We have examined the interfacial thermal conductance GK of single and multilayer graphene samples prepared on fused SiO2 substrates by mechanical exfoliation of graphite. By using an ultrafast optical pump pulse and monitoring the transient reflectivity on the picosecond time scale, we obtained an average value of GK of GK = 5000 W/ cm2 K for the graphene/ SiO2 interface at room temperature. We observed significant variation in GK between individual samples, but found no systematic dependence on the thickness of the graphene layers. © 2010 American Institute of Physics.

We present a systematic ab initio study of antiferrodistortive (AFD) order in Ruddlesden-Popper (RP) phases of strontium titanate, Sr1+n Ti n O3n+1, as a function of both compressive epitaxial strain and phase number n. We find all RP phases to exhibit AFD order under a significant range of strains, recovering the AFD order of bulk SrTiO3 as ∼1/n2. A Ginzburg-Landau Hamiltonian including interoctahedral interactions reproduces our ab initio results well, opening a pathway to understanding other nanostructured perovskite systems. © 2010 The American Physical Society.

We study lattice models of charged particles in uniform magnetic fields. We show how longer range hopping can be engineered to produce a massively degenerate manifold of single-particle ground states with wave functions identical to those making up the lowest Landau level of continuum electrons in a magnetic field. We find that in the presence of local interactions, and at the appropriate filling factors, Laughlin's fractional quantum Hall wave function is an exact many-body ground state of our lattice model.

The problem of packing a system of particles as densely as possible is foundational in the field of discrete geometry and is a powerful model in the material and biological sciences. As packing problems retreat from the reach of solution by analytic constructions, the importance of an efficient numerical method for conducting de novo (from-scratch) searches for dense packings becomes crucial. In this paper, we use the divide and concur framework to develop a general search method for the solution of periodic constraint problems, and we apply it to the discovery of dense periodic packings.

Ever since its discovery, the electron spin has only been measured or manipulated through the application of an electromagnetic force acting on the associated magnetic moment. In this work, we propose a spin Aharonov-Bohm effect in which the electron spin is controlled by a magnetic flux while no electromagnetic field is acting on the electron.

The problem of optimizing antenna locations in a radio telescope with a large number of antennas is addressed. An algorithm is developed that first optimizes the probability density function of the antenna positions and this distribution is subsequently sampled. This approach avoids the large number of variables with many antennas. The density function is optimized subject to terrain constraints and the distribution of visibility samples. The optimization is solved by mapping the problem to a phase retrieval problem which is solved using an iterative projection algorithm. © 2010 IEEE.

In colloidal crystals of spheres, dislocation motion is unrestricted. On the other hand, recent studies of relaxation in crystals of colloidal dimer particles have demonstrated that the dislocation dynamics in such crystals are reminiscent of glassy systems. The observed glassy dynamics arise as a result of dislocation cages formed by certain dimer orientations. In the current study, we use experiments and simulations to investigate the transition that arises when a pure sphere crystal is doped with an increasing concentration of dimers.

An effective spin-orbit coupling can be generated in a cold atom system by engineering atom-light interactions. In this Letter we study spin-1/2 and spin-1 Bose-Einstein condensates with Rashba spin-orbit coupling, and find that the condensate wave function will develop nontrivial structures. From numerical simulation we have identified two different phases. In one phase the ground state is a single plane wave, and often we find the system splits into domains and an array of vortices plays the role of a domain wall. In this phase, time-reversal symmetry is broken.