6,393 research outputs found
Anomalies of the infrared-active phonons in underdoped YBCO as an evidence for the intra-bilayer Josephson effect
The spectra of the far-infrared c-axis conductivity of underdoped YBCO
crystals exhibit dramatic changes of some of the phonon peaks when going from
the normal to the superconducting state. We show that the most striking of
these anomalies can be naturally explained by changes of the local fields
acting on the ions arising from the onset of inter- and intra-bilayer Josephson
effects.Comment: Revtex, epsf, 6 pages, 3 figures encapsulated in tex
Predictive validity of the CriSTAL tool for short-term mortality in older people presenting at Emergency Departments: a prospective study
© 2018, The Author(s). Abstract: To determine the validity of the Australian clinical prediction tool Criteria for Screening and Triaging to Appropriate aLternative care (CRISTAL) based on objective clinical criteria to accurately identify risk of death within 3 months of admission among older patients. Methods: Prospective study of ≥ 65 year-olds presenting at emergency departments in five Australian (Aus) and four Danish (DK) hospitals. Logistic regression analysis was used to model factors for death prediction; Sensitivity, specificity, area under the ROC curve and calibration with bootstrapping techniques were used to describe predictive accuracy. Results: 2493 patients, with median age 78–80 years (DK–Aus). The deceased had significantly higher mean CriSTAL with Australian mean of 8.1 (95% CI 7.7–8.6 vs. 5.8 95% CI 5.6–5.9) and Danish mean 7.1 (95% CI 6.6–7.5 vs. 5.5 95% CI 5.4–5.6). The model with Fried Frailty score was optimal for the Australian cohort but prediction with the Clinical Frailty Scale (CFS) was also good (AUROC 0.825 and 0.81, respectively). Values for the Danish cohort were AUROC 0.764 with Fried and 0.794 using CFS. The most significant independent predictors of short-term death in both cohorts were advanced malignancy, frailty, male gender and advanced age. CriSTAL’s accuracy was only modest for in-hospital death prediction in either setting. Conclusions: The modified CriSTAL tool (with CFS instead of Fried’s frailty instrument) has good discriminant power to improve prognostic certainty of short-term mortality for ED physicians in both health systems. This shows promise in enhancing clinician’s confidence in initiating earlier end-of-life discussions
Chirality distribution and transition energies of carbon nanotubes
From resonant Raman scattering on isolated nanotubes we obtained the optical
transition energies, the radial breathing mode frequency and Raman intensity of
both metallic and semiconducting tubes. We unambiguously assigned the chiral
index (n_1,n_2) of approximately 50 nanotubes based solely on a third-neighbor
tight-binding Kataura plot and find omega_RBM=214.4cm^-1nm/d+18.7cm^-1. In
contrast to luminescence experiments we observe all chiralities including
zig-zag tubes. The Raman intensities have a systematic chiral-angle dependence
confirming recent ab-initio calculations.Comment: 4 pages, to be published in Phys. Rev. Let
Electronic and phononic Raman scattering in detwinned YBaCuO and YCaBaCuO: s-wave admixture to the -wave order parameter
Inelastic light (Raman) scattering has been used to study electronic
excitations and phonon anomalies in detwinned, slightly overdoped
YBaCuO and moderately overdoped
YCaBaCuO single crystals. In both samples
modifications of the electronic pair-breaking peaks when interchanging the a-
and b-axis were observed. The lineshapes of several phonon modes involving
plane and apical oxygen vibrations exhibit pronounced anisotropies with respect
to the incident and scattered light field configurations. Based on a
theoretical model that takes both electronic and phononic contributions to the
Raman spectra into account, we attribute the anisotropy of the
superconductivity-induced changes in the phonon lineshapes to a small s-wave
admixture to the pair wave-function. Our theory allows us to
disentangle the electronic Raman signal from the phononic part and to identify
corresponding interference terms. We argue that the Raman spectra are
consistent with an s-wave admixture with an upper limit of 20 percent.Comment: accepted in Phys. Rev. B, 11 page
Raman scattering study of electron-doped PrCaFeAs superconductors
Temperature-dependent polarized Raman spectra of electron-doped
superconducting PrCaFeAs () single crystals
are reported. All four allowed by symmetry even-parity phonons are identified.
Phonon mode of B symmetry at 222 cm, which is associated with the
c-axis motion of Fe ions, is found to exhibit an anomalous frequency hardening
at low temperatures, that signals non-vanishing electron-phonon coupling in the
superconducting state and implies that the superconducting gap magnitude
meV.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure
Lattice Properties of PbX (X = S, Se, Te): Experimental Studies and ab initio Calculations Including Spin-Orbit Effects
During the past five years the low temperature heat capacity of simple
semiconductors and insulators has received renewed attention. Of particular
interest has been its dependence on isotopic masses and the effect of spin-
orbit coupling in ab initio calculations. Here we concentrate on the lead
chalcogenides PbS, PbSe and PbTe. These materials, with rock salt structure,
have different natural isotopes for both cations and anions, a fact that allows
a systematic experimental and theoretical study of isotopic effects e.g. on the
specific heat. Also, the large spin-orbit splitting of the 6p electrons of Pb
and the 5p of Te allows, using a computer code which includes spin-orbit
interaction, an investigation of the effect of this interaction on the phonon
dispersion relations and the temperature dependence of the specific heat and on
the lattice parameter. It is shown that agreement between measurements and
calculations significantly improves when spin-orbit interaction is included.Comment: 25 pages, 12 Figures, 1 table, submitted to PR
Quantum interference effects in resonant Raman spectroscopy of single- and triple-layer MoTe from first principles
We present a combined experimental and theoretical study of resonant Raman
spectroscopy in single- and triple-layer MoTe. Raman intensities are
computed entirely from first principles by calculating finite differences of
the dielectric susceptibility. In our analysis, we investigate the role of
quantum interference effects and the electron-phonon coupling. With this
method, we explain the experimentally observed intensity inversion of the
vibrational modes in triple-layer MoTe2 with increasing laser
photon energy. Finally, we show that a quantitative comparison with
experimental data requires the proper inclusion of excitonic effects.Comment: Main Text (5 Figures, 1 Tables) + Supporting Information (6 Figures
Electron-phonon renormalization of the absorption edge of the cuprous halides
Compared to most tetrahedral semiconductors, the temperature dependence of
the absorption edges of the cuprous halides (CuCl, CuBr, CuI) is very small.
CuCl and CuBr show a small increase of the gap with increasing
temperature, with a change in the slope of vs. at around 150 K: above
this temperature, the variation of with becomes even smaller. This
unusual behavior has been clarified for CuCl by measurements of the low
temperature gap vs. the isotopic masses of both constituents, yielding an
anomalous negative shift with increasing copper mass. Here we report the
isotope effects of Cu and Br on the gap of CuBr, and that of Cu on the gap of
CuI. The measured isotope effects allow us to understand the corresponding
temperature dependences, which we also report, to our knowledge for the first
time, in the case of CuI. These results enable us to develop a more
quantitative understanding of the phenomena mentioned for the three halides,
and to interpret other anomalies reported for the temperature dependence of the
absorption gap in copper and silver chalcogenides; similarities to the behavior
observed for the copper chalcopyrites are also pointed out.Comment: 14 pages, 5 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.
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