The electronic structure of metal/alkane thiol self-assembled monolayers/metal junctions for magnetoelectronics applications

Long-chain alkane thiols use in metal to organic self-assembled monolayer to metal junctions may be limited by orientational disorder, and photoemission studies suggest that several molecular layers may be needed for the dielectric layer to be effective. Several alkane thiols were investigated in a range of junctions areas 10–102 μm2. Top layer contact deposition, activated with Pd clusters resulted in a high yield of junctions that were not electrically shorted and are stable over a wide temperature range. Zerobias anomalies, observed at low temperatures, are attributed to a Coulomb blockade associated with the Pd clusters

Multiband effect in elastoresistance of Fe(Se,Te)

© Copyright2020 EPLA. We have investigated the elastoresistance of two compounds that have a close chemical composition but differ significantly in electronic properties. The first compound has a negative temperature coefficient of resistance and does not show any phase transitions other than a superconducting one. The elastoresistance of this compound approximately follows the law which is a special case of the Curie-Weiss law, which is usually observed for Fe(Se,S) with metallic conductivity. The second compound has a metallic type of conductivity and, in addition to the superconducting transition, there is also a phase transition at a temperature of about 30 K. The elastoresistance of the second compound is sign-reversing and can be approximated with the sum of two Curie-Weiss-type terms with opposite signs and different critical temperatures. We attribute this behavior to the competition of contributions to the elastoresistance from different band valleys. These competing contributions may appear since the composition of our compound is close to the critical point at which the low-temperature ground state in the 11 series of iron-based superconductors changes from electronic nematic order to magnetic order

Zigzag antiferromagnetic quantum ground state in monoclinic honeycomb lattice antimonates A3Ni2SbO6 (A=Li, Na)

We present a comprehensive experimental and theoretical study of the electronic and magnetic properties of two quasi-two-dimensional (2D) honeycomb-lattice monoclinic compounds A3Ni2SbO6 (A=Li, Na). Magnetic susceptibility and specific heat data are consistent with the onset of antiferromagnetic (AFM) long range order at low temperatures with Néel temperatures ~ 14 and 16 K for Li3Ni2SbO6 and Na3Ni2SbO6, respectively. The effective magnetic moments of 4.3 Bohr magnetons/f.u. (Li3Ni2SbO6) and 4.4 Bohr magnetons/f.u. (Na3Ni2SbO6) indicate that Ni2+ is in a high-spin configuration (S=1). The temperature dependence of the inverse magnetic susceptibility follows the Curie-Weiss law in the high-temperature region and shows positive values of the Weiss temperature ~ 8 K (Li3Ni2SbO6) and ~12 K (Na3Ni2SbO6) pointing to the presence of non-negligible ferromagnetic interactions, although the system orders AFM at low temperatures. In addition, the magnetization curves reveal a field-induced (spin-flop type) transition below TN that can be related to the magnetocrystalline anisotropy in these systems. These observations are in agreement with density functional theory calculations, which show that both antiferromagnetic and ferromagnetic intralayer spin exchange couplings between Ni2+ ions are present in the honeycomb planes supporting a zigzag antiferromagnetic ground state. Based on our experimental measurements and theoretical calculations we propose magnetic phase diagrams for the two compounds