Local electronic structure and Fano interference in tunneling into a Kondo hole system.

Motivated by the recent success of local electron tunneling into heavy-fermion materials, we study the local electronic structure around a single Kondo hole in an Anderson lattice model and the Fano interference pattern relevant to STM experiments. Within the Gutzwiller method, we find that an intragap bound state exists in the heavy Fermi liquid regime. The energy position of the intragap bound state is dependent on the on-site potential scattering strength in the conduction and f-orbital channels. Within the same method, we derive a new dI/dV formulation, which includes explicitly the renormalization effect due to the f-electron correlation. It is found that the Fano interference gives asymmetric coherent peaks separated by the hybridization gap. The intragap peak structure has a lorenzian shape, and the corresponding dI/dV intensity depends on the energy location of the bound state.

Tunneling into clean heavy fermion compounds: origin of the Fano line shape.

Recently observed tunneling spectra on clean heavy-fermion compounds show a lattice periodic Fano line shape similar to what is observed in the case of tunneling to a Kondo ion adsorbed at the surface. We show that the translation symmetry of a clean surface in the case of weakly correlated metals leads to a tunneling spectrum which shows a hybridization gap but does not have a Fano line shape. By contrast, in a strongly correlated heavy-fermion metal the heavy quasiparticle states will be broadened by interaction effects. The hybridization gap is completely filled in this way, and an ideal Fano line shape of width ∼2TK results. In addition, we discuss the possible influence of the tunneling tip on the surface, in (i) leading to additional broadening of the Fano line and (ii) enhancing the hybridization locally, hence adding to the impurity type behavior. The latter effects depend on the tip-surface distance.

Fourier's law: insight from a simple derivation.

The onset of Fourier's law in a one-dimensional quantum system is addressed via a simple model of weakly coupled quantum systems in contact with thermal baths at their edges. Using analytical arguments we show that the crossover from the ballistic (invalid Fourier's law) to diffusive (valid Fourier's law) regimes is characterized by a thermal length scale, which is directly related to the profile of the local temperature. In the same vein, dephasing is shown to give rise to classical Fourier's law, similarly to the onset of Ohm's law in mesoscopic conductors.

Glow curve analysis of composite peak 5 in LiF:Mg,Ti (TLD-100) using optical bleaching, thermal annealing and computerised glow curve deconvolution.

The relative intensity of glow peak 5a in the composite glow peak 5 of LiF:Mg,Ti (TLD-100) is very weak following gamma irradiation, and has been estimated at approximately 0.1 of the intensity of peak 5. Typical glow curve analysis using computerised glow curve deconvolution with unconstrained variation of the peak shape parameters, yields values of the relative intensity of glow peak 5a varying from 0 to 15%. Due to the potential of peak 5a to fulfil the criteria of a quasi-tissue-equivalent nanodosemeter which estimates quality factor, considerable efforts have been invested in ancilliary techniques to improve the reliability of the estimation of the intensity of peak 5a. Optical bleaching and thermal annealing techniques were used to obtain single-peak glow curves consisting of peak 4 only and peak 5 only. A multi-stage CGCD protocol was then constructed using these peak shape parameters for peaks 4 and 5, which allows more accurate estimation of the relative intensity of peak 5a. Following 60Co irradiation of ten chips to a dose level of 1 Gy, the technique yields a relative intensity of 0.08 +/- 0.008 (1 SD).