503 research outputs found
Dynamical Dzyaloshinsky-Moriya interaction in KCuF3: Raman evidence for an antiferrodistortive lattice instability
In the orbitally ordered, quasi-one dimensional Heisenberg antiferromagnet
KCuF3 the low-energy Eg and B1g phonon modes show an anomalous softening (25%
and 13%) between room temperature and the characteristic temperature T_S = 50
K. In this temperature range a freezing-in of F ion dynamic displacements is
proposed to occur. In addition, the Eg mode at about 260 cm-1 clearly splits
below T_S. The width of the phonon lines above T_S follows an activated
behavior with an activation energy of about 50 K. Our observations clearly
evidence a reduction of the structural symmetry below T_S and indicate a strong
coupling of lattice and spin fluctuations for T>T_S.Comment: 7 pages, 9 figure
Strong electronic correlations in LiZnPc organic metals
Nuclear magnetic resonance, electron paramagnetic resonance and magnetization
measurements show that bulk LiZnPc are strongly correlated one-dimensional
metals. The temperature dependence of the nuclear spin-lattice relaxation rate
and of the static uniform susceptibility on approaching room
temperature are characteristic of a Fermi liquid. Moreover, while for the electrons are delocalized down to low temperature, for a
tendency towards localization is noticed upon cooling, yielding an increase
both in and . The -dependence of the effective density of
states at the Fermi level displays a sharp enhancement for , at the half filling of the ZnPc lowest unoccupied molecular orbitals. This
suggests that LiZnPc is on the edge of a metal-insulator transition where
enhanced superconducting fluctuations could develop.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure
Electron-phonon interaction in n-doped cuprates: an Inelastic X-ray Scattering study
Inelastic x-ray scattering (IXS) with very high (meV) energy resolution has
become a valuable spectroscopic tool, complementing the well established
coherent inelastic neutron scattering (INS) technique for phonon dispersion
investigations. In the study of crystalline systems IXS is a viable alternative
to INS, especially in cases where only small samples are available. Using IXS,
we have measured the phonon dispersion of Nd_{1.86}Ce_{0.14}CuO_{4+\delta}
along the [x,0,0] and [x,x,0] in-plane directions. Compared to the undoped
parent compound, the two highest longitudinal optical (LO) phonon branches are
shifted to lower energies because of Coulomb-screening effects brought about by
the doped charge carriers. An additional anomalous softening of the highest
branch is observed around q=(0.2,0,0). This anomalous softening, akin to what
has been observed in other compounds, provides evidence for a strong
electron-phonon coupling in the electron-doped high-temperature
superconductors.Comment: Proceedings of the SATT11 conference, Vietri sul Mare - Italy (March
2002); accepted for publication on Int. J. Mod. Phys.
Dewetting of PtCu Nanoalloys on TiO2 Nanocavities Provides a Synergistic Photocatalytic Enhancement for Efficient H2 Evolution
We investigate the co-catalytic activity of PtCu alloy nanoparticles for photocatalytic H2 evolution from methanol-water solutions. To produce the photocatalysts, a few nm-thick Pt-Cu bilayers are deposited on anodic TiO2 nanocavity arrays and converted by solid state dewetting, i.e. a suitable thermal treatment, into bimetallic PtCu nanoparticles. XRD and XPS results prove the formation of PtCu nanoalloys that carry a shell of surface oxides. XANES data support Pt and Cu alloying and indicate the presence of lattice disorder in the PtCu nanoparticles. The PtCu co-catalyst on TiO2 shows a synergistic activity enhancement and a significantly higher activity towards photocatalytic H2 evolution than Pt- or Cu-TiO2. We propose the enhanced activity to be due to Pt-Cu electronic interactions, where Cu increases the electron density on Pt favoring a more efficient electron transfer for H2 evolution. In addition, Cu can further promote the photo-activity by providing additional surface catalytic sites for hydrogen recombination. Remarkably, when increasing the methanol concentration up to 50 vol% in the reaction phase, we observe for PtCu-TiO2 a steeper activity increase compared to Pt-TiO2. A further increase in methanol concentration (up to 80 vol%) causes for Pt-TiO2 a clear activity decay, while PtCu-TiO2 still maintains a high level of activity. This suggests an improved robustness of PtCu nanoalloys against poisoning from methanol oxidation products such as CO
Dilution effects in HoYSnO: from the Spin Ice to the single-ion magnet
A study of the modifications of the magnetic properties of
HoYSnO upon varying the concentration of diamagnetic
Y ions is presented. Magnetization and specific heat measurements show
that the Spin Ice ground-state is only weakly affected by doping for , even if non-negligible changes in the crystal field at Ho occur.
In this low doping range SR relaxation measurements evidence a
modification in the low-temperature dynamics with respect to the one observed
in the pure Spin Ice. For , or at high temperature, the dynamics
involve fluctuations among Ho crystal field levels which give rise to a
characteristic peak in Sn nuclear spin-lattice relaxation rate. In this
doping limit also the changes in Ho magnetic moment suggest a variation
of the crystal field parameters.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures, proceedings of HFM2008 Conferenc
Density Profile Asymptotes at the Centre of Dark Matter Halos
For the spherical symmetric case, all quantities describing the relaxed dark
matter halo can be expressed as functions of the gravitational potential
. Decomposing the radial velocity dispersion with respect to
at very large and very small radial distances the possible asymptotic
behavior for the density and velocity profiles can be obtained. If reasonable
boundary conditions are posed such as a finite halo mass and force-free halo
centre the asymptotic density profiles at the centre should be much less steep
than the profiles obtained within numerical simulations. In particular cases
profiles like Plummer's model are obtained. The reasons of that seeming
discrepancy with respect to the results of N-body simulations are discussed.Comment: Accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics, LaTeX, 7 pages,
2 figure
Disentangling multipole resonances through a full x-ray polarization analysis
Complete polarization analysis applied to resonant x-ray scattering at the Cr
K-edge in K2CrO4 shows that incident linearly polarized x-rays can be converted
into circularly polarized x-rays by diffraction at the Cr pre-edge (E = 5994
eV). The physical mechanism behind this phenomenon is a subtle interference
effect between purely dipole (E1-E1) and purely quadrupole (E2-E2) transitions,
leading to a phase shift between the respective scattering amplitudes. This
effect may be exploited to disentangle two close-lying resonances that appear
as a single peak in a conventional energy scan, in this way allowing to single
out and identify the different multipole order parameters involved.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figure
The evolution of substructure II: linking dynamics to environment
We present results from a series of high-resolution N-body simulations that
focus on the formation and evolution of eight dark matter halos, each of order
a million particles within the virial radius. We follow the time evolution of
hundreds of satellite galaxies with unprecedented time resolution, relating
their physical properties to the differing halo environmental conditions. The
self-consistent cosmological framework in which our analysis was undertaken
allows us to explore satellite disruption within live host potentials, a
natural complement to earlier work conducted within static potentials. Our host
halos were chosen to sample a variety of formation histories, ages, and
triaxialities; despite their obvious differences, we find striking similarities
within the associated substructure populations. Namely, all satellite orbits
follow nearly the same eccentricity distribution with a correlation between
eccentricity and pericentre. We also find that the destruction rate of the
substructure population is nearly independent of the mass, age, and triaxiality
of the host halo. There are, however, subtle differences in the velocity
anisotropy of the satellite distribution. We find that the local velocity bias
at all radii is greater than unity for all halos and this increases as we move
closer to the halo centre, where it varies from 1.1 to 1.4. For the global
velocity bias we find a small but slightly positive bias, although when we
restrict the global velocity bias calculation to satellites that have had at
least one orbit, the bias is essentially removed.Comment: 14 pages, 14 figures, MNRAS in pres
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