Mossbauer effect and its applications in materials research

It is generally recognized that in any well behaved metal fatigue failure, the following sequence of events occurs. The application of stress causes the movement of defects already present in the specimen, besides producing new defects. These defects concentrate in the regions of stress concentration. This defect concentration, which precedes crack nucleation and its eventual growth, actually amounts to environmental changes for Mossbauer atoms located in these regions. Changes in the atomic composition of the Mossbauer absorber atom environment are sensed by examining changes in the sensitive parameters of the Mossbauer spectra. A preliminary study of changes in the isomer shift and line width of commercial nonmagnetic steel specimen is reported

Mossbauer spectrometer radiation detector

A Mossbauer spectrometer with high efficiencies in both transmission and backscattering techniques is described. The device contains a sodium iodide crystal for detecting radiation caused by the Mossbauer effect, and two photomultipliers to collect the radiation detected by the crystal. When used in the transmission technique, the sample or scatterer is placed between the incident radiation source and the detector. When used in a backscattering technique, the detector is placed between the incident radiation source and the sample of scatterer such that the incident radiation will pass through a hole in the crystal and strike the sample. Diagrams of the instrument are provided

Properties of KCo2_2As2_2 and Alloys with Fe and Ru: Density Functional Calculations

Electronic structure calculations are presented for KCo$_2$As$_2$ and alloys with KFe$_2$As$_2$ and KRu$_2$As$_2$. These materials show electronic structures characteristic of coherent alloys, with a similar Fermi surface structure to that of the Fe-based superconductors, when the $d$ electron count is near six per transition metal. However, they are less magnetic than the corresponding Fe compounds. These results are discussed in relation to superconductivity.Comment: 5 page

Optical properties of cubic and rhombohedral GeTe

Calculations of the optical properties of GeTe in the cubic NaCl and rhombohedral ferroelectric structures are reported. The rhombohedral ferroelectric distortion increases the band gap from 0.11 eV to 0.38 eV. Remarkably, substantial changes in optical properties are found even at high energies up to 5 eV. The results are discussed in relation to the bonding of GeTe and to phase change materials based on it

Electronic Structure and Bulk Spin Valve Behavior in Ca3_3Ru2_2O7_7

We report density functional calculations of the magnetic properties and Fermiology of Ca$_3$Ru$_2$O$_7$. The ground state consists of ferromagnetic bilayers, stacked antiferromagnetically. The bilayers are almost but not exactly half-metallic. In the ferromagnetic state opposite spin polarizations are found for in-plane and out-of-plane transport. Relatively high out of plane conductivity is found for the majority spin, which is relatively weakly conductive in-plane. In the ground state in-plane quantities are essentially the same, but the out of plane transport is strongly reduced.Comment: 5 page

Electronic Structure and Fermiology of Superconducting LaNiGa2_2

We report electronic structure calculations for the layered centrosymmetric superconductor LaNiGa$_2$, which has been identified as having a possible triplet state based on evidence for time reversal symmetry breaking. The Fermi surface has several large sheets and is only moderately anisotropic, so that the material is best described as a three dimensional metal. These include sections that are open in the in-plane direction as well as a section that approaches the zone center. The density of states is high and primarily derived from Ga $p$ states, which hybridize with Ni $d$ states. Comparing with experimental specific heat data, we infer a superconducting $\lambda \le$ 0.55, which implies that this is a weak to intermediate coupling material. However, the Ni occurs in a nominal $d^{10}$ configuration in this material, which places the compound far from magnetism. Implications of these results for superconductivity are discussed