Superconductivity in Pseudo-Binary Silicide SrNixSi2-x with AlB2-Type Structure

We demonstrate the emergence of superconductivity in pseudo-binary silicide SrNixSi2-x. The compound exhibits a structural phase transition from the cubic SrSi2-type structure (P4132) to the hexagonal AlB2-type structure (P6/mmm) upon substituting Ni for Si at approximately x = 0.1. The hexagonal structure is stabilized in the range of 0.1 < x < 0.7. The superconducting phase appears in the vicinity of the structural phase boundary. Ni acts as a nonmagnetic dopant, as confirmed by the Pauli paramagnetic behavior.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figure

Non-diffracting Optical Beams in a Three-level Raman System

Diffractionless propagation of optical beams through atomic vapors is investigated. The atoms in the vapor are operated in a three-level Raman configuration. A suitably chosen control beam couples to one of the transitions, and thereby creates a spatially varying index of refraction modulation in the warm atomic vapor for a probe beam which couples to the other transition in the atoms. We show that a Laguerre-Gaussian control beam allows to propagate single Gaussian probe field modes as well as multi-Gaussian modes and non-Gaussian modes over macroscopic distances without diffraction. This opens perspectives for the propagation of arbitrary images through warm atomic vapors.Comment: 8 pages, 7 figure

Piece by Piece-Electrochemical Synthesis of Individual Nanoparticles and their Performance in ORR Electrocatalysis

The impact of individual HAuCl4 nanoreactors is measured electrochemically, which provides operando insights and precise control over the modification of electrodes with functional nanoparticles of well‐defined size. Uniformly sized micelles are loaded with a dissolved metal salt. These solution‐phase precursor entities are then reduced electrochemically—one by one—to form nanoparticles (NPs). The charge transferred during the reduction of each micelle is measured individually and allows operando sizing of each of the formed nanoparticles. Thus, particles of known number and sizes can be deposited homogenously even on nonplanar electrodes. This is demonstrated for the decoration of cylindrical carbon fibre electrodes with 25±7 nm sized Au particles from HAuCl4‐filled micelles. These Au NP‐decorated electrodes show great catalyst performance for ORR (oxygen reduction reaction) already at low catalyst loadings. Hence, collisions of individual precursor‐filled nanocontainers are presented as a new route to nanoparticle‐modified electrodes with high catalyst utilization

Griffiths phase in the thermal quantum Hall effect

Two dimensional disordered superconductors with broken spin-rotation and time-reversal invariance, e.g. with p_x+ip_y pairing, can exhibit plateaus in the thermal Hall coefficient (the thermal quantum Hall effect). Our numerical simulations show that the Hall insulating regions of the phase diagram can support a sub-phase where the quasiparticle density of states is divergent at zero energy, \rho(E)\sim |E|^{1/z-1}, with a non-universal exponent $z>1$, due to the effects of rare configurations of disorder (``Griffiths phase'').Comment: 4+ pages, 5 figure

Measuring perceived adaptiveness in a robotic eldercare companion

Based on observations in previous experiments with a robotic companion in eldercare and on findings in related literature, we developed the concept of Perceived Adaptiveness. We integrated this in our technology acceptance methodology for robotic eldercare companions and found in a small experiment that adaptiveness of the system as perceived by elderly users is indeed a relevant item, being a direct influence on Perceived Usefulness

Multifractality of wavefunctions at the quantum Hall transition revisited

We investigate numerically the statistics of wavefunction amplitudes $\psi({\bf r})$ at the integer quantum Hall transition. It is demonstrated that in the limit of a large system size the distribution function of $|\psi|^2$ is log-normal, so that the multifractal spectrum $f(\alpha)$ is exactly parabolic. Our findings lend strong support to a recent conjecture for a critical theory of the quantum Hall transition.Comment: 4 pages Late

Universal time-evolution of a Rydberg lattice gas with perfect blockade

We investigate the dynamics of a strongly interacting spin system that is motivated by current experimental realizations of strongly interacting Rydberg gases in lattices. In particular we are interested in the temporal evolution of quantities such as the density of Rydberg atoms and density-density correlations when the system is initialized in a fully polarized state without Rydberg excitations. We show that in the thermodynamic limit the expectation values of these observables converge at least logarithmically to universal functions and outline a method to obtain these functions. We prove that a finite one-dimensional system follows this universal behavior up to a given time. The length of this universal time period depends on the actual system size. This shows that already the study of small systems allows to make precise predictions about the thermodynamic limit provided that the observation time is sufficiently short. We discuss this for various observables and for systems with different dimensions, interaction ranges and boundary conditions.Comment: 16 pages, 3 figure