The upper critical field and its anisotropy in LiFeAs

The upper critical field $\mu_0H_{c2}(T_c)$ of LiFeAs single crystals has been determined by measuring the electrical resistivity using the facilities of pulsed magnetic field at Los Alamos. We found that $\mu_0H_{c2}(T_c)$ of LiFeAs shows a moderate anisotropy among the layered iron-based superconductors; its anisotropic parameter $\gamma$ monotonically decreases with decreasing temperature and approaches $\gamma\simeq 1.5$ as $T\rightarrow 0$. The upper critical field reaches 15T ($H\parallel c$) and 24.2T ($H\parallel ab$) at $T=$1.4K, which value is much smaller than other iron-based high $T_c$ superconductors. The temperature dependence of $\mu_0H_{c2}(T_c)$ can be described by the Werthamer-Helfand-Hohenberg (WHH) method, showing orbitally and (likely) spin-paramagnetically limited upper critical field for $H\parallel c$ and $H\parallel ab$, respectively.Comment: 5 pages,5 figure

Observation of Landau quantization and standing waves in HfSiS

Recently, HfSiS was found to be a new type of Dirac semimetal with a line of Dirac nodes in the band structure. Meanwhile, Rashba-split surface states are also pronounced in this compound. Here we report a systematic study of HfSiS by scanning tunneling microscopy/spectroscopy at low temperature and high magnetic field. The Rashba-split surface states are characterized by measuring Landau quantization and standing waves, which reveal a quasi-linear dispersive band structure. First-principles calculations based on density-functional theory are conducted and compared with the experimental results. Based on these investigations, the properties of the Rashba-split surface states and their interplay with defects and collective modes are discussed.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figure

Reduced dynamics with renormalization in solid-state charge qubit measurement

Quantum measurement will inevitably cause backaction on the measured system, resulting in the well known dephasing and relaxation. In this report, in the context of solid--state qubit measurement by a mesoscopic detector, we show that an alternative backaction known as renormalization is important under some circumstances. This effect is largely overlooked in the theory of quantum measurement.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figure

Rational Design of High‐Concentration Ti³⁺ in Porous Carbon‐Doped TiO₂ Nanosheets for Efficient Photocatalytic Ammonia Synthesis

Photocatalytic ammonia synthesis is exciting but quite challenging with a very moderate yield at present. One of the greatest challenges is to develop highly active centers in a photocatalyst for N_{2} reduction under ambient conditions. Herein, porous carbon‐doped anatase TiO_{x} (C‐TiO_{x}) nanosheets with high‐concentration active sites of Ti^{3+} are presented, which are produced by layered Ti_{3}SiC_{2} through a reproducible bottom‐up approach. It is shown that the high‐concentration Ti^{3+} sites are the major species for the significant increase in N2 photoreduction activity by the C‐TiO_{x}. Such bottom‐up substitutional doping of C into TiO_{2} is responsible for both visible absorption and generation of Ti^{3+} concentration. Together with the porous nanosheets morphology and the loading of a Ru/RuO_{2} nanosized cocatalyst for enhanced charge separation and transfer, the optimal C‐TiO_{x} with a Ti^{3+}/Ti^{4+} ratio of 72.1% shows a high NH3 production rate of 109.3 µmol g^{−1} h^{−1} under visible‐light irradiation and a remarkable apparent quantum efficiency of 1.1% at 400 nm, which is the highest compared to all TiO_{2}‐based photocatalysts at present

Preasymptotic Convergence of Randomized Kaczmarz Method

Kaczmarz method is one popular iterative method for solving inverse problems, especially in computed tomography. Recently, it was established that a randomized version of the method enjoys an exponential convergence for well-posed problems, and the convergence rate is determined by a variant of the condition number. In this work, we analyze the preasymptotic convergence behavior of the randomized Kaczmarz method, and show that the low-frequency error (with respect to the right singular vectors) decays faster during first iterations than the high-frequency error. Under the assumption that the inverse solution is smooth (e.g., sourcewise representation), the result explains the fast empirical convergence behavior, thereby shedding new insights into the excellent performance of the randomized Kaczmarz method in practice. Further, we propose a simple strategy to stabilize the asymptotic convergence of the iteration by means of variance reduction. We provide extensive numerical experiments to confirm the analysis and to elucidate the behavior of the algorithms.Comment: 20 page

STED microscopy reveals in-situ photoluminescence properties of single nanostructures in densely perovskite thin films.

All-inorganic perovskite nanomaterials have attracted much attention recently due to their prominent optical performance and potential application for optoelectronic devices. The carriers dynamics of all-inorganic perovskites has been the research focus because the understanding of carriers dynamics process is of critical importance for improving the fluorescence conversion efficiency. While photophysical properties of excited carrier are usually measured at the macroscopic scale, it is necessary to probe the in-situ dynamics process at the nanometer scale and gain deep insights into the photophysical mechanisms and their localized dependence on the thin-film nanostructures. Stimulated emission depletion (STED) nanoscopy with super-resolution beyond the diffraction limit can directly provide explicit information at a single particle level or nanometer scale. Through this unique technique, we firstly study the in-situ dynamics process of single CsPbBr3 nanocrystals(NCs) and nanostructures embedded inside high-dense samples. Our findings reveal the different physical mechanisms of PL blinking and antibunching for single CsPbBr3 NCs and nanostructures that correlate with thin-film nanostructural features (e.g. defects, grain boundaries and carrier mobility). The insights gained into such nanostructure-localized physical mechanisms are critically important for further improving the material quality and its corresponding device performance

Novel organic photovoltaic polymer blends: A rapid, 3-dimensional morphology analysis using backscattered electron imaging in the scanning electron microscope

Finding the optimal morphology of novel organic photovoltaic (OPV) polymer blends is a major obstacle slowing the development of more efficient OPV devices. With a focus on accelerating the systematic morphology optimisation process, we demonstrate a technique offering rapid high-resolution, 3-dimensional blend morphology analysis in the scanning electron microscope. This backscattered electron imaging technique is used to investigate the morphological features and lengthscales defining the promising PffBT4T-2OD:PC70BM blend system and show how its photovoltaic performance is related to the nature of its phase separation. Low-voltage backscattered electron imaging can be used to probe for structure and domain stacking through the thickness of the film, as well as imaging surface morphology with highly competitive spatial resolution. For reference, we compare our results with equivalent images of the widely studied P3HT:PC60BM blend system. Our results also demonstrate that backscattered electron imaging offers significant advantages over conventional cross-sectional imaging techniques, and show that it enables a fast, systematic approach to control 3-dimensional active layer morphology in polymer:fullerene blends