63 research outputs found
Mechanical reinforcement of electrospun poly(vinyl alcohol) by α‐FeOOH nanowires
The authors kindly acknowledge the financial support of the Estonian Research Council for the post-doctoral research grants of personal research funding in projects PUT1096 and PUTJD578 as well as Institutional Research Funding Projects, IUT20-17, and IUT23-7.We report the mechanical performance of α‐FeOOH nanowire reinforced poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) composite nanofiber mat, fabricated using straightforward aqueous processing methods. Goethite (α‐FeOOH) nanocrystals have a high elastic modulus and –OH rich surface, ensuring strong interactions with hydrophilic polymers and effective reinforcement. Needle‐less electrospinning resulted in alignment of the nanowires along fibre axis, as confirmed by transmittance electron microscopy studies. Produced composite PVA nanofibers containing 10 wt% goethite nanoparticles exhibited an outstanding fivefold increase in Young's modulus and 2.5‐fold improvement of tensile strength compared to mats of neat PVA. The addition of α‐FeOOH had a significant influence on glass transition temperature indicating formation of interphase regions around nanowire inclusions. Observed properties are explained by nanowire grafting in the precursor solution, extensive interactions between the adsorbed PVA chains and the matrix and percolation of interphase regions at 10 wt% α‐FeOOH.Estonian Research Council PUT1096 and PUTJD578; Institutional Research Funding Projects, IUT20-17, and IUT23-7; Institute of Solid State Physics, University of Latvia as the Center of Excellence has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Framework Programme H2020-WIDESPREAD-01-2016-2017-TeamingPhase2 under grant agreement No. 739508, project CAMART
Matching the Directions of Electric Fields from Triboelectric and Ferroelectric Charges in Nanogenerator Devices for Boosted Performance
This research was supported by Riga Technical University's Doctoral Grant program. This research was also supported by the European Regional Development Fund within the project ‘‘Hybrid energy harvesting systems’’ 1.1.1.1./16/A/013.Embedding additional ferroelectric dipoles in contacting polymer layers is known to enhance the performance of triboelectricnanogenerator (TENG) devices. However, the influence of dipoles formed between the triboelectric surface charges on two contacting ferroelectric films has been ignored in all relevant studies. We demonstrate that proper attention to the alignment of the distinct dipoles present between two contacting surfaces and in composite polymer/BaTiO3 ferroelectric films can lead to up to four times higher energy and power density output compared with cases when dipole arrangement is mismatched. For example, TENG device based on PVAc/BaTiO3 shows energy density increase from 32.4 μJ m−2 to 132.9 μJ m−2 when comparing devices with matched and mismatched dipoles. The presented strategy and understanding of resulting stronger electrostatic induction in the contacting layers enable the development of TENG devices with greatly enhanced properties.Riga Technical University's Doctoral Grant program; European Regional Development Fund 1.1.1.1./16/A/013; Institute of Solid State Physics, University of Latvia as the Center of Excellence has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Framework Programme H2020-WIDESPREAD-01-2016-2017-TeamingPhase2 under grant agreement No. 739508, project CAMART
Spatial fluctuations of the pairing potential in disordered superconductors
We study the effect of site diagonal, non-magnetic, disorder on the a pairing
amplitude in an extended Hubbard model with the intersite attraction. Analyzing
fluctuations of a pairing potential we discuss the instability of mixed
solutions, 's+d' and 's+id', in presence of disorder. The influence of disorder
on extended s- and d-wave superconductors appear to be comparable but in
certain regions of the phase diagram, even weak disorder can change the
symmetry of the order parameter.Comment: 14 pages, 7 figures, Physica C (accepted
Probing Pseudogap by Josephson Tunneling
We propose here an experiment aimed to determine whether there are
superconducting pairing fluctuations in the pseudogap regime of the high-
materials. In the experimental setup, two samples above are brought into
contact at a single point and the differential AC conductivity in the presence
of a constant applied bias voltage between the samples, , should be
measured. We argue the the pairing fluctuations will produce randomly
fluctuating Josephson current with zero mean, however the current-current
correlator will have a characteristic frequency given by Josephson frequency
. We predict that the differential AC conductivity
should have a peak at the Josephson frequency with the width determined by the
phase fluctuations time.Comment: 4 pages, 2 eps figure
Dual focus polarisation splitting lens
We have successfully designed and measured a unique polarisation splitting lens which focuses the orthogonal linear polarisations side-by-side in the lens focal plane. This concept can find application in situations where there is limited space for the beam splitters and focusing optics that are required for incoherent detectors
A Microscopic Model for D-Wave Pairing in the Cuprates: What Happens when Electrons Somersault?
We present a microscopic model for a strongly repulsive electron gas on a 2D
square lattice. We suggest that nearest neighbor Coulomb repulsion stabilizes a
state in which electrons undergo a "somersault" in their internal spin-space
(spin-flux). When this spin-1/2 antiferromagnetic (AFM) insulator is doped, the
charge carriers nucleate mobile, charged, bosonic vortex solitons accompanied
by unoccupied states deep inside the Mott-Hubbard charge-transfer gap. This
model provides a unified microscopic basis for (i) non-Fermi-liquid transport
properties, (ii) mid-infrared optical absorption, (iii) destruction of AFM long
range order with doping, (iv) angled resolved spectroscopy (ARPES), and (v)
d-wave preformed charged carrier pairs. We use the Configuration Interaction
(CI) method to study the quantum translational and rotational properties of
such pairs. The CI method systematically describes fluctuation and quantum
tunneling corrections to the Hartree-Fock approximation and recaptures
essential features of the (Bethe ansatz) exact solution of the Hubbard model in
1D. For a single hole in the 2D AFM plane, we find a precursor to spin-charge
separation. The CI ground state consists of a bound vortex-antivortex pair, one
vortex carrying the charge and the other one carrying the spin of the doping
hole.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figure
Inhomogeneously doped two-leg ladder systems
A chemical potential difference between the legs of a two-leg ladder is found
to be harmful for Cooper pairing. The instability of superconductivity in such
systems is analyzed by compairing results of various analytical and numerical
methods. Within a strong coupling approach for the t-J model, supplemented by
exact numerical diagonalization, hole binding is found unstable beyond a
finite, critical chemical potential difference. The spinon-holon mean field
theory for the t-J model shows a clear reduction of the the BCS gaps upon
increasing the chemical potential difference leading to a breakdown of
superconductivity. Based on a renormalization group approach and Abelian
bosonization, the doping dependent phase diagram for the weakly interacting
Hubbard model with different chemical potentials was determined.Comment: Revtex4, 11 pages, 7 figure
Non-perturbative approach to the attractive Hubbard model
A non-perturbative approach to the single-band attractive Hubbard model is
presented in the general context of functional derivative approaches to
many-body theories. As in previous work on the repulsive model, the first step
is based on a local-field type ansatz, on enforcement of the Pauli principle
and a number of crucial sum-rules. The Mermin-Wagner theorem in two dimensions
is automatically satisfied. At this level, two-particle self-consistency has
been achieved. In the second step of the approximation, an improved expression
for the self-energy is obtained by using the results of the first step in an
exact expression for the self-energy where the high- and low-frequency
behaviors appear separately. The result is a cooperon-like formula. The
required vertex corrections are included in this self-energy expression, as
required by the absence of a Migdal theorem for this problem. Other approaches
to the attractive Hubbard model are critically compared. Physical consequences
of the present approach and agreement with Monte Carlo simulations are
demonstrated in the accompanying paper (following this one).Comment: Revtex, 19 page
C-axis electronic Raman scattering in Bi_2Sr_2CaCu_2O_{8+\delta}
We report a c-axis-polarized electronic Raman scattering study of
Bi_2Sr_2CaCu_2O_{8+\delta} single crystals. In the normal state, a resonant
electronic continuum extends to 1.5 eV and gains significant intensity as the
incoming photon energy increases. In the superconducting state, a coherence
2\Delta peak appears around 50 meV, with a suppression of the scattering
intensity at frequencies below the peak position. The peak energy, which is
higher than that seen with in-plane polarizations, signifies distinctly
different dynamics of quasiparticle excitations created with out-of-plane
polarization.Comment: 12 pages, REVTEX, 3 postscript figure
Evolution of the resistivity anisotropy in Bi_{2}Sr_{2-x}La_{x}CuO_{6+\delta} single crystals for a wide range of hole doping
To elucidate how the temperature dependence of the resistivity anisotropy of
the cuprate superconductors changes with hole doping, both the in-plane and the
out-of-plane resistivities (\rho_{ab} and \rho_{c}) are measured in a series of
high-quality Bi_{2}Sr_{2-x}La_{x}CuO_{6+\delta} (BSLCO) single crystals for a
wide range of x (x = 0.23 - 1.02), which corresponds to the hole doping per Cu,
p, of 0.03 - 0.18. The anisotropy ratio, \rho_{c}/\rho_{ab}, shows a systematic
increase with decreasing p at moderate temperatures, except for the most
underdoped composition where the localization effect enhances \rho_{ab} and
thus lowers \rho_{c}/\rho_{ab}. The exact p dependence of \rho_{c}/\rho_{ab} at
a fixed temperature is found to be quite peculiar, which is discussed to be due
to the effect of the pseudogap that causes \rho_{c}/\rho_{ab} to be
increasingly more enhanced as p is reduced. The pseudogap also causes a rapid
growth of \rho_{c}/\rho_{ab} with decreasing temperature, and, as a result, the
\rho_{c}/\rho_{ab} value almost reaches 10^6 in underdoped samples just above
T_c. Furthermore, it is found that the temperature dependence of \rho_{c} of
underdoped samples show two distinct temperature regions in the pseudogap
phase, which suggests that the divergence of \rho_{c} below the pseudogap
temperature is governed by two different mechanisms.Comment: 10 pages, 10 figures, revised version. Discussions are expanded with
a new analysis of the T-dependence of \rho_{c} and the resulting new phase
diagra
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