Report of the Scientific activities for thee period 2016-17

Highlights 2017 (see for details www.SPIN.CNR.it) Superconductivity Physical Review - R. Cristiano Physical Review - Z. J. Ying, M. Cuoco Physical Review Letters - A. Martinelli, P. Manfrinetti, A. Provino, F. Caglieris, G. Lamura, M. Putti Scientific Reports - C. Nappi, C. Camerlingo, E. Bellingeri, V. Braccini, C. Ferdeghini, E. Sarnelli Supercond. Sci. Technol. - I. Pallecchi, A. Leveratto, V. Braccini, V. Zunino, A. Malagoli Physical Review Materials - G. ...

Nell'ambito di uno studio realizzato in collaborazione tra due diversi istituti del CNR, ricercatori hanno sviluppato nuovi nanomateriali in oro con straordinarie capacità di trasmissione. La ricerca è stata pubblicata in ACS Nano (Impact Factor 13.942), una delle riviste più importanti e prestigiose al mondo nel settore delle nanotecnologie. La ricerca è stata condotta dal team CNR-Nanotec coordinato da Antonio De Luca in collaborazione con il team dell'ISASI-CNR coordinato da Lucia Petti ...

Graphene nanoribbons (GNRs) - strips of graphene few tens of nanometers wide - are good candidates for next-generation graphene based electronics. At the Istituto Nanoscienze of CNR (CnrNano) a research focus is dedicated to the study of structural, electronic, optical and vibrational properties of graphene nanoribbons with theoretical approaches that are developed in collaboration with leading experimental research groups. One of the recent results achieved in the field, is the first ...

SPIKY (Kreuz et al., 2015) is a graphical user interface written in Matlab which facilitates the analysis of electrophysiological data such as the EEG and neuronal spike trains (sequences of electrical action potentials emitted by neurons). In addition to the standard Peri-Stimulus Time Histogram (PSTH) it contains several time-resolved measures of spike train synchrony which were all developed in our lab: ISI-distance, SPIKE-distance, and SPIKE synchronization. For a given data set SPIKY ...

Quantum electronics is now a mature field of physics in the sense that its basis is well understood, and in that it is a natural playground to develop quantum technology. Despite this tremendous success in both the understanding and harnessing of charge transport, very little is known regarding the quantum properties of heat transport. The COHERENT CALORITRONICS group at CnrNano activity aims at strengthening the understanding of phase-coherent heat transport in mesoscopic superconducting ...

Diffusion essentially refers to a motion which leads to the spreading of some quantity: density of particles, energy, and so on. It owes its universality to the central limit theorem, according to which che combination of independent, random events has general features not related to the details of the single events. For example, in a standard, diffusive motion the spreading quantity does not vary proportionally to the time, but its variation may double only if time quadruples! If however the ...

Highlights 2016 (see for details www.SPIN.CNR.it) Superconductivity: Physical Review - R. Citro, P. Marra, A. Braggio. Carbon - R. Fittipaldi, M. Salvato, C. Cirillo, A. Vecchione, C. Attanasio. Physical Review - A. Leo, P. Marra, G. Grimaldi, R. Citro, S. Kawale, E. Bellingeri, C. Ferdeghini, S. Pace, A. Nigro. Scientific Reports - S. Pagano, G. Carapella, P. Sabatino, C. Barone. Topical Review in Superconductor Science and Technology - I. Pallecchi, F. Caglieris, M. ...

More than 30 years ago, Glauber theorized the existence of quantum systems to explain the link between the reversible microscopic and irreversible macroscopic scale. The formulation of such model is based on the so-called "rigged Hilbert space" and include irreversibility as a fundamental principle through the introduction of an inverted harmonic oscillator describing quantum amplifier. The standard quantum mechanics does not forbid time-travel. However, according to the Glauber theory a quantum ...

Magnetic recording is presently the leading technology for mass data storage. Its dominant role has been reinforced by the success of cloud computing, which requires huge amounts of data to be stored and managed on a multitude of servers. Nonetheless, the hard-disk storage industry is presently at a crossroad as the current magnetic recording technologies are unable to achieve storage densities beyond 1Tbit/in2. Pushing the recording density to the terabit regime requires new storage materials, ...

Cnr-Nano researchers developed a device that allow heat to flow preferentially in one direction, providing the homologue of an electrical diode. In a paper published in Nature Nanotechnology, researchers show the performances achieved in a hybrid device combining normal metals tunnel-coupled to superconductors, providing the realization of a thermal diode for electronic heat current that could be successfully implemented in true low-temperature solid-state thermal circuits. The results are ...

Era già noto da tempo che la cozza fosse fonte preziosa di principi antiossidanti, proteine nobili, vitamine e sali minerali, potente antinfiammatorio naturale e cibo afrodisiaco, ed era già altrettanto noto che la sua 'bava' fosse una colla dotata di superpoteri. Nessuno però si era spinto fino ad oggi a studiare il comportamento delle sue proteine per misurare la portata di questa 'appiccicosità'. L'insolita ricerca, pubblicata su Nature Communication, è stata condotta dai ricercatori ...

The effect of graphene phonons and electrons on the spin dynamics of molecules grafted on graphene was investigated in a paper published in Nature Materials (C.Cervetti, A.Rettori, M.G.Pini, A.Cornia, A.Repollés, F.Luis, M.Dressel, S.Rauschenbach, M.Burghard, and L.Bogani). Dirac electrons introduce dominant quantum-relaxation channels and allow reaching a quantum tunneling regime, that was predicted 20 years ago by the French physicist Jacques Villain. A novel theoretical background is ...

A paper on the collective behaviour of bird flocks, in which a spin wave model is brought to the continuous limit as in fluid elements of a large hydrodynamic system, has been published in Physical Review Letters and it has been the subject of a synopsis in the APS magazine Physics. Both spin and density waves can propagate throughout flocks, but in some cases their contributions are quickly damped. Andrea Cavagna's group at ISC has shown that only spin waves propagate in medium-to-small ...

Esistono alcuni gamberetti che riescono a vedere la luce con una dimensione in più rispetto a noi per individuare meglio il quasi invisibile plancton. Infatti la luce, oltre al colore dato dalla propria energia, ha un'altra proprietà di cui normalmente non è facile rendersi conto: la polarizzazione, ossia la direzione e il modo in cui il campo elettromagnetico oscilla nel propagarsi alla velocità della luce. Uno studio pubblicato sulla rivista 'Light Science & Applications' propone e ...

The perfect coherent absorption, observed for the first time 3 years ago in a silicon slab, has attracted a great interest in the scientific community because from a theoretical point of view it is the reverse of the laser: in fact it gives rise to a device that absorbs the light completely, contrary to the laser which generates it. In general the absorption of light by a material depends on its dielectric properties and increases in proportion to its thickness. However, when not one beam but ...

Spin control of single electrons is of great interest for future applications in electronics and spintronics. However, to observe these phenomena at room temperature it is necessary to confine the electrons to conductive islands with reduced size, almost atomic. Although this type of confinement is feasible today, the technological difficulty is to control independently the different conductive islands separated by a few nanometers. A goal almost prohibitive. Recently a group of researchers from ...

Conventional techniques of Terahertz spectroscopy (which use the range of electromagnetic radiation between infrared and microwave) reach a spatial resolution that, depending on the radiation used, cannot go beyond an intrinsic limit, the so-called diffraction limit, which is between 3 and 3000 microns. This limitation thus only allows the investigation of ensembles, in which the relevant physical parameters are estimated as the mean value of the size, orientation, shape, and density of ...

The focus of the Istitute of Nanoscence is on graphene with the ambitious of developing research activities that have the potential to bring this material and related nanostructures from a state of raw potential to a point where they can revolutionize multiple industries - from flexible, transparent electronics, to energy and high performance computing and spintronics. Our current efforts are on the growth of epitaxial graphene and its chemical functionalization for energy applications. Other ...

Nanobrain is part of the flagship project NanoMax and originates from the collaboration between four CNR Institutes: Nanoscienze (Nano), Neuroscienze (IN), Officina dei Materiali (IOM) and Istituto Nazionale di Ottica (INO). This project promotes the collaboration between the neuroscience and the nanofabrication technologies present in CNR. At the basis of this project is the consideration that the brain is biochemically isolated from the body by the Blood Brain Barrier (BBB): because of this ...

Flower-like silver nanoparticle microstructures are prepared by the reaction of silver nitrate and ascorbic acid in an acidic aqueous solution of a poly-naphthalene system. The three-dimensional flower-like structure has a purely hierarchic arrangement, wherein each petal is composed of bundles of silver particle chains, each enclosed in a polymer sheath. The ordering arises from strong adsorption of silver ions onto the polymer and by the interplay of the redox properties of nitric and ascorbic ...

Graphene, the two-dimensional form of carbon, after its recent experimental demonstration has been attracting a lot of interest not only in the physics community but also in the electronic industry, due to its extraordinary physical properties. At IMM an intensive research activity is going along considering both the theoretical and the experimental approach. Theoretical approaches are related to the development of multiscale models and tools for transport properties. The challenge of the ...

The Institute of Cybernetics" E Caianiello" has developed a digital holographic microscope for quantitative imaging of biostructures. A digital holographic microscope relies on the classical principle of holography except that the hologram is not recorded by a traditional film, but by means of a CCD array sensor camera, typically a sensor of 1024 x 1024 pixel of 5-10 micron size. Each pixel records the intensity of the resulting interference pattern. The hologram is recorded and digitized ...

Scopo di tale attività è lo sviluppo di dispositivi fotonici micro- e nano-strutturati in silicio da integrare in microsistemi-elettro-meccanici (MEMS), per consentire a questi di comunicare con l'esterno mediante canali ottici. L'attività è di notevolissimo interesse non solo in campo strettamente telecomunicazionistico o nell'ambito delle interconnessioni ottiche su chip per il superamento dei limiti legati all'utilizzo delle interconnessioni metalliche, ma soprattutto in tutte quelle ...

L'Istituto di Cibernetica ha progettato e realizzato gradiometri SQUID (Superconducting Quantum Interference Device) per microscopia magnetica a scansione. Tali dispositivi [1], basati sulla tecnologia del niobio, sono del tipo a gradiometro asimmetrico; hanno una micro bobina di pick-up integrata, con diametro interno di 5 micron, alla distanza di circa 50 mm dallo SQUID. Nel micro pick-up è anche possibile inviare una corrente in modo da poter applicare un campo magnetico al campione in ...

Nell'ambito del monitoraggio non invasivo, l'Unità di Napoli ha un'esperienza ormai consolidata nel settore della diagnostica ottica interferometrica. I metodi di caratterizzazione olografici, si candidano come ottimi strumenti di misura per differenti attività di monitoraggio. Tali tecniche non prevedono alcun contatto tra la strumentazione di test ed i campioni in esame e pertanto permettono di effettuare un'analisi strutturale non distruttiva dei sistemi monitorati. L'olografia consente di ...

Recentemente sono stati scoperti materiali con permittività colossale (fino a 10^6) come la perovskite CuCa3Ti4O12. E' in corso un dibattito scientifico molto profondo sulle origini di tale permittività (intrinseca o estrinseca). Questi materiali possono trovare applicazione in antenne integrate ed in condensatori ad elevatissima densità capacitiva, elementi passivi integrati che oggi occupano circa il 90% dell'area dei chip di potenza in telefonini o dispositivi wireless. La conferma di tali ...

L'Istituto di Cibernetica "E. Caianiello" nell'ambito del centro di competenza della Regione Campania sulla valorizzazione e conservazione dei Beni Culturali e Ambientali (INNOVA), ha acquisito e sviluppato un sistema prototipale di microscopia magnetica a scansione, Esso impiega un singolo sensore SQUID (Superconducting Quantum Interference Devices) operante in azoto liquido, caratterizzato da una sensibilità di circa 20 pT/Hz1/2 e una risoluzione spaziale di circa 50 ?m. Il sistema opera in ...

There is no other inorganic material that brings together such much intriguing features like porous silicon (PSi) for people working in the optical sensing field. Porous silicon was unexpectedly discovered in the late fifties when chemists attempted to electropolish silicon wafers with an electrolyte containing hydrofluoric acid to get better electrical contacts in the first integrated electronic circuit fabrications.1 The acid dissolution left a sponge-like nanocrystalline silicon structure on ...

La microscopia a scansione di sonda si è affermata come una delle tecniche più potenti per l'accesso diretto su scala nanometrica per la misura di proprietà chimico/fisiche e manipolazione diretta. L'attività dell'istituto si è affermata a livello internazionale per aver saputo implementare metodologie in grado di misurare proprietà elettroniche di materiali e dispositivi. Attualmente l'Istituto è un polo di riferimento internazionale per la misura di profili di portatori in nanostrutture ...