We investigate the ultrafast dynamics of carriers in a silicon nanostructure by performing spectrally resolved femtosecond spectroscopy measurements with a supercontinuum probe. The nanostructure consists of a 158-nm-thick crystalline Si layer on top of which a SiO2 passivation layer leads to a very high quality of the Si surface. In addition, a dielectric function approach, including contribut...

In this study, we present a comprehensive investigation of graphene's optical and conductive properties using confocal Raman and a Drude model. A comparative analysis between experimental findings and theoretical predictions of the material's changes and improvements as it transitioned from three-dimensional graphite is also presented and discussed. Besides spectral recording by Raman, which re...

We investigate the optical conductivity of a Hubbard ring in presence of an impurity by means of exact diagonalization using the Lanczos algorithm. We concentrate thereby on the first excited, open shell state, i.e. on twisted boundary conditions. In the metallic phase a substantial part of the spectral weight lies in the Drude peak, σ(ω) = Dcδ(ω)+σreg . In the non-interacting system, the Drude...

Topological insulators are electronic materials with an insulating bulk and conducting surface. However, due to free carriers in the bulk, the properties of the metallic surface are difficult to detect and characterize in most topological insulator materials. Recently, a new topological insulator Bi₁.₅Sb₀.₅Te₁.₇Se₁.₃ (BSTS) was found, showing high bulk resistivities of 1-10 Ω.cm and greater con...

We investigate the role of size quantization in the vacuum force between metallic films of nanometric thickness. The force is calculated by the Lifshitz formula with the film dielectric tensor derived from the one-electron energies and wavefunctions under the assumption of a constant potential inside the film and a uniform distribution of the positive ion charge. The results show that quantizat...

Should one expect injected charge carrier velocities to saturate as the applied electric field is increased simply because of the nonparabolicity of bands? Does the apparent saturation observed in recent experiments in hydrocarbon crystals signify, as supposed in some current interpretations of the data, that the carrier motion is coherent or bandlike and that the disappearance of the saturatio...

We have analysed available optical data for Au in the mid-infrared range which is important for a precise prediction of the Casimir force. Significant variation of the data demonstrates genuine sample dependence of the dielectric function. We demonstrate that the Casimir force is largely determined by the material properties in the low frequency domain and argue that therefore the precise value...

In view of the current discussion on the subject, an effort is made to show very accurately both analytically and numerically how the Drude dispersion model gives consistent results for the Casimir free energy at low temperatures. Specifically, for the free energy near T=0 we find the leading term proportional to T2 and the next-to-leading term proportional to T(5/2). These terms give rise to z...

We study the electrical response of a wide class of strange metal phases without quasiparticles at finite temperature and charge density, with explicitly broken translational symmetry, using holography. The low frequency electrical conductivity exhibits a Drude peak, so long as momentum relaxation is slow. The relaxation time and the direct current conductivity are exactly equal to what is comp...

We study the 1D extended Hubbard model with a weak repulsive short-range interaction in the non-half-filled band case, using non-perturbative Renormalization Group methods and Ward Identities. At the critical temperature, T = 0, the response functions have anomalous power-law decay with multiplicative logarithmic corrections. The critical exponents, the susceptibility and the Drude weight verif...