Faculty Bibliography

We address anomalous transport phenomena in arrays of semiconductor nanocrystals (quantum dots): Transient power-law decay of current as a response to a step in large bias voltage applied across the array, as well as memory effects observed after successive applications of the bias voltage. A novel phenomenological model of transport in such systems is proposed, capable of rationalizing both anomalous transport and memory. The model describes electron transport by a stationary Levy process of transmission events and therefore requires no time dependence of system properties. The long tail in the waiting time distribution gives rise to a nonstationary response in the presence of a voltage pulse. Noise measurements agree well with the predicted non-Poissonian fluctuations in current. We briefly discuss possible microscopic mechanisms that could cause the anomalous statistics in transmission.

Transverse NMR relaxation in a macroscopic sample is shown to be extremely sensitive to the structure of mesoscopic magnetic susceptibility variations. Such a sensitivity is proposed as a novel kind of contrast in the NMR measurements. For suspensions of arbitrary-shaped paramagnetic objects, the transverse relaxation is found in the case of a small dephasing effect of an individual object. Strong relaxation rate dependence on the objects' shape agrees with experiments on whole blood. Demonstrated structure sensitivity is a generic effect that arises in NMR relaxation in porous media, biological systems, as well as in kinetics of diffusion limited reactions

The coupling of a semimetallic carbon nanotube to a surface acoustic wave (SAW) is proposed as a vehicle to realize quantized adiabatic charge transport. We demonstrate that electron backscattering from a periodic SAW potential can be used to induce a miniband spectrum at energies near the Fermi level. Within the framework of Luttinger liquid theory, electron interaction is shown to enhance minigaps and thereby improve current quantization.