Continuing miniaturization of electronic devices, together with the quickly growing number of nanotechnological applications, demands a profound understanding of the underlying physics. Most of the fundamental problems of modern condensed matter physics involve various aspects of quantum transport and fluctuation phenomena at the nanoscale. In nanostructures, electrons are usually confined to a limited volume and interact with each other and lattice ions, simultaneously suffering multiple scattering events on impurities, barriers, surface imperfections, and other defects. Electron interaction with other degrees of freedom generally yields two major consequences, quantum dissipation and quantum decoherence. In other words, electrons can lose their energy and ability for quantum interference even at very low temperatures. These two different, but related, processes are at the heart of all quantum phenomena discussed in this book.This book presents copious details to facilitate the understanding of the basic physics behind a result and the learning to technically reproduce the result without delving into extra literature. The book subtly balances the description of theoretical methods and techniques and the display of the rich landscape of the physical phenomena that can be accessed by these methods. It is useful for a broad readership ranging from master's and PhD students to postdocs and senior researchers.

The materials of The International Scientific – Practical Conference is presented below.

The Conference reflects the modern state of innovation in education, science, industry and social-economic sphere, from the standpoint of introducing new information technologies.

It is interesting for a wide range of researchers, teachers, graduate students and professionals in the field of innovation and information technologies.

In this paper, we formulate a field-theoretical model of dilute salt solutions of electrically neutral spherical colloid particles. Each colloid particle consists of a 'central' charge that is situated at the center and compensating peripheral charges (grafted to it) that are fixed or fluctuating relative to the central charge. In the framework of the random phase approximation, we obtain a general expression for electrostatic free energy of solution and analyze it for different limiting cases. In the limit of infinite number of peripheral charges, when they can be modelled as a continual charged cloud, we obtain an asymptotic behavior of the electrostatic potential of a point-like test charge in a salt colloid solution at long distances, demonstrating the crossover from its monotonic decrease to damped oscillations with a certain wavelength. We show that the obtained crossover is determined by certain Fisher-Widom line. For the same limiting case, we obtain an analytical expression for the electrostatic free energy of a salt-free solution. In the case of nonzero salt concentration, we obtain analytical relations for the electrostatic free energy in two limiting regimes. Namely, when the ionic concentration is much higher than the colloid concentration and the effective size of charge cloud is much bigger than the screening lengths that are attributed to the salt ions and the central charges of colloid particles. The proposed theory could be useful for theoretical description of the phase behavior of salt solutions of metal-organic complexes and polymeric stars.

The swelling of a poly (methyl methacrylate) in supercritical carbon dioxide was studied by means of full atomistic classical molecular dynamics simulation. In order to characterize the polymer swelling, we calculated various properties related to the density, structure, and dynamics of polymer chains as a function of the simulation time, temperature, and pressure. In addition, we compared the properties of the macromolecular chains in supercritical CO2 with the properties of the corresponding bulk system at the same temperature and atmospheric pressure. It was shown that diffusion of CO2 molecules into the polymer led to a significant increase in the chain mobility and distances between them. Analysis of diffusion coefficients of CO2 molecules inside and outside the poly(methyl methacrylate) sample has shown that carbon dioxide actively interacts with the functional groups of poly (methyl methacrylate). Joint analysis of the radial distribution functions obtained from classical molecular dynamics and of the averaging interatomic distances from Car-Parrinello molecular dynamics allows us to make a conclusion about the possibility of formation of weak hydrogen bonds between the carbon dioxide oxygen atom and the hydrogen atoms of the polymer methyl groups.

We present a detailed theoretical description of quantum coherent electron transport in voltage-biased crosslike Andreev interferometers.Making use of the charge conjugation symmetry encoded in the quasiclassical formalism, we elucidate a crucial role played by geometric and electron-hole asymmetries in these structures. We argue that a nonvanishing Aharonov-Bohm-like contribution to the current IS flowing in the superconducting contour may develop only in geometrically asymmetric interferometers making their behavior qualitatively different from that of symmetric devices. The current I_N in the normal contour—along with I_S—is found to be sensitive to phase-coherent effects thereby also acquiring a 2π-periodic dependence on the Josephson phase. In asymmetric structures this current develops an odd-in-phase contribution originating from electron-hole asymmetry. We demonstrate that both phase-dependent currents I_S and I_N can be controlled and manipulated by tuning the applied voltage, temperature, and system topology, thus rendering Andreev interferometers particularly important for future applications in modern electronics.

The quantum behavior of superconducting nanowires may essentially depend on the employed experimental setup. Here we investigate a setup that enables passing equilibrium supercurrent across an arbitrary segment of the wire without restricting fluctuations of its superconducting phase. The low temperature physics of the system is determined by a combined effect of collective soundlike plasma excitations and quantum phase slips. At T=0 the wire exhibits two quantum phase transitions, both being controlled by the dimensionless wire impedance g. While thicker wires with g>16 stay superconducting, in the thinnest wires with g<2 the supercurrent is totally destroyed by quantum fluctuations. The intermediate phase 2<g>16 is characterized by two different correlation lengths demonstrating superconductinglike behavior at shorter scales combined with vanishing superconducting response in the long scale limit.

In this manuscript, we study the electrically induced breathing of Metal-Organic Framework (MOF) within a 2D lattice model. The Helmholtz free energy of the MOF in electric eld consists of two parts: the electrostatic energy of the dielectric body in the external electric eld and elastic energy of the framework. The rst contribution is calculated from the rst principles of statistical mechanics with an account of MOF symmetry. By minimizing the obtained free energy and solving the resulting system of equations, we obtain the local electric eld and the parameter of the unit cell (angle ). The paper also studies the cross-section area of the unit cell and the polarization as functions of the external electric eld. We obtain the hysteresis in the region of the structural transition of the framework. Our results are in qualitative agreement with the literature data of the molecular dynamics (MD) simulation of MIL-53(Cr).

We analyze a trade-o between thermal activation (TA) and quantum tunneling in the problem of supercurrent decay in superconducting junctions with highly transparent barriers. In such systems -- unlike in conventional tunnel junctions -- the supercurrent decay is essentially influenced by low energy Andreev levels forming an intrinsic quantum dissipative environment for the Josephson particle. We evaluate the temperature dependent supercurrent decay rate  and elucidate a variety of di erent regimes for such a decay. We demonstrate that no classical-to-quantum crossover exists in the limit of fully transparent barriers, in which case quantum tunneling always prevails over TA.

Proximity induced quantum coherence of electrons in multi-terminal voltage-driven hybrid normalsuperconducting nanostructures may result in a non-trivial interplay between topology-dependent Josephson and Aharonov-Bohm effects. We elucidate a trade-off between stimulation of the voltagedependent Josephson current due to non-equilibrium effects and quantum dephasing of quasiparticles causing reduction of both Josephson and Aharonov-Bohm currents. We also predict phase-shifted quantum coherent oscillations of the induced electrostatic potential as a function of the externally applied magnetic flux. Our results may be employed for engineering superconducting nanocircuits with controlled quantum properties.

How is a water-soluble globular protein able to spontaneously cross a cellular membrane? It is commonly accepted that it undergoes significant structural rearrangements on the lipid-water interface, thus acquiring membrane binding and penetration ability. In this study molecular dynamics (MD) simulations have been used to explore large-scale conformational changes of the globular viscumin A chain in a complex environment – comprising urea and chloroform/methanol (CHCl3/MeOH) mixture. Being well-packed in aqueous solution, viscumin A undergoes global structural rearrangements in both organic media. In urea, the protein is “swelling” and gradually loses its long-distance contacts, thus resembling the “molten globule” state. In CHCl3/MeOH, viscumin A is in effect turned “inside out”. This is accompanied with strengthening of the secondary structure and surface exposure of hydrophobic epitopes originally buried inside the globule. Resulting solvent-adapted models were further subjected to Monte Carlo simulations with an implicit hydrophobic slab membrane. In contrast to only a few point surface contacts in water and two short regions with weak protein-lipid interactions in urea, MD-derived structures in CHCl3/MeOH reveal multiple determinants of membrane interaction. Consequently it is now possible to  propose a specific pathway for the structural adaptation of viscumin A with respect to the cell membrane – a probable first step of its translocation into cytoplasmic targets.

The use of improved fabrication technology, highly disordered NbN thin films, and intertwined section topology makes it possible to create high-performance photon-number-resolving superconducting single-photon detectors (PNR SSPDs) that are comparable to conventional single-element SSPDs at the telecom range. The developed four-section PNR SSPD has simultaneously an 86±3%86±3% system detection efficiency, 35 cps dark count rate, ∼2  ns∼2  ns dead time, and maximum 90 ps jitter. An investigation of the PNR SSPD’s detection efficiency for multiphoton events shows good uniformity across sections. As a result, such a PNR SSPD is a good candidate for retrieving the photon statistics for light sources and quantum key distribution systems.