Dissipation factor | EPFL Graph Search

In physics, the dissipation factor (DF) is a measure of loss-rate of energy of a mode of oscillation (mechanical, electrical, or electromechanical) in a dissipative system. It is the reciprocal of quality factor, which represents the "quality" or durability of oscillation. Explanation Electrical potential energy is dissipated in all dielectric materials, usually in the form of heat. In a capacitor made of a dielectric placed between conductors, the typical lumped element model includes a lossless ideal capacitor in series with a resistor termed the equivalent series resistance (ESR) as shown below. The ESR represents losses in the capacitor. In a good capacitor the ESR is very small, and in a poor capacitor the ESR is large. However, ESR is sometimes a minimum value to be required. Note that the ESR is not simply the resistance that would be measured across a capacitor by an ohmmeter. The ESR is a derived quantity with physical origins in both the dielectric's conductio

Reducing uncertainties in energy dissipation measurements in atomic force spectroscopy of molecular networks and cell-adhesion studies

Soma Biswas, Blake William Erickson, Georg Fantner, Samuel Mendes Leitão, Quentin Antoine Marie Theillaud

Atomic force microscope (AFM) based single molecule force spectroscopy (SMFS) is a valuable tool in biophysics to investigate the ligand-receptor interactions, cell adhesion and cell mechanics. However, the force spectroscopy data analysis needs to be done carefully to extract the required quantitative parameters correctly. Especially the large number of molecules, commonly involved in complex networks formation; leads to very complicated force spectroscopy curves. One therefore, generally characterizes the total dissipated energy over a whole pulling cycle, as it is difficult to decompose the complex force curves into individual single molecule events. However, calculating the energy dissipation directly from the transformed force spectroscopy curves can lead to a significant overestimation of the dissipated energy during a pulling experiment. The over-estimation of dissipated energy arises from the finite stiffness of the cantilever used for AFM based SMFS. Although this error can be significant, it is generally not compensated for. This can lead to significant misinterpretation of the energy dissipation (up to the order of 30%). In this paper, we show how in complex SMFS the excess dissipated energy caused by the stiffness of the cantilever can be identified and corrected using a high throughput algorithm. This algorithm is then applied to experimental results from molecular networks and cell-adhesion measurements to quantify the improvement in the estimation of the total energy dissipation.

2018

Ultra-coherent nano-mechanical resonators for quantum optomechanics at room temperature

Amir Hossein Ghadimi

Mechanical oscillators are among the most important scientific tools in the modern physics. From the pioneering experiments in 18th by founding fathers of modern physics such as Newton, Hooke and Cavendish to the ground braking experiments in the 21th century where the merge of two massive black holes 1.3 billion light-year away detected on earth by a gravitational wave detectors, the high Q mechanical oscillators were at the core of many monumental experiments in physics. Their ability to couple to many different physical quantities such as mass, charge, acceleration, electro-magnetic forces and optical fields makes them an ideal candidate for sensing applications. In addition, their intrinsically low dissipation rates (¿m) results in reduced coupling to the thermal bath. Since the invention of micro/nano-technology in the second half of the 20th century and ability to control the dimensions at micro and nano-scales, new horizon was opened up for mirco/nanomechanical oscillators. Miniaturization of the mechanical oscillators made them small and stiff enough to be used in our handheld electronics where dozens of mechanical sensors such as accelerometers and gyroscopes are used in our laptops and smartphones everyday. Besides these technological advancements, since the beginning of 21th century, a new opportunity for mechanical oscillators emerged: the idea of ¿putting mechanics into quantum mechanics¿ and observing the quantum effects of these massive classical oscillators. Aside from the numerous technical challenges for achieving this goal, two fundamental obstacles has to solved: I) Even the smallest nano-mechanical oscillators still consist of billions of atoms and molecules and are orders of magnitude more massive that the traditional ¿quantum objects¿ such as atoms and molecules. Larger mass results in smaller zero point motion¿the length scale where quantum effects are visible¿which means in order to ¿see¿ these quantum effects, we have to detect smaller displacement than ever before. II) The second challenge is the low frequency of the mechanical oscillators which makes their thermal Brownian energy, orders of magnitude larger than the quantum ground state of the oscillator¿the energy scale where the quantum effects are visible¿as n_th = kBT/h¿>>1 even for a ¿/2¿ ~ 1GHz oscillator at room temperature. Both of these obstacles, can be seen as the competition between few fundamental rates: thermal decoherence and measurement rate/mechanical frequency. Thermal decoherence is the rate at which the mechanical oscillator exchange phonons ¿ quanta of mechanical energy (h¿)¿ with its thermal environment and is given by ¿decoherence = ¯ n_th*¿m. The first obstacle translates to having the measurement rate being faster than the decoherence rate of the mechanical oscillator, ¿measurement>¿decoherence. This means in order to see the quantum coherent motion of the mechanical oscillator, we have to ¿look¿ at it before it has time to exchange random thermal energy with its environment. In other words, the life time of the quantum states of macroscopic objects are limited by their thermal decoherence rate and we have to interact with the oscillator in this short lifetime. The second obstacle on the other hand, reduces to having the mechanical frequency larger than its thermal decoherence rate, ¿m >¿decoherence. Over the past 15 years, the field of cavity opto-mechanics was very successful in improving the measurement schemes and designing ...

EPFL2018

Matrix-product-operator approach to the nonequilibrium steady state of driven-dissipative quantum arrays

Hugo Pierre Alexandre Flayac, Eduardo Carlo Mascarenhas Moraes, Vincenzo Savona

We develop a numerical procedure to efficiently model the nonequilibrium steady state of one-dimensional arrays of open quantum systems based on a matrix-product operator ansatz for the density matrix. The procedure searches for the null eigenvalue of the Liouvillian superoperator by sweeping along the system while carrying out a partial diagonalization of the single-site stationary problem. It bears full analogy to the density-matrix renormalization-group approach to the ground state of isolated systems, and its numerical complexity scales as a power law with the bond dimension. The method brings considerable advantage when compared to the integration of the time-dependent problem via Trotter decomposition, as it can address arbitrarily long-ranged couplings. Additionally, it ensures numerical stability in the case of weakly dissipative systems thanks to a slow tuning of the dissipation rates along the sweeps. We have tested the method on a driven-dissipative spin chain, under various assumptions for the Hamiltonian, drive, and dissipation parameters, and compared the results to those obtained both by Trotter dynamics and Monte Carlo wave function methods. Accurate and numerically stable convergence was always achieved when applying the method to systems with a gapped Liouvillian and a nondegenerate steady state.

American Physical Society2015

Ultra-coherent nano-mechanical resonators for quantum optomechanics at room temperature

Amir Hossein Ghadimi

EPFL2018