Softening of the Bond-Stretching Phonon of Ba1-xKxBiO3 at the Metal to Insulator Transition

The dispersion of phonons in Ba1-xKxBiO3 along the (3+q, 0, 0) direction in reciprocal space was determined for x=0, 0.30, 0.37, 0.52 using high-resolution inelastic X-ray scattering. The observed phonon energies near \Gamma were in good agreement with published optical data. It was found that two high-energy modes strongly soften near q=0.25 when the system becomes metallic (x >0.35). There was no softening in the insulating phase, even at x=0.30, very near the metal-insulator transition. This suggests that the phonon softening is linked to the appearance of the Fermi-surface.Comment: Has been accepted for publication in Phys Rev B (2011

Genetic determinants of premature menopause in A Mashhad population cohort

Funding Information: This work was supported by a grant from the Vice Chancellor for Research at Mashhad University of Medical Sciences and this was a part of the Ph.D. student dissertation (no. 971084). The authors have no conflict of interest to disclose.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

ILSF, A THIRD GENERATION LIGHT SOURCE LABORATORY IN IRAN

Abstract The Iranian Light Source Facility (ILSF) project is a first large scale accelerator facility which is currently under planning in Iran. On the basis of the present design, circumference of the 3 GeV storage ring is 297.6 m. Beam current and natural beam emittance are 400 mA and 3.278 nm.rad respectively. The facility will be built on a land of 50 hectares area in the city of Qazvin, located 150 km West of Tehran. The city is surrounded by many universities, research centers and industrial companies. The design and construction of prototype items such as radio frequency solid state amplifier, dipole magnets, highly stable magnet power supplies and girders have already begun. Site selection studies, including geotechnical and seismological measurements are being performed. Conceptual Design Report, CDR, as the first milestone of the project was published in October 2012

A

Ab initio total energy calculations have been performed for superconducting GdBa2Cu3O7 and insulating PrBa2Cu3O7 using the full-potential linear augmented plane-wave method in the local density approximation (LDA) and generalized gradient approximation (GGA). The comparison of the calculated unit cell volume and lattice parameters with the experimental data indicates the improvement of these parameters in the GGA relative to LDA. LDA and GGA give the equilibrium unit cell volume about 6% smaller and 1.25% larger than the experimental data, respectively for both systems. Thus frozen phonon calculations have been performed to determine the eigenvalues and eigenvectors of the k=0 Ag modes of the two systems in equilibrium structure have been obtained in GGA. The calculated frequencies in the GGA are in good agreement with the other LDA calculations for similar systems. Comparison of computational data with experimental data indicates that calculations determine the frequencies about ten percent below the experimental data. Even by improving LDA to GGA in these calculations, the calculated phonon frequencies have remained almost ten percent below the experimental data, even though the calculated unit cell volumes are nearly equal to the experimental data. So, applying GGA has not considerably decreased the difference between the computational and experimental data. The effect of Pr doping on the eigenvalues and eigenvectors have also been investigated

Electron-phonon interaction in high temperature superconductors

  We explore the important role of the strong electron-phonon interaction in high temperature superconductivity through the study of the results of some important experiments, such as inelastic neutron and X-ray scattering, angle resolved photoemission spectroscopy, and isotope effects. We also present our computational results of the eigenvalues and eigenvectors of the Ag Raman modes, and the ionic displacement dependence of the electronic band structure by density functional theory. It is clearly evident that the role of phonons in the mechanism behind the high-temperature superconducting state should be seriously considered

A g Raman modes of RBCO (R=Gd, Pr) by density functional theory approach

Ab initio total energy calculations have been performed for superconducting GdBa 2Cu 3O 7 and insulating PrBa 2Cu 3O 7 using the full-potential linear augmented plane-wave method in the local density approximation (LDA) and generalized gradient approximation (GGA). The comparison of the calculated unit cell volume and lattice parameters with the experimental data indicates the improvement of these parameters in the GGA relative to LDA. LDA and GGA give the equilibrium unit cell volume about 6% smaller and 1.25% larger than the experimental data, respectively for both systems. Thus frozen phonon calculations have been performed to determine the eigenvalues and eigenvectors of the k=0 A g modes of the two systems in equilibrium structure have been obtained in GGA. The calculated frequencies in the GGA are in good agreement with the other LDA calculations for similar systems. Comparison of computational data with experimental data indicates that calculations determine the frequencies about ten percent below the experimental data. Even by improving LDA to GGA in these calculations, the calculated phonon frequencies have remained almost ten percent below the experimental data, even though the calculated unit cell volumes are nearly equal to the experimental data. So, applying GGA has not considerably decreased the difference between the computational and experimental data. The effect of Pr doping on the eigenvalues and eigenvectors have also been investigated. Copyright EDP Sciences/Società Italiana di Fisica/Springer-Verlag 200674.25.Kc Phonons, 31.15.Ew Density-functional theory, 33.20.Fb Raman and Rayleigh spectra (including optical scattering), 74.72.Bk Y-based cuprates,

Optical Properties Of Nanostructured Electrodes

A versatile and powerful new lithographic fabrication method has been used to fabricate a number of nano-architectured ordered 2-D indium tin oxide (ITO) and silver (Ag) electrodes. By careful tuning of the dimensions of the nanofeatures in the electrodes, the surface area can be enhanced as desired, in-turn changing resistivity and free carrier concentrations accordingly. Absorption spectra of the samples show the existence of a new optical bandgap, in addition to the bulk bandgap, that is smaller. Nanostructured electrodes show enhanced transparency compared to their planar counterparts and demonstrate typical surface plasmon characteristics. The resonance frequency can be tuned as well by changing the dimensions of the nanofeatures in the electrodes

Nanoimprinted Hybrid Metal-Semiconductor Plasmonic Multilayers with Controlled Surface Nano Architecture for Applications in NIR Detectors

We present a proof of concept for tunable plasmon resonance frequencies in a core shell nano-architectured hybrid metal-semiconductor multilayer structure, with Ag as the active shell and ITO as the dielectric modulation media. Our method relies on the collective change in the dielectric function within the metal semiconductor interface to control the surface. Here we report fabrication and optical spectroscopy studies of large-area, nanostructured, hybrid silver and indium tin oxide (ITO) structures, with feature sizes below 100 nm and a controlled surface architecture. The optical and electrical properties of these core shell electrodes, including the surface plasmon frequency, can be tuned by suitably changing the order and thickness of the dielectric layers. By varying the dimensions of the nanopillars, the surface plasmon wavelength of the nanopillar Ag can be tuned from 650 to 690 nm. Adding layers of ITO to the structure further shifts the resonance wavelength toward the IR region and, depending on the sequence and thickness of the layers within the structure, we show that such structures can be applied in sensing devices including enhancing silicon as a photodetection material