives of</div><div>atomic- and nano-scale engineering of materials and structures to enhance performance of thermal management.</div></div>

Submitted by Edisangela Bastos (edisangela@ufpa.br) on 2014-01-13T19:10:03Z No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 23898 bytes, checksum: e363e809996cf46ada20da1accfcd9c7 (MD5) Tese_ModelamentoTransporteEletronico.pdf: 5981072 bytes, checksum: a92cc604a3178b465d6c18157318b2d0 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Ana Rosa Silva(arosa@ufpa.br) on 2014-01-14T14:54:24Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 23898 bytes, checksum: e363e809996cf46ada20da1accfcd9c7 (MD5) Tese_ModelamentoTransporteEletronico.pdf: 5981072 bytes, checksum: a92cc604a3178b465d6c18157318b2d0 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2014-01-14T14:54:24Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 23898 bytes, checksum: e363e809996cf46ada20da1accfcd9c7 (MD5) Tese_ModelamentoTransporteEletronico.pdf: 5981072 bytes, checksum: a92cc604a3178b465d6c18157318b2d0 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013 / No presente trabalho, simulamos as propriedades de transporte e espectro de absorção do composto orgânico Vermelho de Etila. Este é o primeiro estudo teórico de um indicador específico de pH utilizado como nanodispositivo, com base na teoria quântica e no modelo de transporte não-difuso. A distribuição de carga ao longo da molécula é determinada através da técnica, Ab initio, como uma função de um campo elétrico externo. Baseado em um modelo de multiníveis ressonantes também calculamos a corrente como função da tensão de polarização. O acúmulo de carga e a corrente apresentam comportamento semelhante, como a condução do tipo ressonante e curvas carga-tensão e corrente-tensão assimétricas. Os principais resultados sugerem que o sistema presente poderia funcionar como um transistor molecular bi-direcional. Estendemos esta metodologia de análise para outro dispositivo molecular, mas composto de três terminais. Para este sistema, nossa descoberta principal é a resistência diferencial negativa (RDN) na carga Q como uma função do campo elétrico externo. Para explicar este efeito RDN, aplicamos um modelo capacitivo fenomenológico, também baseado em um sistema de multiníveis localizados (que podem ser os LUMOs – Lowest Unoccupied Molecular Orbital – Orbitais moleculares desocupados mais baixos). A capacitância descreve, por efeito de carregamento, a causa do bloqueio de Coulomb (BC) no transporte. Mostramos que o efeito BC dá origem a uma RDN para um conjunto adequado de parâmetros fenomenológicos como: taxa de tunelamento e energia de carregamento. O perfil da RDN obtida nas duas metodologias, ab initio e fenomenológica, estão em comum acordo. / In the present work we simulate the transport properties and absorption spectra of the organic compound ethyl red. This is the first theoretical study of a specific pH indicator utilized as nano-device, based on quantum theory and a non-diffusive transport model. The charge distribution along the molecule is calculated via Ab initio technique as a function of an external electric field. Based on a resonant multilevel model we also calculate the current against bias voltage. Both the charge accumulation and the current present similar behavior, like resonant type conduction and asymmetric charge–voltage and current–voltage curves. Our main results suggest that the present system could operate as a bidirectional molecular transistor. We spread this methodology to another molecular device however, with three-terminal. For this system, our main finding is a negative differential resistance (NDR) in the charge Q as a function of an external electric field. To explain this NDR effect we apply a phenomenological capacitive model based on a quite general system composed of many localized levels (that can be LUMOs of a molecule). The capacitance accounts for charging effects that can result in Coulomb blockade (CB) in the transport. We show that this CB effect gives rise to a NDR for a suitable set of phenomenological parameters, like tunneling rates and charging energies. The NDR profile obtained in both Ab initio and phenomenological methodologies are in close agreement.