69 research outputs found
Local structure of REFeAsO (RE=La, Pr, Nd, Sm) oxypnictides studied by Fe K-edge EXAFS
Local structure of REOFeAs (RE=La, Pr, Nd, Sm) system has been studied as a
function of chemical pressure varied due to different rare-earth size. Fe
K-edge extended X-ray absorption fine structure (EXAFS) measurements in the
fluorescence mode has permitted to compare systematically the inter-atomic
distances and their mean square relative displacements (MSRD). We find that the
Fe-As bond length and the corresponding MSRD hardly show any change, suggesting
the strongly covalent nature of this bond, while the Fe-Fe and Fe-RE bond
lengths decrease with decreasing rare earth size. The results provide important
information on the atomic correlations that could have direct implication on
the superconductivity and magnetism of REOFeAs system, with the chemical
pressure being a key ingredient
Statistical model structure of A₁₋xZxB₂ Laves phase C15 system - the superconducting Ce₁₋xLaxRu₂ alloy
Local structure of Ce₁₋xLaxRu₂ system, measured by EXAFS has been re-examined and correlated to the statistical ad hoc model, recently applied to the sphalerite, wurtzite and other intermetallic ternary alloys. The deconvolution of the EXAFS data show that the Ce₁₋xLaxRu₂ ternary system is essentially a mixture of: CeRu₂ and LaRu₂ binary alloys with a small proportion of the Ce₀.₅La₀.₅Ru₂ ternary configuration, being maximum for the intermediate concentration. Moreover, the analysis reveals that while the LaRu₂ configuration exhibits a Bernoulli random distribution, the presence of a Ce atom affects both the CeRu₂ and Ce₀.₅La₀.₅Ru₂ distributions, strongly favoring the configuration with the CeCe pair, while keeping rare that with a single Ce ion
Cooperative Jahn-Teller transition and resonant x-ray scattering in thin film
Epitaxial thin films of stoichiometric were grown on substrates using the pulsed laser deposition technique. From the
high resolution x-ray diffraction measurements, the lattice parameters were
determined as a function of temperature and the cooperative Jahn-Teller
transition was found to occur at =573.0 K. Also measured was resonant
x-ray scattering intensity of the orthorhombic (100) peak of
near the Mn K edge from low temperatures to above . We demonstrate that
the integrated intensity of the (100) peak is proportional to the 3/2 power of
the orthorhombic strain at all temperatures, and thus provide an experimental
evidence that the resonant scattering near the Mn K edge in is
largely due to the Jahn-Teller effect.Comment: 13 pages, 4 figure
Angle-resolved photoemission in doped charge-transfer Mott insulators
A theory of angle-resolved photoemission (ARPES) in doped cuprates and other
charge-transfer Mott insulators is developed taking into account the realistic
(LDA+U) band structure, (bi)polaron formation due to the strong electron-phonon
interaction, and a random field potential. In most of these materials the first
band to be doped is the oxygen band inside the Mott-Hubbard gap. We derive the
coherent part of the ARPES spectra with the oxygen hole spectral function
calculated in the non-crossing (ladder) approximation and with the exact
spectral function of a one-dimensional hole in a random potential. Some unusual
features of ARPES including the polarisation dependence and spectral shape in
YBa2Cu3O7 and YBa2Cu4O8 are described without any Fermi-surface, large or
small. The theory is compatible with the doping dependence of kinetic and
thermodynamic properties of cuprates as well as with the d-wave symmetry of the
superconducting order parameter.Comment: 8 pages (RevTeX), 10 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.
Pinning of stripes by local structural distortions in cuprate high-Tc superconductors
We study the spin-density wave (stripe) instability in lattices with mixed
low-temperature orthorhombic (LTO) and low-temperature tetragonal (LTT) crystal
symmetry. Within an explicit mean-field model it is shown how local LTT regions
act as pinning centers for static stripe formation. We calculate the
modulations in the local density of states near these local stripe regions and
find that mainly the coherence peaks and the van Hove singularity (VHS) are
spatially modulated. Lastly, we use the real-space approach to simulate recent
tunneling data in the overdoped regime where the VHS has been detected by
utilizing local normal state regions.Comment: Conference proceedings for Stripes1
On the determination of the Fermi surface in high-Tc superconductors by angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy
We study the normal state electronic excitations probed by angle resolved
photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) in Bi2201 and Bi2212. Our main goal is to
establish explicit criteria for determining the Fermi surface from ARPES data
on strongly interacting systems where sharply defined quasiparticles do not
exist and the dispersion is very weak in parts of the Brillouin zone.
Additional complications arise from strong matrix element variations within the
zone. We present detailed results as a function of incident photon energy, and
show simple experimental tests to distinguish between an intensity drop due to
matrix element effects and spectral weight loss due to a Fermi crossing. We
reiterate the use of polarization selection rules in disentangling the effect
of umklapps due to the BiO superlattice in Bi2212. We conclude that, despite
all the complications, the Fermi surface can be determined unambiguously: it is
a single large hole barrel centered about (pi,pi) in both materials.Comment: Expanded discussion of symmetrization method in Section 5, figures
remain the sam
The Misfit Strain Critical Point in the 3D Phase Diagrams of Cuprates
At the time of writing, data have been reported on several hundred different
cuprates materials, of which a substantial fraction show superconductivity at
temperatures as high as 130 K. The existence of several competing phases with
comparable energy shows up in different ways in different materials, therefore
it has not been possible to converge toward a universal theory for high Tc
superconductivity. With the aim to find a unified description the
Aeppli-Bianconi 3D phase diagram of cuprates has been proposed where the
superlattice misfit strain (eta) is the third variable beyond doping (delta)
and temperature T. The 3D phase diagrams for the magnetic order, and for the
superconducting order extended to all cuprates families are described. We
propose a formula able to describe the Tc (delta,eta) surface, this permits to
identify the stripe quantum critical point at (delta)c=1/8 and (eta)c =7percent
which is associated with the incommensurate to commensurate stripe phase
transition, controlled by the misfit strain.Comment: 12 pages and 2 figure
International nosocomial infection control consortium (INICC) report, data summary of 36 countries, for 2004-2009
The results of a surveillance study conducted by the International Nosocomial Infection Control Consortium (INICC) from January 2004 through December 2009 in 422 intensive care units (ICUs) of 36 countries in Latin America, Asia, Africa, and Europe are reported. During the 6-year study period, using Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN; formerly the National Nosocomial Infection Surveillance system [NNIS]) definitions for device-associated health care-associated infections, we gathered prospective data from 313,008 patients hospitalized in the consortium's ICUs for an aggregate of 2,194,897 ICU bed-days. Despite the fact that the use of devices in the developing countries' ICUs was remarkably similar to that reported in US ICUs in the CDC's NHSN, rates of device-associated nosocomial infection were significantly higher in the ICUs of the INICC hospitals; the pooled rate of central line-associated bloodstream infection in the INICC ICUs of 6.8 per 1,000 central line-days was more than 3-fold higher than the 2.0 per 1,000 central line-days reported in comparable US ICUs. The overall rate of ventilator-associated pneumonia also was far higher (15.8 vs 3.3 per 1,000 ventilator-days), as was the rate of catheter-associated urinary tract infection (6.3 vs. 3.3 per 1,000 catheter-days). Notably, the frequencies of resistance of Pseudomonas aeruginosa isolates to imipenem (47.2% vs 23.0%), Klebsiella pneumoniae isolates to ceftazidime (76.3% vs 27.1%), Escherichia coli isolates to ceftazidime (66.7% vs 8.1%), Staphylococcus aureus isolates to methicillin (84.4% vs 56.8%), were also higher in the consortium's ICUs, and the crude unadjusted excess mortalities of device-related infections ranged from 7.3% (for catheter-associated urinary tract infection) to 15.2% (for ventilator-associated pneumonia). Copyright © 2012 by the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology, Inc. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved
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