Non-Gaussian effects in 1/f noise in small silicon-on-sapphire resistors

Emergent 1/f Noise in Ensembles of Random Telegraph Noise Oscillators

The emergence of 1/f noise from an aggregate of 1/f^{2} noise signals in magnetic nanodots undergoing random telegraph oscillations in their magnetization is reported. This emergence is found to occur with as few as two random telegraph noise (RTN) oscillators producing 1/f noise across two decades of frequency bandwidth, and with fewer than ten such oscillators producing 1/f noise across over four decades. The RTN fluctuations observed are as small as one part in 10 000 compared to dc voltage signals but still generate easily observable 1/f noise at up to 10^{5}  Hz. These observations may explain the historic difficulty in identifying RTN oscillator sources of 1/f noise.

Structural instability and phase co-existence driven non-Gaussian resistance fluctuations in metal nanowires at low temperatures

We report a detailed experimental study of the resistance fluctuations measured at low temperatures in high quality metal nanowires ranging in diameter from 15-200 nm. The wires exhibit co-existing face-centered-cubic and 4H hcp phases of varying degrees as determined from the x-ray diffraction data. We observe the appearance of a large non-Gaussian noise for nanowires of diameter smaller than 50 nm over a certain temperature range around ≈30 K. The diameter range ∼30 nm, where the noise has maxima coincides with the maximum volume fraction of the co-existing 4H hcp phase thus establishing a strong link between the fluctuation and the phase co-existence. The resistance fluctuation in the same temperature range also shows a deviation of [Formula: see text] behavior at low frequency with appearance of single frequency Lorentzian type contribution in the spectral power density. The fluctuations are thermally activated with an activation energy [Formula: see text] meV, which is of same order as the activation energy of creation of stacking fault in FCC metals that leads to the co-existing crystallographic phases. Combining the results of crystallographic studies of the nanowires and analysis of the resistance fluctuations we could establish the correlation between the appearance of the large resistance noise and the onset of phase co-existence in these nanowires.

Nature of low-frequency noise in homogeneous semiconductors

This report deals with a 1/f noise in homogeneous classical semiconductor samples on the base of silicon. We perform detail calculations of resistance fluctuations of the silicon sample due to both a) the charge carrier number changes due to their capture–emission processes, and b) due to screening effect of those negative charged centers, and show that proportionality of noise level to square mobility appears as a presentation parameter, but not due to mobility fluctuations. The obtained calculation results explain well the observed experimental results of 1/f noise in Si, Ge, GaAs and exclude the mobility fluctuations as the nature of 1/f noise in these materials and their devices. It is also shown how from the experimental 1/f noise results to find the effective number of defects responsible for this noise in the measured frequency range.

Correlated conductance fluctuations close to the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless transition in ultrathin NbN films

We probe the presence of long-range correlations in phase fluctuations by analyzing the higher-order spectrum of resistance fluctuations in ultrathin NbN superconducting films. The non-Gaussian component of resistance fluctuations is found to be sensitive to film thickness close to the transition, which allows us to distinguish between mean field and Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless (BKT) type superconducting transitions. The extent of non-Gaussianity was found to be bounded by the BKT and mean field transition temperatures and depends strongly on the roughness and structural inhomogeneity of the superconducting films. Our experiment outlines a novel fluctuation-based kinetic probe in detecting the nature of superconductivity in disordered low-dimensional materials.

Criticality of tuning in athermal phase transitions

We experimentally address the importance of tuning in athermal phase transitions, which are triggered only by a slowly varying external field acting as tuning parameter. Using higher order statistics of fluctuations, evidence consistent with the existence a singular critical instability is detected, in spite of an apparent universal self-similar kinetics over a broad range of driving force. The results as well as the experimental technique are likely to be of significance to many slowly driven nonequilibrium systems from geophysics to material science which display avalanche dynamics.

Non-Gaussian noise in quantum spin glasses and interacting two-level systems

We study a general model for non-Gaussian 1/f noise based on an infinite range quantum Ising spin system in the paramagnetic state, or, equivalently, interacting two-level classical fluctuators. We identify a dilatation interaction term in the dynamics which survives the thermodynamic limit and circumvents the central limit theorem to produce non-Gaussian noise even when the equilibrium distribution is that of noninteracting spins. The resulting second spectrum ("noise of the noise") itself has a universal 1/f form which we analyze within a dynamical mean-field approximation.

Density-noise power fluctuations in vibrated granular media

The noise power spectra of the fluctuations in density of a vibrated column of granular material are found to be time dependent. Spectral analysis of these noise power fluctuations shows nontrivial frequency dependences. The noise powers at different frequencies are also found to fluctuate in a partially correlated way. In most instances, the slow variations of the noise are strongly correlated over a broad range of frequencies. These results indicate that highly cooperative interactions exist between fluctuators. In contrast, effects of such strongly coupled fluctuators are absent in the one-dimensional parking-lot-model, one of the simplest systems used to provide a model for recent granular compaction experiments.