Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat9010020
Authors: Giovanni Nunziante Alfonso Maiellaro Claudio Guarcello Roberta Citro
In this work, we study the topological phase transitions of a Kitaev chain generalized by the addition of nearest-neighbor Coulomb interaction. We show the presence of a robust topological phase as a function of the interaction strength and of the on-site energy with associated non-zero energy Majorana states localized at the chain edges. We provide an effective mean-field model that allows for the self-consistent computation of the mean value of the local particle number operator, and we also perform Density Matrix Renormalization Group numerical simulations based on a tensor network approach. We find that the two methods show a good agreement in reporting the phase transition between trivial and topological superconductivity. Temperature robustness within a physically relevant threshold has also been demonstrated. These findings shed light on an entire class of topological interacting one-dimensional systems in which the effects of residual Coulomb interactions play a relevant role.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat9010019
Authors: Simone Manti Fabrizio Napolitano Alberto Clozza Catalina Curceanu Gabriel Moskal Kristian Piscicchia Diana Sirghi Alessandro Scordo
Utilizing a dispersive crystal for X-ray Emission Spectroscopy (XES) significantly enhances the energy resolution when compared with spectroscopy performed with just silicon drift detectors. This high resolution is particularly valuable for studying metals, as it offers essential insights into their electronic structures and chemical environments. Conducting such experiments in the laboratory, as opposed to synchrotron light sources, presents challenges due to the reduced intensities of X-ray tubes and, consequently, low signal rates, with the effect of increasing the acquisition time. In this study, we demonstrate that XES spectra can be acquired within a few hours for a CuNiZn metallic sample alloy while still maintaining a good energy resolution and a large dynamic range. This is achieved with the VOXES spectrometer, developed at INFN National Laboratories of Frascati (LNF), along with a background reduction procedure that enhances the signal from emission lines under study. This study is a showcase for improving the efficiency of XES in tabletop setup experiments.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat9010018
Authors: Tuo Li Ran Li Zhipeng Chi Yuting Zhang Hui Yang
This study presents experimental investigations on the normal restitution coefficients of a titanium bead (Ti), zirconia bead (ZrO2), and amorphous zirconium alloy sphere (Amor). The research explores the influence of particle diameter and collision velocity on the normal restitution coefficient between two independent, identical spherical particles of different materials. The experimental findings demonstrate that increasing the particle diameter results in more effective plastic deformation, leading to higher energy losses and, subsequently, smaller coefficients of restitution. Similarly, higher particle velocities cause more energy dissipation during collisions, resulting in smaller restitution coefficients. Comparing particles of different materials, those with larger yield strengths exhibit more elastic behavior, experience less initial energy loss due to deformation, and reach the maximum restitution coefficient (elastic state) with fewer collisions. This finding suggests that material properties significantly influence the overall energy dissipation and elastic response in the particles. To validate the experimental results, existing models are compared and discussed. Furthermore, potential physical mechanisms responsible for the observed behavior are explored, providing valuable insights into the collision dynamics in spherical particle interactions. Overall, this study contributes to a better understanding of the factors affecting the normal restitution coefficient in particle collisions, enabling the design and optimization of particle systems for diverse applications in condensed matter and related fields.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat9010017
Authors: Mohammad Saleh N Alnassar
This paper uses numerical modeling to describe the design and comprehensive analysis of cost-effective MXene/n-InP Schottky barrier solar cells. The proposed design utilizes Ti3C2Tx thin film, a 2D solution-processible MXene material, as a Schottky transparent conductive electrode (TCE). The simulation results suggest that these devices can achieve power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) exceeding 20% in metal–semiconductor (MS) and metal–interlayer–semiconductor (MIS) structures. Combining the proposed structures with low-cost InP growth methods can reduce the gap between InP and other terrestrial market technologies. This is useful for specific applications that require lightweight and radiation-hard solar photovoltaics.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat9010016
Authors: Francesco Sgaramella Francesco Clozza Leonardo Abbene Francesco Artibani Massimiliano Bazzi Giacomo Borghi Mario Bragadireanu Antonino Buttacavoli Michael Cargnelli Marco Carminati Alberto Clozza Griseld Deda Raffaele Del Grande Luca De Paolis Kamil Dulski Carlo Fiorini Carlo Guaraldo Mihail Iliescu Masahiko Iwasaki Aleksander Khreptak Simone Manti Johann Marton Marco Miliucci Paweł Moskal Fabrizio Napolitano Szymon Niedźwiecki Hiroaki Ohnishi Kristian Piscicchia Fabio Principato Alessandro Scordo Michal Silarski Diana Sirghi Florin Sirghi Magdalena Skurzok Antonio Spallone Kairo Toho Marlene Tüchler Johann Zmeskal Catalina Curceanu
The aim of the SIDDHARTA-2 experiment is to perform the first measurement ever of the width and shift induced by the strong interaction to the 2p→1s energy transition of kaonic deuterium. This ambitious goal implies a challenging task due to the very low X-ray yield of kaonic deuterium, which is why an accurate and thorough characterization of the experimental apparatus is mandatory before starting the data-taking campaign. Helium-4 is an excellent candidate for this characterization since it exhibits a high yield in particular for the 3d→2p transition, roughly 100 times greater than that of the kaonic deuterium. The ultimate goal of the work reported in this paper is to study the performances of the full experimental setup in view of the kaonic deuterium measurement. This is carried out by measuring the values of the shift and the width for the 3d→2p energy transition of kaonic helium-4, induced by the strong interaction. The values obtained for these quantities, for a total integrated luminosity of ∼31/pb, are ε2p=2.0±1.2(stat)±1.5(syst)eV and Γ2p=1.9±5.7(stat)±0.7(syst)eV. The results, compared to the value of the shift measured by the SIDDHARTA experiment ε2p=0±6(stat)±2(syst)eV, show a net enhancement of the resolution of the apparatus, providing strong evidence of the potential to perform the challenging measurement of the kaonic deuterium.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat9010015
Authors: Er’el Granot
When a shutter, which differentiates between two adjacent particles’ reservoirs with a voltage gap, is lifted, a current emerges. In this paper, the temporal dynamics of this emerging current is analyzed. The main results are as follows: (A) the current’s prefactor in the short-time behavior is related to the long-time frequencies, by which the current converges to its equilibrium value (the conductance quantum unit 2e2/h). (B) In the short-time regime, the current is proportional to the square root of the time. (C) The maximum overshoot conductance is bounded by Gmax = ζe2/h, where ζ is a universal value which is very close to Euler’s number. (D) Most of these results are valid for a thin wire in 3D, even in the presence of electron–electron interactions.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat9010014
Authors: Giovanni Mirarchi Marco Grilli Götz Seibold Sergio Caprara
We discuss how the interaction of electrons with an overdamped optical phonon can give rise to a strange-metal behavior over extended temperature and frequency ranges. Although the mode has a finite frequency, an increasing damping shifts spectral weight to progressively lower energies so that despite the ultimate Fermi liquid character of the system at the lowest temperatures and frequencies, the transport and optical properties of the electron system mimic a marginal Fermi liquid behavior. Within this shrinking Fermi liquid scenario, we extensively investigate the electron self-energy in all frequency and temperature ranges, emphasizing similarities and differences with respect to the marginal Fermi liquid scenario.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat9010013
Authors: Saheli Sarkar
Hole-doped high-temperature copper oxide-based superconductors (cuprates) exhibit complex phase diagrams where electronic orders like a charge density wave (CDW) and superconductivity (SC) appear at low temperatures. The origins of these electronic orders are still open questions due to their complex interplay and correlated nature. These electronic orders can modify the phonons in the system, which has also been experimentally found in several cuprates as a softening in the phonon frequency at the CDW vector. Recent experiments have revealed that the softening in phonons in cuprates due to CDW shows intriguing behavior with increasing hole doping. Hole doping can also change the underlying Fermi surface. Therefore, it is an interesting question whether the doping-induced change in the Fermi surface can affect the softening of phonons, which in turn can reveal the nature of the electronic orders present in the system. In this work, we investigate this question by studying the softening of phonons in the presence of CDW and SC within a perturbative approach developed in an earlier work. We compare the results obtained within the working model to some experiments.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat9010012
Authors: Takeshi Egami
Liquids and gases are distinct in their extent of dynamic atomic correlations; in gases, atoms are almost uncorrelated, whereas they are strongly correlated in liquids. This distinction applies also to electronic systems. Fermi liquids are actually gas-like, whereas strongly correlated electrons are liquid-like. Doped Mott insulators share characteristics with supercooled liquids. Such distinctions have important implications for superconductivity. We discuss the nature of dynamic atomic correlations in liquids and a possible effect of strong electron correlations and Bose–Einstein condensation on the high-temperature superconductivity of the cuprates.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat9010011
Authors: Marco Miliucci Angela Volpe Sergio Fabiani Marco Feroci Luca Latronico Claudio Macculi Luigi Piro Matteo D’Andrea Flavio Gatti Simonetta Puccetti Paolo Soffitta Elisabetta Cavazzuti
The Italian Space Agency plays a key role in the fulfillment of space missions, contributing to the scientific, technological and economic progress in Italy. The agency accomplishes space experiments by collaborating with scientific and industrial entities, supporting them in the realization of new projects able to achieve, over the last two decades, unprecedented results and obtention of fundamental information on the birth and evolution of the universe. The paper describes a selection of X-ray technologies developed by the synergy between the Italian Space Agency and its principal collaborators which contributed to the main scientific results achieved over the years, together with the latest advances addressed to the next astrophysics missions.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat9010010
Authors: Danijel Djurek
In order to search for possible residual minor phases in the Y-Ba-Cu-O family, powdered mixtures of Y2O3 + BaCO3 + CuO and, independently, superconducting compound YBa2Cu3O7−x have been treated in evacuated cells and elevated temperatures. YBa2Cu3O7−x was reduced to YBa2Cu3O5 by use of the special home-designed Taconis–Knudsen vacuum device. Subsequent doping by oxygen converts produced insulator YBa2Cu3O5 to semiconductor or metal YBa2Cu3O5+x (0 < x < 0.3). In addition to YBa2Cu3O5, 0.05 volume percent of the minor delafossite phase Y2Cu2O4 was spotted in the powder mixture 1/2 Y2O3 + 2BaCO3 + 6Cu2O, heated up to 818 °C in an inert gas atmosphere. An attempt to prepare the insulating bulk delafossite samples was successful, and subsequent doping by oxygen produced novel metallic phases.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat9010009
Authors: Pieralberto Marchetti
We propose that one can explain the coexistence in the same range of doping and temperature of gapless Fermi arcs with the metal–insulator crossover of in-plane resistivity in strongly underdoped cuprates in terms of the FL* fractionalized Fermi liquid nature of these systems, and that such coexistence is not due simply to disorder effects in the resistivity. The particle excitations of this FL* system derived from variants of the t-J model are the gapless holon carrying charge with small Fermi momentum proportional to the doping, the gapful spinon carrying spin 1/2, and an emergent gauge field coupling them and the hole as a spinon–holon bound state, or more precisely resonance, due to gauge binding, with a Fermi surface respecting the topological Luttinger theorem. In our proposal, Fermi arcs are determined by the hole resonance, whereas the metal–insulator crossover is dominated by spinon–spinon (with subleading holon–holon) gauge interactions, and this dichotomy is able to explain their coexistence.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat9010008
Authors: Vyacheslav D. Neverov Alexander Kalashnikov Alexander E. Lukyanov Andrey V. Krasavin Mihail D. Croitoru Alexei Vagov
This work introduces an algorithm designed to solve the Bogoliubov–de Gennes equations of superconductivity theory. What sets this algorithm apart is its remarkable ability to precisely and consistently consider the impact of an external magnetic field, all within the microscopic approach. The computation scheme’s convergence is guaranteed by addressing the Biot–Savart equation for the field where the vector potential appears on both of its sides. To showcase the capabilities of this approach, we provide several key examples: the Abrikosov lattice, vortex core states, and the vortex structure in the intermediate mixed state of a superconductor. This method promises to offer valuable insights into the microscopic physics of intertype superconductivity.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat9010007
Authors: Diego Caso Aida Serrano Miriam Jaafar Pilar Prieto Akashdeep Kamra César González-Ruano Farkhad G. Aliev
Effective control of domain walls or magnetic textures in antiferromagnets promises to enable robust, fast, and nonvolatile memories. The lack of net magnetic moment in antiferromagnets implies the need for creative ways to achieve such a manipulation. We conducted a study to investigate changes in magnetic force microscopy (MFM) imaging and in the magnon-related mode in Raman spectroscopy of virgin NiO films under a microwave pump. After MFM and Raman studies were conducted, a combined action of broadband microwave (0.01–20 GHz, power scanned from −20 to 5 dBm) and magnetic field (up to 3 kOe) were applied to virgin epitaxial (111) NiO and (100) NiO films grown on (0001) Al2O3 and (100) MgO substrates, following which the MFM and Raman studies were repeated. We observed a suppression of the magnon-related Raman mode subsequent to the microwave exposure. Based on MFM imaging, this effect appeared to be caused by the suppression of large antiferromagnetic domain walls due to the possible excitation of antiferromagnetic spin oscillations localized within the antiferromagnetic domain walls.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat9010006
Authors: Vyacheslav D. Neverov Alexander E. Lukyanov Andrey V. Krasavin Alexei Vagov Mihail D. Croitoru
The pursuit of enhanced superconducting device performance has historically focused on minimizing disorder in materials. Recent research, however, challenges this conventional wisdom by exploring the unique characteristics of disordered materials. Following the studies, disorder is currently viewed as a design parameter that can be tuned. This shift in the paradigm has sparked an upsurge in research efforts, which demonstrates that disorder can significantly augment the superconductivity figures of merit. While almost all previous studies attended to the effects related to disorder strength, this article focuses on the impact of short-range disorder correlations that in real materials takes place, for example, due to lattice defects. The study shows that the degree of such correlations can strongly influence the superconducting characteristics.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat9010005
Authors: Eleni Konstantakopoulou Annalaura Casanova Municchia Loredana Luvidi Marco Ferretti
Handheld X-ray Fluorescence devices (HH-XRF) have given archaeologists and conservators the opportunity to study a wide range of materials encountered in their work with great accessibility and flexibility. The investigation of copper-based artefacts is a frequent application of these instruments in the field of cultural heritage as it gives direct and rapid quantitative results that can provide very important information about them, such as their fabrication technology. This paper discusses the comparison of quantitative results, obtained by a commercial handheld XRF device “Bruker Tracer 5g” on certified standards, compositionally significant in copper-based alloys of interest in the field of cultural heritage. The measured elemental concentrations were derived using three different calibrations, which were examined for their accuracy. Two of them were based on the empirical coefficients approach, performed by the built-in calibration/software (copper alloy calibrations provided by Bruker manufacturer and the Bruker EasyCal software), while the third one was performed off-line by processing the spectra with an independent fundamental parameters (FP) software (PyMca version 5.9.2., a X-ray fluorescence analysis software developed at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility). The results highlight that although HH-XRF devices simplify data collection, for optimal quantitative results, the correct choice of analysis conditions and calibration method still requires a detailed understanding of the principles of X-ray spectrometry.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat9010004
Authors: Sławomir Wycech Kristian Piscicchia
Progress in the construction of precise X-ray detectors allows measurements of energies and widths of “upper levels” in K− mesic atoms. These can be used to determine sub-threshold Kaon-nucleon amplitudes, which are important in investigations of nuclear states of these mesons. The special case of the 2P state in Kaonic Helium is discussed and used to check the properties of the K− proton quasi-bound state. Similar attempts in other elements indicate a need for new, precise measurements.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat9010003
Authors: Annette Bussmann-Holder Reinhard K. Kremer Krystian Roleder Ekhard K. H. Salje
For decades, SrTiO3 has been in the focus of research with seemingly never-ending new insights regarding its ground state properties, application potentials, its surface and interface properties, the superconducting state, the twin boundaries, domain functionalities, etc. Here, we focus on the already well-investigated lattice dynamics of STO and show that four different temperature regimes can be identified which dominate the elastic properties, the thermal conductivity, and the birefringence. These regimes are a low-temperature quantum fluctuation-dominated one, followed by an intermediate regime, a region of structural phase transition at ~105 K and its vicinity, and at high temperatures, a regime characterized by precursor and saturation effects. They can all be elucidated by lattice dynamical aspects. The relevant temperature dependences of the soft modes are discussed and their relationship to lattice polarizability is emphasized.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat9010002
Authors: Sushrut Modak Arie Ruzin Alfons Schulte Leonid Chernyak
The influence of various energetic particles and electron injection on the transport of minority carriers and non-equilibrium carrier recombination in Ga2O3 is summarized in this review. In Ga2O3 semiconductors, if robust p-type material and bipolar structures become available, the diffusion lengths of minority carriers will be of critical significance. The diffusion length of minority carriers dictates the functionality of electronic devices such as diodes, transistors, and detectors. One of the problems in ultrawide-bandgap materials technology is the short carrier diffusion length caused by the scattering on extended defects. Electron injection in n- and p-type gallium oxide results in a significant increase in the diffusion length, even after its deterioration, due to exposure to alpha and proton irradiation. Furthermore, post electron injection, the diffusion length of an irradiated material exceeds that of Ga2O3 prior to irradiation and injection. The root cause of the electron injection-induced effect is attributed to the increase in the minority carrier lifetime in the material due to the trapping of non-equilibrium electrons on native point defects. It is therefore concluded that electron injection is capable of “healing” the adverse impact of radiation in Ga2O3 and can be used for the control of minority carrier transport and, therefore, device performance.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat9010001
Authors: Maurizio Chiti Daniele Chiti Federico Chiarelli Raffaella Donghia Adolfo Esposito Marco Ferretti Astrik Gorghinian
X-ray fluorescence (XRF) is a successful technique often used for the elemental analysis of cultural heritage artefacts. It is non-invasive, the equipment can be miniaturized and made portable and it allows addressing crucial issues such as the fabrication technology, authenticity and provenance of the artefacts. Depending on the components’ selection (e.g., the primary source, the detector and the focusing optics, if present), the analytical performance and the consequent suitability to investigate a given class of materials may vary significantly. The present paper discusses the analytical performance—with special regard to the limits of detection and the quantification uncertainty—of two portable XRF spectrometers developed within a collaboration between INFN-LNF-FISMEL and CNR-ISPC. The devices are expressly designed for heritage materials. In particular, one is equipped with focusing optics and it is intended to analyze small details on glasses and pigmented surfaces, whereas the other has a 70 kV X-ray tube, which greatly improves sensitivity for medium-Z elements, which is important in copper-based artefacts. Finally, this paper discusses two case studies to highlight the features of the instruments: one concerns Etruscan vitreous material beads and the other pre- and proto-historic copper-based artefacts from Tyrrhenian Central Italy. Thanks to the small size of the equipment, both investigations could easily be carried out in situ, namely, at the Museo Nazionale Etrusco in Rome and the Museo della Preistoria della Tuscia e della Rocca Farnese at Valentano.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat8040108
Authors: Claudio Macculi Andrea Argan Matteo D’Andrea Simone Lotti Gabriele Minervini Luigi Piro Lorenzo Ferrari Barusso Corrado Boragno Edvige Celasco Giovanni Gallucci Flavio Gatti Daniele Grosso Manuela Rigano Fabio Chiarello Guido Torrioli Mauro Fiorini Michela Uslenghi Daniele Brienza Elisabetta Cavazzuti Simonetta Puccetti Angela Volpe Paolo Bastia
Athena (advanced telescope for high-energy astrophysics) is an ESA large-class mission, at present under a re-definition “design-to-cost” phase, planned for a prospective launch at L1 orbit in the second half of the 2030s. It will be an observatory alternatively focusing on two complementary instruments: the X-IFU (X-ray Integral Field Unit), a TES (TransitionEdge Sensor)-based kilo-pixel array which is able to perform simultaneous high-grade energy spectroscopy (~3 eV@7 keV) and imaging over 4′ FoV (field of view), and the WFI (Wide Field Imager), which has good energy spectral resolution (~170 eV@7 keV) and imaging on wide 40′ × 40′ FoV. Athena will be a truly transformational observatory, operating in conjunction with other large observatories across the electromagnetic spectrum available in the 2030s like ALMA, ELT, JWST, SKA, CTA, etc., and in multi-messenger synergies with facilities like LIGO A+, Advanced Virgo+, LISA, IceCube and KM3NeT. The Italian team is involved in both instruments. It has the co-PIship of the cryogenic instrument for which it has to deliver the TES-based Cryogenic AntiCoincidence detector (CryoAC) necessary to guarantee the X-IFU sensitivity, degraded by a primary particle background of both solar and galactic cosmic ray (GCR) origins, and by secondary electrons produced by primaries interacting with the materials surrounding the main detector. The outcome of Geant4 studies shows the necessity for adopting both active and passive techniques to guarantee the residual particle background at 5 × 10−3 cts cm−2 s−1 keV−1 level in 2–10 keV scientific bandwidth. The CryoAC is a four-pixel detector made of Si-suspended absorbers sensed by Ir/Au TESes placed at <1 mm below the main detector. After a brief overview of the Athena mission, we will report on the particle background reduction techniques highlighting the impact of the Geant4 simulation on the X-IFU focal plane assembly design, then hold a broader discussion on the CryoAC program in terms of detection chain system requirements, test, design concept against trade-off studies and programmatic.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat8040107
Authors: Tharathep Plienbumrung Maria Daghofer Jean-Baptiste Morée Andrzej M. Oleś
We present a weak-coupling analysis of magnetism in infinite-layer nickelates, where we compare a single-band description with a two-band model. Both models predict that (i) hybridization due to hopping is negligible, and (ii) the magnetic properties are characterized by very similar dynamic structure factors, S(k→,ω), at the points (π,π,0) and (π,π,π). This gives effectively a two-dimensional description of the magnetic properties.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat8040106
Authors: Alfons Schulte Sushrut Modak Yander Landa Atman Atman Jian-Sian Li Chao-Ching Chiang Fan Ren Stephen J. Pearton Leonid Chernyak
Forward bias hole injection from 10-nm-thick p-type nickel oxide layers into 10-μm-thick n-type gallium oxide in a vertical NiO/Ga2O3 p–n heterojunction leads to enhancement of photoresponse of more than a factor of 2 when measured from this junction. While it takes only 600 s to obtain such a pronounced increase in photoresponse, it persists for hours, indicating the feasibility of photovoltaic device performance control. The effect is ascribed to a charge injection-induced increase in minority carrier (hole) diffusion length (resulting in improved collection of photogenerated non-equilibrium carriers) in n-type β-Ga2O3 epitaxial layers due to trapping of injected charge (holes) on deep meta-stable levels in the material and the subsequent blocking of non-equilibrium carrier recombination through these levels. Suppressed recombination leads to increased non-equilibrium carrier lifetime, in turn determining a longer diffusion length and being the root-cause of the effect of charge injection.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat8040105
Authors: Lekshmi Priya P S Biswaranjan Swain Shailendra Rajput Saubhagyalaxmi Behera Sabyasachi Parida
Piezoelectric polymers are a class of material that belong to carbon–hydrogen-based organic materials with a long polymer chain. They fill the void where single crystals and ceramics fail to perform. This characteristic of piezoelectric polymers made them unique. Their piezoelectric stress constant is higher than ceramics and the piezoelectric strain is lower compared to ceramics. This study’s goal is to present the most recent information on poly(vinylidene fluoride) with trifluoroethylene P(VDF-TrFE), a major copolymer of poly(vinylidene fluoride) PVDF with piezoelectric, pyroelectric, and ferroelectric characteristics. The fabrication of P(VDF-TrFE) composites and their usage in a variety of applications, including in actuators, transducers, generators, and energy harvesting, are the primary topics of this work. The report provides an analysis of how the addition of fillers improves some of the features of P(VDF-TrFE). Commonly utilized polymer composite preparation techniques, including spinning, Langmuir–Blodgett (LB), solution casting, melt extrusion, and electrospinning are described, along with their effects on the pertinent characteristics of the polymer composite. A brief discussion on the literature related to different applications (such as bio-electronic devices, sensors and high energy-density piezoelectric generators, low mechanical damping, and easy voltage rectifiers of the polymer composite is also presented.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat8040104
Authors: Jesús González Angélica Melendez Luis Camargo
Studies involving vortexes in hybrid superconducting devices and their interactions with different components inside samples are important for reaching higher values of critical parameters in superconducting materials. The vortex distribution on each side of a sample with different fundamental parameters, such as temperature T, penetration depth λ, coherence length ξ, electron mass m, and the order parameter Ψ, may help to improve the superconducting properties. Thus, in this work, we used the modified Ginzburg–Landau theory to investigate a hybrid superconductor (HS), as well as to provide a highly tunable and adjustable theoretical tool for theoretically explaining the experimental results involving the HS in order to study the vortex behavior in superconductors of mesoscopic dimensions with extreme differences among their fundamental parameters. Therefore, we evaluated the influence of the HS on the vortex configuration and its effects on field-dependent magnetization. The results show that when the applied magnetic field H was increased, the diamagnetic response of the HS (Meissner effect) included additional jumps in magnetization, while diamagnetism continued to increase in the sample. In addition, the differences among parameters created an interface between both components, and two different magnitudes of supercurrent and vortex sizes caused less degradation of the local superconductivity, which increased the upper critical field. On the other hand, this type of HS with differences in parameters on both sides can be used to control the vortex movement in the selected sample of the superconducting region with more accuracy.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat8040103
Authors: Francesca Bonfigli Sabina Botti Maria Aurora Vincenti Rosa Maria Montereali Alessandro Rufoloni Pasquale Gaudio Riccardo Rossi
Lithium fluoride (LiF) film detectors for extreme ultraviolet radiation, soft and hard X-rays, based on the photoluminescence of radiation-induced electronic defects, have been proposed and are currently under further development and investigation. LiF film detectors are versatile and can be integrated in different experimental apparatus and imaging configurations. LiF can be grown in the form of polycrystalline thin films and it is compatible with several substrates. The radiation-induced color center (CCs) photoluminescence (PL) response can be enhanced through the appropriate choice of substrates and multilayer designs, and by tailoring the micro-structural properties of polycrystalline LiF films through the control of the growth conditions. In this work, we present the characterization, through fluorescence and Raman micro-spectroscopy, of LiF films, thermally evaporated on different substrates with thicknesses of up to 1 μm, irradiated with soft X-rays produced by a laser plasma source. The combination of these micro-spectroscopy techniques could represent an advanced method to investigate the role of the polycrystalline film structures in CC formation efficiency at the microscopic level, a fundamental aspect of the development of LiF film radiation-imaging detectors.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat8040102
Authors: Dema Dasuki Khulud Habanjar Ramdan Awad
This study aimed to probe the effect of heat treatment on zinc oxide nanoparticles doped with ruthenium through a chemical co-preparation technique. Pure ZnO and Ru-doped ZnO nanoparticles, with the general formula Zn1−x−RuxO, were synthesized for 0 ≤ x ≤ 0.04. Using the same starting precursors, the growth temperature was 60 °C and 80 °C for set A and set B, respectively, whereas the calcination temperature was 450 °C and 550 °C for set A and set B, respectively. For the structure investigation, X-ray powder diffraction (XRD) revealed that the crystallite size of set A was smaller than that of set B. For x = 0.04 in set B, the maximum value of the crystallite size was attributed to the integration of Ru3+ ions into interstitial sites in the host causing this expansion. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) confirmed the formation of zinc oxide nanoparticles by showing a Zn-O bonding peak at 421 cm−1. For x = 0.04 in set B, the divergence confirmed the change in bonding properties of Zn2+ distributed by Ru3+ doping, which verifies the presence of secondary-phase RuO2. Using UV–visible spectroscopy, the energy gap of set A swings as ruthenium doping increases. However, in set B, as the crystallite size decreases, the energy gap increases until reversing at the highest concentration of x = 0.04. The transition from oxygen vacancy to interstitial oxygen, which is associated with the blue peak (469 nm), increases in set A under low heating conditions and decreases in set B as Ru doping increases, as revealed in the photoluminescence optical spectra of the samples. Therefore, ruthenium doping proves a useful surface defect and generates distortion centers in the lattice, leading to more adsorption and a remarkable advantage in sunscreen and paint products used for UV protection.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat8040101
Authors: Matteo Cataldo Oliviero Cremonesi Stefano Pozzi Emiliano Mocchiutti Ritabrata Sarkar Adrian D. Hillier Massimiliano Clemenza
Muonic Atom X-ray Emission spectroscopy (µ-XES) is a novel elemental technique that exploits the high-energy X-rays emitted from the muonic atom cascade process to characterize materials. At the ISIS Neutron and Muon Source, the technique is performed at Port4 of the RIKEN-RAL facility, with a user demand that is increasing every year. To cope with this demand, it is necessary to continue to improve the method, either for the hardware (detectors, acquisition, etc.) or software (data analysis and interpretation). In both cases, Monte Carlo codes play an important role: with a simulation, it is possible to reproduce the experimental setup and provide a reliable quantitative analysis. In this work, we investigate the capabilities of GEANT4 for such applications. From the results, we observed that the generation of X-rays, especially the kα and kβ transition for high Z atoms, are not in agreement with the experimental ones. A solution to this issue, other than an attempt with a small modification of the GEANT4 cascade class, could be provided by a database of transition energy calculated by a Dirac equation software called MuDirac. The software, developed by the UKRI scientific computing department and the ISIS muon group, can compute all the transition energy for a given nuclide. Here, preliminary results of the implementation of the MuDirac database in GEANT4 are reported.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat8040100
Authors: Lotte Mertens Jeroen van den Brink Jasper van Wezel
Charge density waves (CDWs) profoundly affect the electronic properties of materials and have an intricate interplay with other collective states, like superconductivity and magnetism. The well-known macroscopic Ginzburg–Landau theory stands out as a theoretical method for describing CDW phenomenology without requiring a microscopic description. In particular, it has been instrumental in understanding the emergence of domain structures in several CDW compounds, as well as the influence of critical fluctuations and the evolution towards or across lock-in transitions. In this context, McMillan’s foundational work introduced discommensurations as the objects mediating the transition from commensurate to incommensurate CDWs, through an intermediate nearly commensurate phase characterised by an ordered array of phase slips. Here, we extended the simplified, effectively one-dimensional, setting of the original model to a fully two-dimensional analysis. We found exact and numerical solutions for several types of discommensuration patterns and provide a framework for consistently describing multi-component CDWs embedded in quasi-two-dimensional atomic lattices.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat8040099
Authors: Maurizio Bonesini Roberto Bertoni Andrea Abba Francesco Caponio Marco Prata Massimo Rossella
LaBr3:Ce crystals have good scintillation properties for X-ray spectroscopy. Initially, they were introduced for radiation imaging in medical physics with either a photomultiplier or SiPM readout, and they found extensive applications in homeland security and gamma-ray astronomy. We used 1″ round LaBr3:Ce crystals to realize compact detectors with the SiPM array readout. The aim was a good energy resolution and a fast time response to detect low-energy X-rays around 100 keV. A natural application was found inside the FAMU experiment, at RIKEN RAL. Its aim is a precise measurement of the proton Zemach radius with impinging muons, to contribute to the solution to the so-called “proton radius puzzle”. Signals to be detected are characteristic X-rays around 130 KeV. A limit for this type of detector, as compared to the ones with a photomultiplier readout, is its poorer timing characteristics due to the large capacity of the SiPM arrays used. In particular, long signal falltimes are a problem in experiments such as FAMU, where a “prompt” background component must be separated from a “delayed” one (after 600 ns) in the signal X-rays to be detected. Dedicated studies were pursued to improve the timing characteristics of the used detectors, starting from hybrid ganging of SiPM cells; then developing a suitable zero pole circuit with a parallel ganging, where an increased overvoltage for the SiPM array was used to compensate for the signal decrease; and finally designing ad hoc electronics to split the 1″ detector’s SiPM array into four quadrants, thus reducing the involved capacitances. The aim was to improve the detectors’ timing characteristics, especially falltime, while keeping a good FWHM energy resolution for low-energy X-ray detection.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat8040098
Authors: Veronica De Leo Gerardo Claps Francesco Cordella Gabriele Cristoforetti Leonida Antonio Gizzi Petra Koester Danilo Pacella Antonella Tamburrino
We present an innovative X-ray spectroscopy system to address the complex study of the X-ray emissions arising from laser–target interactions, where the emissions occur within extremely brief intervals from femtoseconds to nanoseconds. Our system combines a Gas Electron Multiplier (GEM) detector with a silicon-based Timepix3 (TPX3) detector. These detectors work in tandem, allowing for a spectroscopic radiation analysis along the same line of sight. With an active area of 10 × 10 cm2, the GEM detector allows for 1D measurements for X-ray energies (2–50 keV) by utilizing the full 10 cm gas depth. The high-energy part of the radiation beam exits through a downstream side window of the GEM without being absorbed in the gas volume. Positioned side-on at the GEM detector’s exit, the TPX3 detector, equipped with a pixelated sensor (55 µm × 55 µm; active area 14 mm × 14 mm), uses its full 14 mm silicon sensor to detect hard X-rays (50–500 keV) and gamma rays (0.5–10 MeV). We demonstrate the correct operation of the entire detection system and provide a detailed description of the Timepix3 detector’s calibration procedure, highlighting the suitability of the combined system to work in laser plasma facilities.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat8040097
Authors: Maria Cristina Diamantini
We review the topological gauge theory description of Josephson junction arrays (JJA), fabricated systems which exhibit the superconductor-to-insulator transition (SIT). This description revealed the topological nature of the phases around the SIT and led to the discovery of a new state of matter, the superinsulator, characterized by infinite resistance, even at finite temperatures, due to linear confinement of electric charges. This discovery is particularly relevant for the physics of superconducting films with emergent granularity, which are modeled with JJAs and share the same phase diagram.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat8040096
Authors: Stella Kavokina Anton Osipov Vlad Samyshkin Andrey Abramov Natalia Rozhkova Vitali Kononenko Vitali Konov Alexey Kucherik
We develop a method for the laser synthesis and deposition of carbon–gold films formed by a net of linear sp-carbon chains and stabilized by gold nanoparticles. The originality of the method is in the simultaneous production of carbon chains and gold nanoparticles due to the laser fragmentation of the amorphous carbon and hydrogen tetrachloroaurate (III) or chloroauric acid. We study how surface resistivity alters the effect of the obtained films via the illumination in the visible spectral range.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat8040095
Authors: Götz Seibold
We discuss a formalism that allows for the calculation of a higher-harmonic-current response to a strong applied electric field for disordered superconducting systems described on the basis of tight-binding models with on- and/or intersite interactions. The theory is based on an expansion of the density matrix in powers of the field amplitudes, where we solve the equation of motion for the individual components. This allows the evaluation of higher-order response functions on significantly larger lattices than one can achieve with a previously used approach, which is based on a direct temporal integration of the equation of motion for the complete density matrix. In the case of small lattices, where both methods can be applied by including also the contribution of collective modes, we demonstrate the agreement of the corresponding results.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat8040094
Authors: Hocine Menana Yazid Statra
In their applications in electrical machines, high-temperature superconductors (HTSs) are mainly used as inductors in synchronous machines due to the AC losses which can lead to high cryogenic costs. In this work, we show the possibility of their use as armature windings, handling some precautions. The approach is based on the combined use of modeling and measurements. The construction and the preliminary tests of a handmade prototype of an axial field HTS synchronous machine are presented. Several tests have been conducted at liquid nitrogen temperature. The measurements have been confirmed by modeling results. The preliminary tests on the prototype, in both modeling and measurements, are very promising.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat8040093
Authors: Alina M. Ionescu Ion Ivan Corneliu F. Miclea Daniel N. Crisan Armando Galluzzi Massimiliano Polichetti Adrian Crisan
Among various “families” of iron-based superconductors, the quite recently discovered AeAFe4As4 (where Ae is an alkali-earth metal and A is an alkali metal) has high critical current density, a very high upper critical field, and a low anisotropy, and has recently received much interest for the possibility of high magnetic field applications at the liquid hydrogen temperature. We have performed DC magnetization relaxation and frequency-dependent AC susceptibility measurements on high-quality single crystals of CaKFe4As4 with the aim of determining the pinning potential U*. The temperature dependence of U* displays a clear crossover between elastic creep and plastic creep. At temperatures around 27–28 K, U* has a very high value, up to 1200 K, resulting in an infinitesimally small probability of thermally activated flux jumps. From the dependence of the normalized pinning potential on irreversible magnetization, we have determined the creep exponents in the two creep regimes, which are in complete agreement with theoretical models. The estimation of the pinning potential from multifrequency AC susceptibility measurements was possible only near the critical temperature due to equipment limitations, and the resulting value is very close to the one that resulted from the magnetization relaxation data. Magnetic hysteresis loops revealed a second magnetization peak and very high values of the critical current density.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat8040092
Authors: Levan Chkhartishvili Shio Makatsaria Nika Gogolidze Otar Tsagareishvili Tamaz Batsikadze Matlab Mirzayev Shalva Kekutia Vladimer Mikelashvili Jano Markhulia Tamaz Minashvili Ketevan Davitadze Natia Barbakadze Tamar Dgebuadze Ketevan Kochiashvili Rusudan Tsiskarishvili Roin Chedia
The very high capture cross-section of (epi)thermal neutrons by the boron isotope 10B makes elemental boron and its compounds and composites prospective for serving as materials intensively interacting with neutron irradiation. In their nanostructured form, boron-rich materials reveal properties that improve their radiation-performance characteristics. In this regard, new technologies have been proposed for the synthesis of nanocomposites with matrices of boron carbide B4C and hexagonal boron nitride h-BN. For the first time, boron carbide-tungsten and hexagonal boron nitride–(iron,magnetite) composites were obtained, respectively, in the form of layered/sandwich structures of components B4C and W and h-BN nanopowders coated/intercalated with magnetic nanoclusters of iron Fe or magnetite Fe3O4. Studying of their chemical/phase composition, structure/morphology, and some other properties leads to the conclusion that the developed B4C–W and h-BN–(Fe,Fe3O4) composites would be useful for solving important problems of boron-based neutron shielding and BNCT (Boron Neutron Capture Therapy), such as attenuating the gamma-radiation accompanying the absorption of neutrons by 10B nuclei and targeted delivery of 10B nuclei, as BNCT therapeutic agents, to tumor tissues using control by an external magnetic field, respectively.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat8040091
Authors: Armando Galluzzi Krastyo Buchkov Vihren Tomov Elena Nazarova Antonio Leo Gaia Grimaldi Adrian Crisan Massimiliano Polichetti
The effect of the demagnetizing factor, regarding the determination of the de-pairing current density Jdep, has been studied in the case of a Fe(Se,Te) crystal, using DC magnetic measurements as a function of a magnetic field (H) at different temperatures (T). First, the lower critical field Hc1(T) values were obtained, and the demagnetization effects acting on them were investigated after calculating the demagnetizing factor. The temperature behaviors of both the original Hc1 values and the ones obtained after considering the demagnetization effects (Hc1demag) were analyzed, and the temperature dependence of the London penetration depth λL(T) was obtained in both cases. In particular, the λL(T) curves were fitted with a power law dependence, indicating the presence of low-energy quasiparticle excitations. Furthermore, by plotting λL−2 as a function of T, we found that our sample behaves as a multigap superconductor, which is similar to other Fe-11 family iron-based compounds. After that, the coherence length ξ values were extracted, starting with the Hc2(T) curve. The knowledge of λL and ξ allowed us to determine the Jdep values and to observe how they are influenced by the demagnetizing factor.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat8040090
Authors: Adrián Felipe Hernández-Borda María Paula Rojas-Sepúlveda Hanz Yecid Ramírez-Gómez
The reliable transmission of secure keys is one of the essential tasks to be efficiently accomplished by quantum information processing, and the use of entangled particles is a very important tool toward that goal. However, efficient production of maximally entangled states is still a challenge for further progress in quantum computing and quantum communication. In the search for optimal sources of entanglement, quantum dots have emerged as promising candidates, but the presence of dephasing in the generated entangled states raises questions about their real usefulness in large-scale quantum networks. In this work, we evaluate the effects of the exciton fine structure splitting, present in most quantum dot samples, on the fidelity of the BBM92 protocol for quantum key distribution. We find that the protocol’s performance is heavily impacted by such splitting and establish an upper limit for the product between the energy splitting and the exciton lifetime to have a dependable distributed key.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat8040088
Authors: Satoshi Tsuchiya Masato Katsumi Ryuhei Oka Toshio Naito Yasunori Toda
Photo-induced carrier dynamics were measured in the organic Dirac electron candidate α-(BETS)2I3 to investigate why resistivity increases below TMI = 50 K. We found a change in carrier dynamics due to an insulating gap formation below T′ = 50 K. On the other hand, the relaxation time and polarization anisotropy of the observed dynamics differ from those in the charge-ordering (CO) state of the isostructural salt α-(ET)2I3. Based on the difference, it can be concluded that the insulating phase has a different origin than the CO state.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat8040089
Authors: Sharon S. Philip Despina Louca Matthew B. Stone Alexander I. Kolesnikov
In 1T-TaS2−xSex, the charge density wave (CDW) state features a star of David lattice that expands across layers as the system becomes commensurate upon cooling. The layers can also order along the c-axis, and different stacking orders have been proposed. Using neutron scattering on powder samples, we compared the stacking order previously observed in 1T-TaS2 when the system is doped with Se. While at low temperature, a 13c layer sequence stacking was observed in TaS2; this type of ordering was not evident with doping. Doping with Se results in a metallic state in which the Mott transition is suppressed, which may be linked to the absence of layer stacking.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat8040087
Authors: Rola F. Khattar Mohammed Anas Ramadan Awad Khulud Habanjar
This study investigated the impact of samarium and lanthanum fluorides (SmF3 and LaF3) on the physical and mechanical properties of Tl0.8Hg0.2Ba2Ca2−xRxCu3O9−δ−yFy superconducting phases (specifically the (Tl, Hg)-1223 phase), where R = Sm and La, with 0.00 ≤  x  ≤ 0.10. The superconducting samples were synthesized using the solid-state reaction method. X-ray diffraction (XRD) verified the formation of the (Tl, Hg)-1223 phase without altering its tetragonal structure. Scanning electron micrographs (SEM) reveal the improvement of the grain size and inter-grain connectivity as Sm and La contents increased up to x=0.025. The electrical properties of (Tl, Hg)-1223 were studied using I-V and electrical resistivity measurements. Improved superconducting transition temperature (Tc) and transport critical current density (Jc) were observed up to x=0.025, beyond which they decreased substantially. Vickers microhardness (Hv) measurements were performed at room temperature to investigate their mechanical performance with various applied loads (0.49–9.80 N) and times (10–90 s). For both substitutions, the mechanical properties were enhanced up to an optimal value at x=0.025. All samples exhibited normal indentation size effect (ISE) behavior. The proportional sample resistance (PSR) model best explained Hv values among five theoretical models. Dislocation creep was the primary creep mechanism in the samples, according to indentation creep studies.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat8040086
Authors: Esin Kasapoglu Melike Behiye Yücel Carlos A. Duque
In this study, we investigated, for the first time, the effects of the spatially varying effective mass, asymmetry parameter, and well width on the electronic and optical properties of a quantum well which has an improved Rosen–Morse potential. Calculations were made within the framework of the effective mass and parabolic band approximations. We have used the diagonalization method by choosing a wave function based on the trigonometric orthonormal functions to find eigenvalues and eigenfunctions of the electron confined within the improved Rosen–Morse potential. Our results show that the position dependence mass, asymmetry, and confinement parameters cause significant changes in the electronic and optical properties of the structure we focus on since these effects create a significant increase in electron energies and a blue shift in the absorption spectrum. The increase in energy levels enables the development of optoelectronic devices that can operate at wider wavelengths and absorb higher-energy photons. Through an appropriate choice of parameters, the Rosen–Morse potential offers, among many advantages, the possibility of simulating heterostructures close to surfaces exposed to air or vacuum, thus giving the possibility of substantially enriching the allowed optical transitions given the breaking of the system´s symmetries. Similarly, the one-dimensional Rosen–Morse potential model proposed here can be extended to one- and zero-dimensional structures such as core/shell quantum well wires and quantum dots. This offers potential advancements in fields such as optical communication, imaging technology, and solar cells.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat8030085
Authors: Carlo A. Trugenberger
We review the topological gauge theory of Josephson junction arrays and thin film superconductors, stressing the role of the usually forgotten quantum phase slips, and we derive their quantum phase structure. A quantum phase transition from a superconducting to the dual, superinsulating phase with infinite resistance (even at finite temperatures) is either direct or goes through an intermediate bosonic topological insulator phase, which is typically also called Bose metal. We show how, contrary to a widely held opinion, disorder is not relevant for the electric response in these quantum phases because excitations in the spectrum are either symmetry-protected or neutral due to confinement. The quantum phase transitions are driven only by the electric interaction growing ever stronger. First, this prevents Bose condensation, upon which out-of-condensate charges and vortices form a topological quantum state owing to mutual statistics interactions. Then, at even stronger couplings, an electric flux tube dual to Abrikosov vortices induces a linearly confining potential between charges, giving rise to superinsulation.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat8030084
Authors: Jaime David Díaz-Ramírez Shiang-Yu Huang Bo-Long Cheng Ping-Yuan Lo Shun-Jen Cheng Hanz Yecid Ramírez-Gómez
Conservation of polarization is an important requirement for reliable single-photon emitters, which, in turn, are essential building blocks for light-based quantum information processing. In this work, we study the exciton-spin dynamics in a double quantum dot under the combined effects of electron-hole exchange and Förster resonance energy transfer. By means of numerical solutions of the quantum master equation, we simulate the time-dependent spin polarization for two neighboring dots. According to our results, under some conditions, the depolarization caused by the electron-hole exchange may be slowed by the near field-induced interdot energy transfer, suggesting a new mechanism to extend the exciton coherence time. This opens doors to alternative schemes for improved solid-state quantum light sources.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat8030083
Authors: Dagne Wordofa Tola Mulugeta Bekele
This paper presents the investigation of convolutional neural network (CNN) prediction successfully recognizing the temperature of the nonequilibrium phase transitions in two-dimensional (2D) Ising spins on a square lattice. The model uses image snapshots of ferromagnetic 2D spin configurations as an input shape to provide the average output predictions. By considering supervised machine learning techniques, we perform Metropolis Monte Carlo (MC) simulations to generate the configurations. In the equilibrium Ising model, the Metropolis algorithm respects detailed balance condition (DBC), while its nonequilibrium version violates DBC. Violating the DBC of the algorithm is characterized by a parameter −8<ε<8. We find the exact result of the transition temperature Tc(ε) in terms of ε. If we set ε=0, the usual single spin-flip algorithm can be restored, and the equilibrium configurations generated with such a set up are used to train our model. For ε≠0, the system attains the nonequilibrium steady states (NESS), and the modified algorithm generates NESS configurations (test dataset). The trained model is successfully tested on the test dataset. Our result shows that CNN can determine Tc(ε≠0) for various ε values, consistent with the exact result.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat8030082
Authors: Miguel E. Mora-Ramos Juan A. Vinasco A. Radu Ricardo L. Restrepo Alvaro L. Morales Mehmet Sahin Omar Mommadi José Sierra-Ortega Gene Elizabeth Escorcia-Salas Carlos A. Duque
We investigate the electronic properties of a semiconductor quantum ring with an elliptical shape and non-uniform height, allowing for distributed quantum-dot-like bulges along its perimeter. The adiabatic approximation and the finite element method are combined to calculate the allowed electron states in the structure under the effective mass approximation, considering the contributions from Rashba and Dresselahaus spin–orbit interactions and the Zeeman effect in the presence of an applied magnetic field. We discuss the features of the calculated spectra for two different ring geometries: a symmetric one with four dot-like bulges, and an asymmetric one with three hilled protuberances. The information about those states allows us to evaluate the linear optical absorption response associated with interlevel transitions between the ground and lowest excited states. This phenomenon takes place at resonant energies of only a few milielectronvolts. It is observed that spin–orbit interactions tend to quench this response under zero-field conditions in the case of symmetric confinement.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat8030081
Authors: Luis A. Alcalá-Varilla Rafael E. Ponnefz-Durango Nicola Seriani Eduard Araujo-Lopez Javier A. Montoya
Despite the interest in copper clusters, a consensus on their atomic structure is still lacking. The experimental observation of isolated clusters is difficult, and theoretical predictions vary widely. The latter is because one must adequately describe the closed shell of d electrons both in its short- and long-range effects. Herein, we investigate the stability of small copper clusters (CuN, N = 3–6 atoms) using spin-polarized DFT calculations under the GGA approximation, the Hubbard U correction, and the van der Waals forces. We found that the spin-polarized and vdW contributions have little effect on the binding energies of the isomers. The inclusion of U represents the most relevant contribution to the ordering of the CuN isomers, and our calculated binding energies for the clusters agreed with the experimental values. We also found that atomic relaxations alone are not enough to determine the stability of small copper clusters. It is also necessary to build the energy landscape or calculate the vibrational frequencies of the isomers. We found that the vibrational frequencies of the isomers were in the THz range and the normal modes of vibration were discrete. This approach is relevant to future studies involving isolated or supported copper clusters.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat8030079
Authors: Miguel E. Mora-Ramos Juan A. Vinasco Adrian Radu Ricardo L. Restrepo Alvaro L. Morales Mehmet Sahin Omar Mommadi José Sierra-Ortega Gene Elizabeth Escorcia-Salas Christian Heyn Derfrey A. Duque Carlos A. Duque
We theoretically investigate the properties of an electron energy spectrum in a double GaAs-Al0.3Ga0.7As quantum ring by using the effective mass and adiabatic approximations, together with a realistic description of the confining potential profile, which is assumed to be deformed due to the application of an intense nonresonant laser field. The effects of the applied magnetic field and spin-orbit interaction are included. We discuss the features of the lowest confined energy levels under a variation of magnetic field strengths and intense laser parameters. The influence of this external probe on the linear optical absorption response associated with interlevel transitions is analyzed by considering both the presence and absence of spin-orbit effects.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat8030080
Authors: Vasily Milyutin Radovan Bureš Maria Fáberová
Fe-Ga is a promising magnetostrictive rare-earth free alloy with an attractive combination of useful properties. In this review, we consider this material through the lens of its potential use in magnetostrictive applications at elevated frequencies. The properties of the Fe-Ga alloy are compared with other popular magnetostrictive alloys. The two different approaches to reducing eddy current losses for such applications in the context of the Fe-Ga alloy, in particular, the fabrication of thin sheets and Fe-Ga/epoxy composites, are discussed. For the first time, the results of more than a decade of research aimed at developing each of these approaches are analyzed and summarized. The features of each approach, as well as the advantages and disadvantages, are outlined. In general, it has been shown that the Fe-Ga alloy is the most promising magnetostrictive material for use at elevated frequencies (up to 100 kHz) compared to analogs. However, for a wide practical application of the alloy, it is still necessary to solve several problems, which are described in this review.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat8030078
Authors: Gennady Logvenov Nicolas Bonmassar Georg Christiani Gaetano Campi Antonio Valletta Antonio Bianconi
While the search for new high-temperature superconductors had been driven by the empirical “trials and errors” method for decades, we now report the synthesis of Artificial High-Tc Superlattices (AHTS) designed by quantum mechanics theory at the nanoscale. This discovery paves the way for engineering a new class of high-temperature superconductors, following the predictions of the Bianconi Perali Valletta (BPV) theory recently implemented in 2022 by Mazziotti et al. including Rashba spin-orbit coupling to create nanoscale AHTS composed of quantum wells. The high-Tc superconducting properties within these superlattices are controlled by a conformational parameter of the superlattice geometry, specifically, the ratio L/d which represents the thickness of La2CuO4 layers (L) relative to the superlattice period (d). Using molecular beam epitaxy, we have successfully grown numerous AHTS samples. These samples consist of initial layers of stoichiometric La2CuO4 units with a thickness L, doped by interface space charge, and intercalated with second layers of non-superconducting metallic material, La1.55Sr0.45CuO4 with thickness denoted as W = d − L. This configuration forms a quantum superlattice with periodicity d. The agreement observed between the experimental dependence Tc (the superconducting transition temperature) versus L/d ratio and the predictions of the BPV theory for AHTS in the form of the superconducting dome validates the hypothesis that the superconducting dome arises from the Fano–Feshbach or shape resonance in multigap superconductivity driven by quantum nanoscale confinement.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat8030077
Authors: Jesús González Jader González Fernando Durán Carlos Salas Jorge Gómez
In this work we report theoretical calculations of a superconducting island in a strong vortex confinement regime. The obtained results reveal the evolution of the superconducting condensate with an applied magnetic field, depending on the spatial profile of the electron mean-free path in the sample. The results of this study provide an insight about the emergent superconducting properties under such conditions, using the Ginzburg-Landau numerical simulations where spatial variation of thickness of the island and the corresponding variation of the mean free path, omnipresent in similar structures of Pb grown on Si (111), are taken into account. These results offer a new route to tailor superconducting circuits by nanoengineered mean free path, using for example the controlled ion-bombardment on thin films, benefiting from the here shown impact of the spatially-varying mean free path on the vortex distribution, phase of superconducting order parameter, and the critical fields.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat8030076
Authors: Louise Magdalene Botha Cecil Naphtaly Moro Ouma Kingsley Onyebuchi Obodo Dmitri Georgievich Bessarabov Denis Lvovich Sharypin Pyotr Sergeevich Varyushin Elizaveta Ivanovna Plastinina
Alloys are beneficial in numerous applications since they combine the desirable properties of different metals. In this regard, Pt/Pd alloys have been investigated as a replacement for Pt, which is the standard catalyst used in various catalytic processes. However, there are still gaps in our understanding of the structural, mechanical, and thermodynamic properties of Pt/Pd alloys. This study was conducted using density functional theory (DFT) calculations to investigate the electronic, elasticity, mechanical, and thermodynamic properties of Pt/Pd alloys and compared them to pristine Pt and Pd structures. The results indicate that the considered Pt/Pd alloy structures, PtPd3, PtPd, Pt3Pd, and Pt7Pd, are energetically favourable based on their formation energies. These structures also satisfy Born’s stability criteria and are elastically stable. The phonon density of states showed that the considered Pt/Pd alloy structures are dynamically stable, with no imaginary modes present. Additionally, the Pt atom dominates at lower frequencies, while the Pd atom dominates at higher frequencies, as seen in the phonon band structure. The electronic density of states revealed that the considered Pt/Pd alloy structures have a metallic character and are non-magnetic. These findings contribute to a better understanding of the properties and stability of Pt/Pd alloy structures that are relevant in various fields, including materials science and catalysis.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat8030075
Authors: Valentin Yu. Irkhin
The slave–particle representation is a promising method to treat the properties of exotic strongly correlated systems. We develop a unified approach to describe both the paramagnetic state with possible spin–liquid features and states with strong long-range or short-range magnetic order. Combining the Kotliar–Ruckenstein representation and fractionalized spin–liquid deconfinement picture, the Mott transition and Hubbard subbands are considered. The spectrum in the insulating state is significantly affected by the presence of the spinon spin–liquid spectrum and a hidden Fermi surface. Presenting a modification of the Kotliar–Ruckenstein representation in the spin–wave region, we treat the case of magnetic order, with special attention being paid to the half-metallic ferromagnetic state. The formation of small and large Fermi surfaces for doped current carriers in the antiferromagnetic state is also discussed.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat8030074
Authors: Benita Turiján-Clara Julián D. Correa Miguel E. Mora-Ramos Carlos A. Duque
Recently, 2D phosphorus allotropes have arisen as possible candidates for technological applications among the family of the so-called Xene layered materials. In particular, the energy band structure of blue phosphorene (BP) exhibits a medium-size semiconductor gap that tends to widen in the case of using this material in the form of ribbons. BP nanoribbons have attracted recent interest for their implication in the improvement in efficiency of novel solar cells. On the other hand, compound poly (3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) is used as the semiconducting core of organic field effect transistors owing to such useful features as high carrier mobility. Here, we theoretically investigate the electronic properties of a heterostructure combination of BP—in the form of nanoribbons—with a P3HT polymer chain on top in order to identify the features of band alignment. The work is performed using first principles calculations via DFT, employing different exchange correlation approaches for comparison: PBE, HSE06 and DFT-1/2. It is found that, under DFT-1/2, such a heterostructure has a type-II band alignment.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat8030073
Authors: Irina I. Buchinskaya Ivan O. Goryachuk Nikolay I. Sorokin Victor I. Sokolov Denis N. Karimov
Crystals based on alkaline earth metal difluorides are widely used optical materials. In this study, in order to expand the range of optical matrices, multicomponent Pb1−x−yCdxSryF2 (0.27 < x < 0.55, 0.06 < y < 0.18) solid solution crystals with a fluorite structure (sp. gr. Fm-3m) were grown from melt using the vertical directional crystallization technique for the first time. The densities and refractive indices of the grown crystals vary depending on the quantitative content components (x and y) in the ranges of 6.6039(5)–7.5232(5) g/cm3 and 1.6403–1.7084, respectively. The optical transmission and electrochemical impedance spectra were studied. The homogenous composition regions of non-cellular crystallization of this ternary solid solution at a crystallization rate of 6 mm/h and an interface temperature gradient of 80 deg/cm were experimentally determined as 0.30 < x < 0.35, 0 < y < 0.6. These grown crystalline materials may be of interest as high-density highly refractive cubic isomorphic hosts and low-temperature ionic conductors (~2 × 10−5 S/cm at room temperature) for various applications.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat8030072
Authors: Jose A. Alarco Ian D. R. Mackinnon
Raman and synchrotron THz absorption spectral measurements on MgB2 provide experimental evidence for electron orbital superlattices. In earlier work, we have detected THz spectra that show superlattice absorption peaks with low wavenumbers, for which spectral density evolves and intensifies after cooling below the superconducting transition temperature for MgB2. In this work, we show how these observations indicate a direct connection to superconducting properties and mechanisms. Bonding–antibonding orbital character is identified in calculated electronic band structures and Fermi surfaces consistent with superlattice structures along the c-axis. DFT calculations show that superlattice folding of reciprocal space generates Brillouin zone boundary reflections, Umklapp processes, and substantially enhances nesting relationships. Tight binding equations are compared with expected charge density waves from nesting relationships and adjusted to explicitly accommodate these linked processes. Systematic analysis of electronic band structures and Fermi surfaces allows for direct identification of Cooper pairing and the superconducting gap, particularly when the k-grid resolution of a calculation is suitably calibrated to structural parameters. Thus, we detail a robust and accurate DFT re-interpretation of BCS superconductivity for MgB2.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat8030071
Authors: Ana María López Aristizábal Fernanda Mora Rey Álvaro Luis Morales Juan A. Vinasco Carlos Alberto Duque
Vertically coupled quantum dots have emerged as promising structures for various applications such as single photon sources, entangled quantum pairs, quantum computation, and quantum cryptography. We start with a structure composed of two vertically coupled GaAs conical quantum dots surrounded by AlxGa1−x, and the effects of the applied electric and magnetic fields on the energies are evaluated using the finite element method. In addition, the effects are evaluated by including the presence of a shallow-donor impurity. The electron binding energy behavior is analyzed, and the effects on the photoionization cross-section are studied. Calculations are carried out in the effective mass and parabolic conduction band approximations. Our results show a notable dependence on the electric and magnetic fields applied to the photoionization cross-section. In general, it has been observed that both the electric and magnetic fields are useful parameters for inducing blueshifts of the resonant photoionization cross-section structure, which is accompanied by a drop in its magnitude.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat8030070
Authors: Nikolay B. Volkov Alexander I. Lipchak
This article presents a theoretical study of the optical and transport properties of metals. Iron, as an example, was used to discuss, through a theoretical description, the peculiarities of these properties in the compressed and expanded states under the influence of high-density energy fluxes. By solving the semi-classical Boltzmann equation for conduction electrons for a broad range of densities and temperatures, the expressions of electrical conductivity, electronic thermal conductivity, and thermoelectric coefficient calculations were derived. The real and imaginary parts of the iron permittivity and the energy absorption coefficient for the first and second harmonics of Nd:YAG laser radiation were obtained. The calculation peculiarities of the metal’s optical characteristics of matter in an expanded state in a broad range of densities and temperatures were considered. The analysis of the obtained results shows their agreement with the theoretical description for cases of ideal non-degenerate and dense degenerate electron plasmas. It is shown that the behavior of the electrical conductivity and optical characteristics in the critical and supercritical regions of density and temperature are in agreement with the known experimental results.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat8030069
Authors: Giovanni Alberto Ummarino Antonio Bianconi
The temperature dependence of the two superconducting gaps in pressurised H3S at 155 GPa with a critical temperature of 203 K has been determined using a data analysis of the experimental curve of the upper critical magnetic field as a function of temperature in the framework of the two-band s-wave Eliashberg theory. Two different phonon-mediated intra-band Cooper pairing channels in a regime of moderate strong couplings have the key role of the pair-exchange interaction between the two gaps, giving the two non-diagonal terms of the coupling tensor, which are missing in the single-band s-wave Eliashberg theory. The results provide a prediction of the different temperature dependence of the small and large gaps as a function of temperature, which provides evidence of multigap superconductivity in H3S.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat8030068
Authors: Matin Ashurov Stella Kutrovskaya Alexander Baranchikov Sergey Klimonsky Alexey Kavokin
We developed a comparatively simple and inexpensive approach for the determination of the concentration of alcohols in water. The method is based on the study of the optical properties of ethoxylate trimethylolpropane triacrylate (ETPTA) inverse photonic crystals (IPhCs). The position of the transmission minimum associated with the first photonic stop band (PSB) is used as the analytical signal. The PSB position depends on the swelling degree of ETPTA photoresist and the refractive index of the tested alcohols and their mixtures with water. The signal increases linearly with increasing concentration of ethylene glycol and increases nonlinearly but monotonically with the concentration of methanol and ethanol in water. Sensitivity to alcohols, in the case of the ethylene glycol–water mixtures, reached about 0.55 nm/v.% or 560 nm/RIU (refractive index unit), which is sufficient for various applications in bio/chemical detection and environmental monitoring.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat8030067
Authors: Garyfallia C. Katsimiga Simeon I. Mistakidis Boris A. Malomed Dimitris J. Frantzeskakis Ricardo Carretero-Gonzalez Panayotis G. Kevrekidis
We explore the dynamics and interactions of multiple bright droplets and bubbles, as well as the interactions of kinks with droplets and with antikinks, in the extended one-dimensional Gross–Pitaevskii model including the Lee–Huang–Yang correction. Existence regions are identified for the one-dimensional droplets and bubbles in terms of their chemical potential, verifying the stability of the droplets and exposing the instability of the bubbles. The limiting case of the droplet family is a stable kink. The interactions between droplets demonstrate in-phase (out-of-phase) attraction (repulsion), with the so-called Manton’s method explicating the observed dynamical response, and mixed behavior for intermediate values of the phase shift. Droplets bearing different chemical potentials experience mass-exchange phenomena. Individual bubbles exhibit core expansion and mutual attraction prior to their destabilization. Droplets interacting with kinks are absorbed by them, a process accompanied by the emission of dispersive shock waves and gray solitons. Kink–antikink interactions are repulsive, generating counter-propagating shock waves. Our findings reveal dynamical features of droplets and kinks that can be detected in current experiments.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat8030066
Authors: Rafael G. Toscano-Negrette José C. León-González Juan A. Vinasco Alvaro L. Morales Miguel E. Mora-Ramos Carlos A. Duque
A theoretical analysis was conducted to examine the electronic and optical properties of a confined electron and a hole in a type-II core-shell spherical quantum dot composed of CdSe/ZnTe and ZnTe/CdSe. The Schrödinger equation for the electron and the hole was numerically solved using COMSOL-Multiphysics software in the 2D axisymmetric module, which employs the finite element method under the effective mass approximation. A Fortran code was utilized to calculate excitonic energy, specifically designed to solve the Coulomb integral. The calculations encompassed variations in the inner radius (R1), as well as variations in the electric (Fz) and magnetic (B) fields along the z-axis. The absorption coefficients were determined for transitions between the hole and electron ground states, considering z-polarized incident radiation. Including a magnetic field increases the transition energy, consequently causing the absorption peaks to shift toward the blue region of the spectrum. On the other hand, the electric field decreased the overlap of the electron and hole wavefunctions. As a result, the amplitude of the absorption peaks decreased with an increase in the electric field.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat8030065
Authors: Iman N. Askerzade
In this paper, we conducted the calculation of the critical current of DC SQUID based on the Josephson junction on a multi-band superconductor with frustration effect. It is shown that the critical current of DC SQUID on the frustrated multi-band superconductor with a small geometrical inductance of the loop is determined by the supercurrent amplitude in different channels and by the external magnetic field. In the case of a DC SQUID with high inductance, frustration effects can be ignored.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat8030064
Authors: Nikolai Bunkin Leonard Sabirov Denis Semenov Faxriddin Ismailov Muxriddin Khasanov
Adiabatic compressibility βS of the 4-methylpyridine + water solution is investigated in a wide concentration and temperature variation interval using Mandelstam–Brillouin scattering spectroscopy. The adiabatic compressibility minimum caused by the microinhomogeneous structure of the solution is experimentally established at the concentration of 0.06 molar fractions of 4-methylpyridine in the solution. The results of the investigations allow the construction of a diagram of possible states caused by a continuous three-dimensional hydrogen bond network of water. The results of experimental study of the excessive hypersound absorption in acetone + water and 3-methylpyridine + water solutions are discussed based on the conclusions of the theory of high-frequency sound scattering near the critical point (developed by Chaban) and the Landau theory. These results are described within the framework of the Landau and Chaban theories and explained by the existence of two different states with minimum thermodynamic stability in the solution.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat8030063
Authors: Melquiades de Dios-Leyva Andy Márquez-González Carlos Alberto Duque
The physical mechanisms supporting the existence of topological interface modes in photonic structures, formed with the concatenation of two finite, N-period, one-dimensional photonic crystals, are investigated. It is shown that these mechanisms originate from a specific configuration of bands and bandgaps of topological origin in the band structure of the concatenated structure. Our analysis reveals that the characteristics of such a configuration depend on the structural parameters, including the number, N, of unit cells, and determine the properties of the corresponding resonant transmission peak. It was shown that the width and maximum value of the transmission peaks decrease with N. These results not only provide new physical insight into the origin and nature of such modes, but also can be used to control and manipulate the transmission peak properties, such as peak values, full width at half maximum (FWHM), and Q-factor, which are of special interest in the fields of optical sensing, filters, etc.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat8030062
Authors: Sagdulla A. Bakhramov Urol K. Makhmanov Bobirjon A. Aslonov
Semiconductor nanowhiskers, particularly nanostructured whiskers based on zero-dimensional (0D) C70 fullerene, are being actively discussed due to the great potential of their application in modern electronics. For the first time, we proposed and implemented a method for the synthesis of nanostructured C70 fullerene whiskers based on the self-organization of C70 molecules during the thermal evaporation of C70 droplets on the substrate surface. We found that the onset of the synthesis of C70 nanowhiskers upon the evaporation of drops of a C70 solution in toluene on the substrate surface depends on the substrate temperature. We have provided experimental evidence that an increase in both the C70 concentration in the initial drop and the substrate temperature leads to an increase in the geometric dimensions of C70 nanowhiskers. The obtained results provide useful vision on the role of solute concentration and substrate temperature in the synthesis of one-dimensional materials.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat8030061
Authors: Gene Elizabeth Escorcia-Salas Diego Restrepo-Leal Oscar Martinez-Castro William López-Pérez José Sierra-Ortega
We present a comprehensive study on the structural, electronic, and optical properties of VxAl1−xN ternary alloys using first-principles calculations. Our investigations employ the full-potential linearized augmented-plane-wave (FP-LAPW) method within the density functional theory (DFT) framework. The impact of varying vanadium composition (x = 0, 0.25, 0.5, 0.75, 1) on the structural, electronic, and optical characteristics of wurtzite VxAl1−xN alloys is examined in detail. Our findings reveal a distinct nonlinear relationship between the lattice constant, bulk modulus, and the concentration of vanadium (x) in the VxAl1−xN alloys. An analysis of the electronic band structures and densities of states reveals a metallic behavior in the VxAl1−xN alloys, primarily driven by the V-d states near the Fermi energy. These results shed light on the electronic properties of the alloys, contributing to a deeper understanding of their potential for various applications. Furthermore, we calculate various optical properties, including the real and imaginary dielectric functions, refractive index, energy loss spectrum, and reflectivity. The obtained optical functions provide valuable insights into the optical behavior of the VxAl1−xN alloys. The results contribute to the fundamental knowledge of these materials and their potential applications in various fields.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat8030060
Authors: Erika Y. Soto-Gómez Judith Helena Ojeda Silva John A. Gil-Corrales Daniel Gallego Mikel F. Hurtado Morales Alvaro L. Morales Carlos A. Duque
The study of molecular nanoelectronic devices has recently gained significant interest, especially their potential use as functional junctions of molecular wires. Aromatic systems with π-conjugated bonds within their chemical backbones, such as catechol, have attracted particular attention in this area. In this work, we focused on calculating and determining catechol’s electrical and thermal transport properties using the theoretical method of Green’s functions renormalized in a real space domain within a framework of tight-binding approximation to the first neighbors. Thus, we studied two theoretical models of catechol as a function of its geometry, obtaining striking variations in the profiles of electrical and thermal conductance, the Seebeck coefficient, and the figure of merit. The analyses of the results suggest the potential application of catechol as a likely conductive and thermoelectric molecule serving as a novel material to use in molecular electronic devices.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat8030059
Authors: Hiroshi Idzuchi Andres E. Llacsahuanga Allcca Amanda Victo Haglund Xing-Chen Pan Takuya Matsuda Katsumi Tanigaki David Mandrus Yong P. Chen
Recently, there has been a growing interest in two-dimensional van der Waals (vdW) magnets owing to their unique two-dimensional magnetic phenomena and potential applications. Most vdW ferromagnets have the Curie temperature below room temperature, highlighting the need to explore how to enhance their magnetism. In our previous report, we successfully increased the Curie temperature of the prototypical vdW magnet Cr2Ge2Te6 using a NiO overlayer. In layered materials, the presence of wrinkles is often observed and evaluating them using optical microscopy proves to be useful; however, there have been limited investigations into the optical constants of vdW magnets, hampering progress in understanding their optical properties. In this study, we present the optical constants of Cr2Ge2Te6 obtained through ellipsometry measurements. To account for the presence of wrinkles, we model a vacuum region between the substrate and the vdW magnet, and we calculate the reflectivity as a function of wavelength and vacuum thickness to visualize the optical image. Furthermore, we discuss the relationship between the optical constants and the electronic structure of the material.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat8030058
Authors: Elena S. Kartashynska
This paper deals with the results of quantum chemical modeling of the monoacyl-sn-glycerol 2D cluster formation at the air/water interface using a semi-empirical PM3 method. The impact of the 2 or 3 positions of the acyl substituent on the thermodynamics of the monolayer formation is assessed for surfactants with an acyl substituent CnH2n+1COO chain length of n = 6–17 carbon atoms. The calculation shows a significant change in the spontaneous clusterization threshold for isomeric compounds, which differs only in the position of the acyl substituent with respect to the glycerol backbone. This change is almost equal to substituent shortening by approximately two methylene fragments. At the same time, the geometric parameters of the unit cell for resulting monolayers are not affected so drastically. The 2D films in question possess an oblique or orthorhombic unit cell with parameters for 2 and 3-monoacyl-sn-glycerol monolayers, as follows: a = 4.91 Å and 4.82 Å and b = 5.00 Å and 4.92 Å, with hydrocarbon chains tilted at t = 23.0° and 23.5°. The calculated results are in accordance with existing experimental data obtained using grazing incidence X-ray diffraction measurements and the π-A isotherm technique.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat8030057
Authors: Ruben Albertini Salvatore Macis Andrei Ivanov Alexey Menushenkov Alessandro Puri Virginia Monteseguro Boby Joseph Wei Xu Augusto Marcelli Paula Giraldo-Gallo Ian Fisher Antonio Bianconi Gaetano Campi
BaPb1−xBixO3 (BPBO) bismuthate, showing high TC superconductivity for 0.05 < x < 0.35, is an archetypal system for studying the complex inhomogeneity of perovskite lattice favoring the emergence of quantum coherence, called the superstripes phase. Local lattice fluctuations, detected by EXAFS; nanoscale stripes, detected by electron microscopy; and two competing crystalline structures, detected by diffraction, are known to characterize the superconducting phase. At nanoscale [BaBiO3] centered nanoscale units (BBO) coexist with BaPbO3 centered (BPO) units in the BPBO perovskite; therefore, we expect a tensile microstrain in BPO units due the misfit strain between the two different lattices. Here, we report the measurement of the spatial micro-fluctuations of the local tensile microstrain ε in the BaPO units in superconducting Ba(Pb1−xBix)O3 crystals with x1 = 0.19 an x2 = 0.28. We show here the feasibility of applying the scanning dispersive micro-X-ray absorption near edge structure (SdμXANES) technique, using focused synchrotron radiation, to probe the microscale spatial fluctuations of the microstrain in BPO units. This unconventional real-space SdμXANES microscopy at the Pb L3 edge has been collected in the dispersive mode. Our experimental method allows us to measure either the local Bi chemical concentration x and the local lattice microstrain of local BBO and BPO units. The 5 × 5 micron-size spots from the focused X-ray beam allowed us to obtain maps of 1600 points covering an area of 200 × 200 microns. The mapping shows a substantial difference between the spatial fluctuations of the microstrain ε and the chemical inhomogeneity x. Moreover, we show the different relations ε(x) in samples with lower (x1 = 0.19) and higher (x2 = 0.28) doping respect to the optimum doping (x = 0.25).
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat8030056
Authors: Amirreza Hemmatzade Elena Medina Ludovic Delbes Benoît Baptiste David Hrabovsky Yannick Klein Steven D. Conradson Maarit Karppinen Andrea Gauzzi
In order to elucidate the unusual superconducting properties of cuprates in the strongly overdoped region, i.e., at hole-doping levels p≳0.4/Cu in the CuO2 plane, we study the structural and superconducting properties of a series of Cu0.75Mo0.25Sr2YCu2O7+x powder samples oxygenated under high pressure using different concentrations of KClO3 up to 35 mol %. The analysis of X-ray diffraction data indicates a high purity ∼90% of all samples and suggests that the concentration, x, of extra oxygen atoms increases with increasing KClO3 concentration. Surprisingly, the Tc values remain nearly constant within the 80–85 K range independent of KClO3 concentration, which suggests a scenario of Tc saturation. In order to account for this unexpected behaviour, we put forward the hypothesis that overdoping enhances the density of unpaired holes, which is supported by the observation of large values of the Sommerfeld coefficient in all samples. We therefore propose a scenario of electronic phase separation between normal and superconducting holes.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat8030055
Authors: Rafael G. Toscano-Negrette José C. León-González Juan A. Vinasco Judith Helena Ojeda Silva Alvaro L. Morales Carlos A. Duque
Taking into consideration the research that has been conducted on the optical and electrical properties of molecular systems, especially the good thermoelectric energy conversion at a nanometric scale that such systems have presented, here we present a new alternative by using a particular diphenyl-ether molecule as a functional device. Such a molecular system is modeled as a planar segment coupled to two electrodes in the first-neighbor approximation within a tight-binding Hamiltonian. We study the electrical and thermal properties of diphenyl-ether molecules such as the electric current, electrical and thermal conductance, Seebeck coefficient, and figure of merit, in the strong and weak coupling regimes, considering different structural configurations and variations with temperature. Our results could be valuable for laboratory applications and/or verification since we characterize the diphenyl-ether molecule as a semiconductor device for different structural models.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat8030054
Authors: Giulia Venditti Sergio Caprara
Increasing experimental evidence suggests the occurrence of filamentary superconductivity in different (quasi) two-dimensional physical systems. In this piece of work, we discuss the proposal that under certain circumstances, this occurrence may be related to the competition with a phase characterized by charge ordering in the form of charge-density waves. We provide a brief summary of experimental evidence supporting our argument in two paradigmatic classes of materials, namely transition metal dichalcogenides and cuprates superconductors. We present a simple Ginzburg–Landau two-order-parameters model as a starting point to address the study of such competition. We finally discuss the outcomes of a more sophisticated model, already presented in the literature and encoding the presence of impurities, and how it can be further improved in order to really address the interplay between charge-density waves and superconductivity and the possible occurrence of filamentary superconductivity at the domain walls between different charge-ordered regions.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat8020053
Authors: Chandra M. Adhikari Da’Shawn M. Morris Thomas W. Noonan Tikaram Neupane Basu R. Lamichhane Bhoj R. Gautam
We present a theoretical study on the energy dispersion of an ultrathin film of periodically-aligned single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) with the help of the Bogoliubov–Valatin transformation. The Hamiltonian of the film was derived using the many-particle green function technique in the Matsubara frequency formalism. The periodic array of SWCNTs was embedded in a dielectric with comparatively higher permittivity than the substrate and the superstrate such that the SWCNT film became independent with the axis of quantization but keeps the thickness as the variable parameter, making the film neither two-dimensional nor three-dimensional, but transdimensional. It was revealed that the energy dispersion of the SWCNT film is thickness dependent.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat8020052
Authors: José C. León-González Rafael G. Toscano-Negrette Juan A. Vinasco Alvaro L. Morales Miguel E. Mora-Ramos Carlos A. Duque
We investigated the impact of a non-resonant intense laser, structural defects, and magnetic fields on the electronic and optical properties of a simple GaAs quantum ring under the inverse quadratic Hellmann potential, using the effective mass and parabolic band approximations. We obtained the energies and wavefunctions by solving the 2D Schrodinger’s equation using the finite-element numerical technique to analyze this. We considered circular polarization to calculate the dipole matrix elements, which were influenced by the laser field and structural defects in the system. This enabled us to study the linear absorption coefficients. Our results demonstrated that the presence of a laser field and a structural defect disrupt the axial symmetry of the problem. When only the non-resonant laser was present, a pattern of excited states appeared in pairs, which oscillated with the magnetic field. However, the amplitude of the oscillation decreased as the magnetic field strength increased, and these oscillations disappeared when the structural defect was introduced. It was also noted that the intensity and position of the linear optical absorption peaks exhibited a non-monotonic behavior with the magnetic field in the absence of a structural defect. However, this behavior changed when the structural defect was present, depending on the type of polarization (right or left circular). Finally, a clear improvement in the absorption peaks with an increase in the laser parameter is reported.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat8020051
Authors: Hernán A. Gómez-Urrea José G. Cardona Miguel E. Mora-Ramos Carlos A. Duque
In this study, we perform a theoretical study of light propagation properties in two-dimensional square photonic crystals (PCs) following Bravais–Moiré (BM) patterns composed of copper oxide high-temperature superconductors (HTSCs). The BM PCs are made of cylindrical cores formed from the combination of two square Bravais lattices. The Moiré pattern forms due to a commensurable rotation of one of these lattices with respect to the other. The dielectric function of the superconducting material is modeled by the two-fluid Gorter–Casimir theory. We report on the corresponding gap, the mapping as a function of the radius of dielectric cores, as well as the dispersion relations of TM modes for BM PCs and for the waveguide system built of defect lines within such a crystal. The BM PCs were composed of copper oxide HTSCs, which exhibit large tunability in terms of temperature.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat8020050
Authors: Waira Murillo-García Hernán A. Gómez-Urrea Miguel E. Mora-Ramos Carlos A. Duque
We report the transmission spectra and electric field amplitudes of electromagnetic modes propagating in hybrid periodic/quasiperiodic multilayer photonic structures in one dimension (1D). We consider the case of the combination of biperiodic Bragg mirror and triperiodic Bragg mirrors with quasiregular (FB, Fibonacci) layered components. The corresponding hybrid structure (HB) is formed by concatenating BM(N)-FB(M)-BM(N), where N (M) means the number of periods (sequence order) used for the Bragg mirrors (FB) structure. A single defect layer (D) is considered in the middle of two HBs (HB-D-HB). Optimizing the parameters (the order of sequence, number of Bragg mirror layers, thickness, and the refractive index of D) allows us to obtain narrowband filters. The manipulation of these parameters fixes the number of photonic band gaps as well as the position of transmission peaks. The existence of the selectively localized behavior of some optical modes in the structures is discussed.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat8020049
Authors: Katariina Pussi Keying Ding Bernardo Barbiellini Koji Ohara Hiroki Yamada Chuka Onuh James McBride Arun Bansil Ray K. Chiang Saeed Kamali
We discuss the atomic structure of cobalt ferrite nanoparticles doped with Mn via an analysis based on combining atomic pair distribution functions with high energy X-ray diffraction and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy measurements. Cobalt ferrite nanoparticles are promising materials for metal–air battery applications. Cobalt ferrites, however, generally show poor electronic conductivity at ambient temperatures, which limits their bifunctional catalytic performance in oxygen electrocatalysis. Our study reveals how the introduction of Mn ions promotes the conductivity of the cobalt ferrite electrode.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat8020048
Authors: Xin Li Bernardo Barbiellini Vito Di Noto Gioele Pagot Meiying Zheng Rafael Ferragut
Positron annihilation spectroscopy is a powerful probe to investigate the interfaces in materials relevant for energy storage such as Li-ion batteries. The key to the interpretation of the results is the positron implantation profile, which is a spatial function related to the characteristics of the materials forming the battery. We provide models for the positron implantation profile in a cathode of a Li-ion battery coin cell. These models are the basis for a reliable visualization of multilayer geometries and their interfaces in thin cathodes of lithium-ion batteries.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat8020047
Authors: Krzysztof Pomorski Dariusz Kotula
Cellular automata can simulate many complex physical phenomena using the power of simple rules. The presented methodological platform expresses the concept of programmable matter, of which Newton’s laws of motion are an example. Energy is introduced as the equivalent of the “Game of Life” mass, which can be treated as the first level of approximation. The temperature presence and propagation was calculated for various lattice topologies and boundary conditions, using the Shannon entropy measure. This study provides strong evidence that, despite the principle of mass and energy conservation not being fulfilled, the entropy, mass distribution, and temperature approach thermodynamic equilibrium. In addition, the described cellular automaton system transitions from a positive to a negative temperature, which stabilizes and can be treated as a signature of a system in equilibrium. The system dynamics is presented for a few species of cellular automata competing for maximum presence on a given lattice with different boundary conditions.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat8020046
Authors: Maria Cristina Diamantini
I review a new superconductivity mechanism in which the gap is opened through a topological mechanism and not through the Landau mechanism of spontaneous symmetry breaking. As a consequence, the low-energy effective theory which describes these new superconductors is not the Landau–Ginzburg theory, formulated in terms of a local-order parameter, but a topological-field theory formulated in terms of emerging gauge fields. This new mechanism is realized as global superconductivty in Josephson junction arrays and in thin superconducting films with thicknesses comparable to the superconducting coherence length, which exhibits emergent granularity.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat8020045
Authors: Giovanni Alberto Ummarino
The experimental critical temperature of the systems of superconducting (Pb) and normal (Ag, Cu and Al) nanoparticles, with a random distribution and sizes less than their respective coherence lengths, is governed by the proximity effect, as shown by the experimental data. At first glance, the behavior of the variation in the critical temperature in function of the ratio of volume fractions of the superconducting and the normal metal components seems to suggest a weak coupling behavior for the superconductor. In reality, upon a more careful analysis, using Eliashberg’s theory for the proximity effect, the system instead shows a strong coupling nature. The most interesting thing is that the theory has no free parameters and perfectly explains the behavior of the experimental data just with the assumption in the case of the nanoparticles Ag and Cu, that the value of the density of states at the Fermi level of silver and copper is equal to the value of lead.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat8020044
Authors: Cesare Malosso Gaetano Senatore Stefania De Palo
Excitonic condensation and superfluidity have recently received a renewed attention, due to the fabrication of bilayer systems in which electrons and holes are spatially separated and form stable pairs known as indirect excitons. Dichalcogenides- and graphene-based bilayers are nowadays built and investigated, giving access to systems with (i) only spin degeneracy and (ii) spin and valley degeneracy. Simulation studies performed in the last decades at T=0 for simple, model electron–hole bilayers, as function of the interlayer distance and in-layer carrier density, have revealed in case (i) the formation of biexcitons in a tiny region of the parameter space and in case (ii) the formation of stable compounds made of four electrons and four holes (quadriexcitons) in a sizable region of the parameter space. Of some interest is the relation of the properties of isolated biexcitons (quadriexcitons) and those of their finite-density counterpart. In fact, the isolated biexciton has been repeatedly studied in the last years with simulations and other techniques. No simulations, instead, are available to our knowledge for the isolated quadriexciton, for which we present here results of the first quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) study. Stability with respect to the dissociation into biexcitons and the pair correlations while varying the interlayer distance d are discussed.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat8020043
Authors: Junhui Cao Alexey Kavokin
Here we consider theoretically an exciton-like dipole formed by a magnetic monopole and a magnetic antimonopole. This type of quasiparticles may be formed in a magnetic counterpart of a one dimensional semiconductor crystal. We use the familiar Lorentz driven damped harmonic oscillator model to find the eigenmodes of magnetic monopole dipoles strongly coupled to light. The proposed model allows predicting optical signatures of magnetic monopole excitons in crystals.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat8020042
Authors: Serghei Klimin Jacques Tempere Hadrien Kurkjian
We investigate theoretically the momentum-dependent frequency and damping of low-lying collective excitations of superconductors and charged superfluids in the BCS–BEC crossover regime. The study is based on the Gaussian pair-and-density fluctuation method for the propagator of Gaussian fluctuations of the pair and density fields. Eigenfrequencies and damping rates are determined in a mutually consistent nonperturbative way as complex poles of the fluctuation propagator. Particular attention is paid to new features with respect to preceding theoretical studies, which were devoted to collective excitations of superconductors in the far BCS regime. We find that at a sufficiently strong coupling, new branches of collective excitations appear, which manifest different behavior as functions of the momentum and the temperature.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat8020041
Authors: Vladimir V. Rumyantsev Stanislav A. Fedorov Konstantin V. Gumennyk Alexey Ye. Rybalka
In this paper, within the framework of virtual crystal approximation, the mathematical modeling of the dependence of the density of states of polariton excitations in a 1D photonic crystal—a system of pores (tunnel-coupled microresonators) containing quantum dots—on the concentration of structural defects is performed.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat8020040
Authors: Alessandro D’Elia Vincent Polewczyk Aleksandr Yu. Petrov Liang Li Chongwen Zou Javad Rezvani Augusto Marcelli
VO2 is one of the most studied vanadium oxides because it undergoes a reversible metal-insulator transition (MIT) upon heating with a critical temperature of around 340 K. One of the most overlooked aspects of VO2 is the band’s anisotropy in the metallic phase when the Fermi level is crossed by two bands: π* and d||. They are oriented perpendicularly in one respect to the other, hence generating anisotropy. One of the parameters tuning MIT properties is the unbalance of the electron population of π* and d|| bands that arise from their different energy position with respect to the Fermi level. In systems with reduced dimensionality, the electron population disproportion is different with respect to the bulk leading to a different anisotropy. Investigating such a system with a band-selective spectroscopic tool is mandatory. In this manuscript, we show the results of the investigation of a single crystalline 8 nm VO2/TiO2(101) film. We report on the effectiveness of linearly polarized resonant photoemission (ResPES) as a band-selective technique probing the intrinsic anisotropy of VO2.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat8020039
Authors: Amotz Peri Itay Mangel Amit Keren
Superconducting stiffness ρs and coherence length ξ are usually determined by measuring the penetration depth λ of a magnetic field and the upper critical field Hc2 of a superconductor (SC), respectively. However, in magnetic SC, which is iron-based, this could lead to erroneous results, since the internal field could be very different from the applied one. To overcome this problem in Fe1+ySexTe1−x with x∼0.5 and y∼0 (FST), we measured both quantities with the Stiffnessometer technique. In this technique, one applies a rotor-free vector potential A to a superconducting ring and measures the current density j via the ring’s magnetic moment m. ρs and ξ are determined from London’s equation, j=−ρsA, and its range of validity. This method is particularly accurate at temperatures close to the critical temperature Tc. We find weaker ρs and longer ξ than existing literature reports, and critical exponents which agree better with expectations based on the Ginzburg–Landau theory.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat8020038
Authors: Vasilii Gromov Atlas Noubir Fatemeh Keshavarz Ekaterina Laakso Bernardo Barbiellini Arun Bansil
Anhydrous ferrous (II) oxalate (AFO) outperforms its hydrated form when used as an anode material in Li-ion batteries (LIBs). With the increasing interest in Na-ion batteries (NIBs) in mind, we examine the potential of AFO as the anode in NIBs through first principles calculations involving both periodic and non-periodic structures. Our analysis based on periodic (non-periodic) modeling scheme shows that the AFO anode generates a low reaction potential of 1.22 V (1.45 V) in the NIBs, and 1.34 V (1.24 V) in the LIBs, which is much lower than the potential of NIBs with mixed oxalates. The conversion mechanism in the underlying electrochemical process involves the reduction of Fe2+ with the addition of Na or Li. Such conversion electrodes can achieve high capacities through the Fe2+ valence states of iron.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat8020037
Authors: Levan Chkhartishvili Archil Mikeladze Otar Tsagareishvili Vakhtang Kvatchadze Valery Tavkhelidze Zviad Mestvirishvili Dimitri Driaev Natia Barbakadze Lili Nadaraia Ketevan Sarajishvili Irma Jinikashvili Manana Buzariashvili Roin Chedia
Boron carbide is known as a hard material; it possesses a unique complex of physical-mechanical properties and has diverse applications in industries. An expansion of its field of uses stems from the creation of boron carbide matrix nanocomposite materials. In view of this perspective, an effective liquid-charge synthesizing method for their components in nanopowder form has been proposed. This paper provides a focused review on advanced boron carbide matrix ceramic and metal-ceramic nanocomposites recently obtained by the authors using this method. Particular attention is paid to the characterization of boron carbide nanocomposites, including some ceramic borides, metallic alloys and also other metal-ceramic composites.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat8020036
Authors: Tairzhan Karabassov Emir S. Amirov Irina V. Bobkova Alexander A. Golubov Elena A. Kazakova Andrey S. Vasenko
Currently, the superconducting diode effect (SDE) is being actively discussed, due to its large application potential in superconducting electronics. In particular, superconducting hybrid structures, based on three-dimensional (3D) topological insulators, are among the best candidates, due to their having the strongest spin–orbit coupling (SOC). Most theoretical studies on the SDE focus either on a full numerical calculation, which is often rather complicated, or on the phenomenological approach. In the present paper, we compare the linearized and nonlinear microscopic approaches in the superconductor/ferromagnet/3D topological insulator (S/F/TI) hybrid structure. Employing the quasiclassical Green’s function formalism we solve the problem self-consistently. We show that the results obtained by the linearized approximation are not qualitatively different from the nonlinear solution. The main distinction in the results between the two methods was quantitative, i.e., they yielded different supercurrent amplitudes. However, when calculating the so-called diode quality factor the quantitative difference is eliminated and both approaches result in good agreement.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat8020035
Authors: Roberta Caruso Fernando Camino Genda Gu John M. Tranquada Myung-Geun Han Yimei Zhu Anthony T. Bollinger Ivan Božović
Focused ion beam (FIB) milling is a mask-free lithography technique that allows the precise shaping of 3D materials on the micron and sub-micron scale. The recent discovery of electronic nematicity in La2−xSrxCuO4 (LSCO) thin films triggered the search for the same phenomenon in bulk LSCO crystals. With this motivation, we have systematically explored FIB patterning of bulk LSCO crystals into micro-devices suitable for longitudinal and transverse resistivity measurements. We found that several detrimental factors can affect the result, ultimately compromising the possibility of effectively using FIB milling to fabricate sub-micrometer LSCO devices, especially in the underdoped regime.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat8020033
Authors: Hiroshi Kamimura Masaaki Araidai Kunio Ishida Shunichi Matsuno Hideaki Sakata Kenji Sasaoka Kenji Shiraishi Osamu Sugino Jaw-Shen Tsai Kazuyoshi Yamada
First-principles calculations for underdoped La2−xSrxCuO4 (LSCO) have revealed a Fermi surface consisting of spin-triplet (KS) particles at the antinodal Fermi-pockets and spin-singlet (SS) particles at the nodal Fermi-arcs in the presence of AF local order. By performing a unique method of calculating the electronic-spin state of overdoped LSCO and by measurement of the spin-correlation length by neutron inelastic scattering, the origin of the phase-diagram, including the pseudogap phase in the high temperature superconductor, Sr-doped copper-oxide LSCO, has been elucidated. We have theoretically solved the long-term problem as to why the angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) has not been able to observe Fermi pockets in the Fermi surface of LSCO. As a result, we show that the pseudogap region is bounded below the characteristic temperature T*(x) and above the superconducting transition temperature Tc(x) in the T vs. x phase diagram, where both the AF order and the KS particles in the Fermi pockets vanish at T*(x), whilst KS particles contribute to d-wave superconductivity below Tc. We also show that the relationship T*(xc) = Tc(xc) holds at xc = 0.30, which is consistent with ARPES experiments. At T*(x), a phase transition occurs from the pseudogap phase to an unusual metallic phase in which only the SS particles exist.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat8020034
Authors: Tijana Tomašević-Ilić Nikola Škoro Đorđe Jovanović Nevena Puač Marko Spasenović
Graphene films prepared from solution and deposited by Langmuir–Blodgett self-assembly technique (LBSA) were treated with radio-frequency (13.56 MHz) nitrogen plasma in order to investigate the influence of the time of nitrogen plasma exposure on the work function, sheet resistance, and surface morphology of LBSA graphene films. Kelvin probe force microscopy and sheet resistance measurements confirm nitrogen functionalization of our films, with the Fermi level shifting in a direction that indicates binding to a pyridinic and/or pyrrolic site. Upon 1 min of nitrogen plasma exposure, the sheet resistance decreases and there is no obvious difference in film morphology. However, plasma exposure longer than 5 min leads to the removal of graphene flakes and degradation of graphene films, in turn, affecting the flake connectivity and increasing film resistance. We show that by changing the exposure time, we can control the work function and decrease sheet resistance, without affecting surface morphology. Controllability of the plasma technique has an advantage for graphene functionalization over conventional doping techniques such as chemical drop-casting. It allows for the controllable tuning of the work function, surface morphology, and sheet resistance of LBSA graphene films, which is substantial for applications in various optoelectronic devices.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat8020032
Authors: Bernd Aichner Lucas Backmeister Max Karrer Katja Wurster Reinhold Kleiner Edward Goldobin Dieter Koelle Wolfgang Lang
The competition between intrinsic disorder in superconducting YBa2Cu3O7−δ (YBCO) thin films and an ultradense triangular lattice of cylindrical pinning centers spaced at 30 nm intervals results in an ordered Bose glass phase of vortices. The samples were created by scanning the focused beam of a helium-ion microscope over the surface of the YBCO thin film to form columns of point defects where superconductivity was locally suppressed. The voltage–current isotherms reveal critical behavior and scale in the vicinity of the second-order glass transition. The latter exhibits a distinct peak in melting temperature (Tg) vs. applied magnetic field (Ba) at the magnetic commensurability field, along with a sharp rise in the lifetimes of glassy fluctuations. Angle-dependent magnetoresistance measurements in constant-Lorentz-force geometry unveil a strong increase in anisotropy compared to a pristine reference film where the density of vortices matches that of the columnar defects. The pinning is therefore, dominated by the magnetic-field component parallel to the columnar defects, exposing its one-dimensional character. These results support the idea of an ordered Bose glass phase.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat8020031
Authors: Roberto Costantini Dario Marchiani Maria Grazia Betti Carlo Mariani Samuel Jeong Yoshikazu Ito Alberto Morgante Martina Dell’Angela
Free-standing nanoporous graphene was hydrogenated at about 60 at.% H uptake, as determined by the emerging of the sp3 bonding component in the C 1s core level investigated by high-resolution X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). Fully unsupported graphane was investigated by XPS under optical excitation at 2.4 eV. At a laser fluence of 1.6 mJ/cm2, a partial irreversible dehydrogenation of the graphane was observed, which could be attributed either to the local temperature increase or to a photo-induced softening of the H-to-C stretching mode. The sub-ns dynamics of the energy shift and peak broadening of the C 1s core level revealed two different decay constants: 210 ps and 130 ps, respectively, the former associated with photovoltage dynamics and the latter with thermal heating on a time scale comparable with the synchrotron temporal resolution.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat8020030
Authors: Pieralberto Marchetti
We propose that some dichotomic Fermi liquid versus non-Fermi liquid behaviours of physical quantities in hole-doped cuprates can be explained in terms of the FL* fractionalized Fermi liquid concept, introduced some years ago, even beyond the region of underdoping. The particle excitations of this FL* system are the holon carrying charge, the spinon carrying spin 1/2, gauge fluctuations coupling them and the hole as a spinon–holon bound state or resonance due to gauge binding. In our proposal, physical responses have a Fermi-liquid-type behaviour if they are dominated by the hole resonance, whereas a non-Fermi liquid behaviour appears if they are dominated by spinon–spinon (and possibly also holon–holon) gauge interactions. The specific case of spin susceptibility in the so-called "strange metal phase" is discussed. The uniform susceptibility turns out to be hole-dominated, the spin-lattice relaxation rate in the Cu sites is spinon-dominated.
]]>Condensed Matter doi: 10.3390/condmat8010029
Authors: Halima Giovanna Ahmad Caleb Jordan Roald van den Boogaart Daan Waardenburg Christos Zachariadis Pasquale Mastrovito Asen Lyubenov Georgiev Domenico Montemurro Giovanni Piero Pepe Marten Arthers Alessandro Bruno Francesco Tafuri Oleg Mukhanov Marco Arzeo Davide Massarotti
The strong requirement for high-performing quantum computing led to intensive research on novel quantum platforms in the last decades. The circuital nature of Josephson-based quantum superconducting systems powerfully supports massive circuital freedom, which allowed for the implementation of a wide range of qubit designs, and an easy interface with the quantum processing unit. However, this unavoidably introduces a coupling with the environment, and thus to extra decoherence sources. Moreover, at the time of writing, control and readout protocols mainly use analogue microwave electronics, which limit the otherwise reasonable scalability in superconducting quantum circuits. Within the future perspective to improve scalability by integrating novel control energy-efficient superconducting electronics at the quantum stage in a multi-chip module, we report on an all-microwave characterization of a planar two-transmon qubits device, which involves state-of-the-art control pulses optimization. We demonstrate that the single-qubit average gate fidelity is mainly limited by the gate pulse duration and the quality of the optimization, and thus does not preclude the integration in novel hybrid quantum-classical superconducting devices.
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