Complex itinerant ferromagnetism in noncentrosymmetric Cr11Ge19

The noncentrosymmetric ferromagnet Cr11Ge19 has been investigated by electrical transport, AC and DC magnetization, heat capacity, x-ray diffraction, resonant ultrasound spectroscopy, and first principles electronic structure calculations. Complex itinerant ferromagnetism in this material is indicated by nonlinearity in conventional Arrott plots, unusual behavior of AC susceptibility, and a weak heat capacity anomaly near the Curie temperature (88 K). The inclusion of spin wave excitations was found to be important in modeling the low temperature heat capacity. The temperature dependence of the elastic moduli and lattice constants, including negative thermal expansion along the c axis at low temperatures, indicate strong magneto-elastic coupling in this system. Calculations show strong evidence for itinerant ferromagnetism and suggest a noncollinear ground state may be expected

Energetics of clusters in the two-dimensional Ising spin glass

We study numerically the properties of local low-energy excitations in the two-dimensional Ising spin glass. Given the ground state, we determine the lowest-lying connected cluster of flipped spins containing one given spin, either with a fixed volume, or with a volume constrained to lie in a certain range. Our aim is to understand corrections to the scaling predicted by the droplet picture of spin glasses and to resolve contradictory results reported in the literature for the stiffness exponent. We find no clear trace of corrections to scaling, and the obtained stiffness exponent is in relatively good agreement with standard domain wall calculations.Comment: 8 pages, 9 figure

Thermoelectric Figure of Merit of Strongly Correlated Superlattice Semiconductors

We solved the Anderson Lattice Hamiltonian to get the energy bands of a strongly correlated semiconductor by using slave boson mean field theory. The transport properties were calculated in the relaxation-time approximation,and the thermoelectric figure of merit was obtained for the strongly correlated semiconductor and its superlattice structures. We found that at room temperature $ZT$ can reach nearly 2 for the quantum wire lattice structure.We believe that it is possible to find high values of thermoelectric figure of merit from strongly correlated semiconductor superlattice systems.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Low thermal conductivity of the layered oxide (Na,Ca)Co_2O_4: Another example of a phonon glass and an electron crystal

The thermal conductivity of polycrystalline samples of (Na,Ca)Co_2O_4 is found to be unusually low, 20 mW/cmK at 280 K. On the assumption of the Wiedemann-Franz law, the lattice thermal conductivity is estimated to be 18 mW/cmK at 280 K, and it does not change appreciably with the substitution of Ca for Na. A quantitative analysis has revealed that the phonon mean free path is comparable with the lattice parameters, where the point-defect scattering plays an important role. Electronically the same samples show a metallic conduction down to 4.2 K, which strongly suggests that NaCo_2O_4 exhibits a glass-like poor thermal conduction together with a metal-like good electrical conduction. The present study further suggests that a strongly correlated system with layered structure can act as a material of a phonon glass and an electron crystal.Comment: 5 pages 3 figures, to be published in Phys. Rev.

Evidence for Strong Itinerant Spin Fluctuations in the Normal State of CeFeAsO(0.89)F(0.11) Iron-Oxypnictides

The electronic structure in the normal state of CeFeAsO0.89F0.11 oxypnictide superconductors has been investigated with x-ray absorption and photoemission spectroscopy. All the data exhibit signatures of Fe d-electron itinerancy. Exchange multiplets appearing in the Fe 3s core level indicate the presence of itinerant spin fluctuations. These findings suggest that the underlying physics and the origin of superconductivity in these materials are likely to be quite different from those of the cuprate high-temperature superconductors. These materials provide opportunities for elucidating the role of magnetic fluctuations in high-temperature superconductivity.Comment: Shorter version. Accepted in Phys. Rev. Let