Electrical and Hydrogen Reduction Enhances Kinetics in Doped Zirconia and Ceria: II. Mapping Electrode Polarization and Vacancy Condensation in YSZ

Knowing the correlation between grain boundary mobility and oxygen potential in yttria stabilized zirconia (YSZ), we have utilized the grain size as a microstructural marker to map local oxygen potential. Abrupt oxygen potential transition is established under a large current density and in thicker samples. Cathodically depressed oxygen potential can be easily triggered by poor electrode kinetics or in an oxygen-lean environment. Widespread cavitation in the presence of highly reducing oxygen potential suggests oxygen vacancy condensation instead of oxygen bubble formation as commonly assumed for solid oxide fuel/electrolysis cells. These results also suggest electrode kinetics has a direct influence on the microstructure and properties of ceramics sintered under a large electric current

Inversion of oxygen potential transitions at grain boundaries of SOFC/SOEC electrolytes

Solid oxide fuel/electrolyzer cell (SOFC/SOEC) converts energy between chemical and electrical forms inversely. Yet electrolyte degradation takes place much more severe for SOEC than SOFC during long-term operations. By solving transport equations, we found very large oxygen potential gradients and sharp oxygen potential transitions at grain boundaries of polycrystalline SOFC/SOEC electrolyte. Surprisingly, an inversion of oxygen potential transitions was identified, suggesting a fundamentally different transport mechanism for minor electronic charge carriers. Such findings could be critical to understand and eliminate SOFC/SOEC degradations in practical applications

X-ray transients from the accretion-induced collapse of white dwarfs

The accretion-induced collapse (AIC) of a white dwarf in a binary with a nondegenerate companion can sometimes lead to the formation of a rapidly rotating and highly magnetized neutron star (NS). The spin-down of this NS can drive a powerful pulsar wind (PW) and bring out some detectable multi-wavelength emissions. On the one hand, the PW can evaporate the companion in a few days to form a torus surrounding the NS. Then, due to the blockage of the PW by the torus, a reverse shock can be formed in the wind to generate intense hard X-rays. This emission component disappears in a few weeks' time, after the torus is broken down at its inner boundary and scoured into a very thin disk. On the other hand, the interaction between the PW with an AIC ejecta can lead to a termination shock of the wind, which can produce a long-lasting soft X-ray emission component. In any case, the high-energy emissions from deep inside the system can be detected only after the AIC ejecta becomes transparent for X-rays. Meanwhile, by absorbing the X-rays, the AIC ejecta can be heated effectively and generate a fast-evolving and luminous ultraviolet (UV)/optical transient. Therefore, the predicted hard and soft X-ray emissions, associated by an UV/optical transient, provide a clear observational signature for identifying AIC events in current and future observations (e.g., AT 2018cow).Comment: 7 pages, 6 figure

Transverse angular momentum in topological photonic crystals

Engineering local angular momentum of structured light fields in real space enables unprecedented applications in many fields, in particular for the realization of unidirectional robust transport in topological photonic crystals with non-trivial Berry vortex in momentum space. Here, we show transverse angular momentum modes in silicon topological photonic crystals when considering transverse electric polarization. Excited by a chiral external source with either transverse spin or orbital angular momentum, robust light flow propagating along opposite directions was observed in several kinds of sharp-turn interfaces between two topologically-distinct silicon photonic crystals. A transverse orbital angular momentum mode with alternating-sign topological charge was found at the boundary of such two photonic crystals. In addition, we also found that unidirectional transport is robust to the working frequency even when the ring-size or location of pseudo-spin source varies in a certain range, leading to the superiority of broadband photonic device. These findings enable for making use of transverse angular momentum, a kind of degree of freedom, to achieve unidirectional robust transport in telecom region and other potential applications in integrated photonic circuits such as on-chip robust delay line.Comment: 17 pages, 5 figure

Valley controlled propagation of pseudospin states in bulk metacrystal waveguides

Light manipulations such as spin-direction locking propagation, robust transport, quantum teleportation and reconfigurable electromagnetic pathways have been investigated at the boundaries of photonic systems. Recently by breaking Dirac cones in time-reversal invariant photonic crystals, valley-pseudospin coupled edge states have been employed to realize selective propagation of light. Here, without photonic boundaries, we realize the propagation of pseudospin states in three-dimensional bulk metacrystal waveguides by employing the ubiquitous valley degree of freedom. Valley-dependent pseudospin bands are achieved in three-dimensional metacrystal waveguides without Dirac cones. Reconfigurable photonic valley Hall effect is proposed after studying the variation of pseudospin states near K' and K valleys. Moreover, a prototype of photonic blocker is realized by cascading two inversion asymmetric metacrystal waveguides in which the pseudospin direction locking propagation exists. In addition, valley-dependent pseudospin bands are also discussed in a realistic metamaterials sample. These results show an alternative way towards molding the pseudospin flow in photonic systems.Comment: 26 pages, 7 figure

Bosonic Integer Quantum Hall States without Landau Levels on Square Lattice

We study an interacting two-component hard-core bosons on square lattice for which, in the presence of staggered magnetic flux, the ground state is a bosonic integer quantum Hall (BIQH) state. Using a coupled-wire bosonization approach, we analytically show this model exhibits a BIQH state at total charge half filling associated with a symmetry-protected topological phase under $U(1)$ charge conservation. These theoretical expectations are verified, using the infinite density matrix renormalization group method, by providing numerical evidences for: (i) a quantized Hall conductance $\sigma_{xy}=\pm2$, and (ii) two counter-propagating gapless edge modes. Our model is a bosonic cousin of the fermionic Haldane model and serves as an additional case of analogy between bosonic and fermionic quantum Hall states.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, 1 tabl

On Three-dimensional CR Yamabe Solitons

In this paper, we investigate the geometry and classification of three-dimensional CR Yamabe solitons. In the compact case, we show that any 3-dimensional CR Yamabe soliton must have constant Tanaka-Webster scalar curvature; we also obtain a classification under the assumption that their potential functions are in the kernel of the CR Paneitz operator. In the complete case, we obtain a structure theorem on the diffeomorphism types of complete 3-dimensional pseudo-gradient CR Yamabe solitons (shrinking, or steady, or expanding) of vanishing torsion.Comment: Revised version;Theorem 1.3 improved; Section 5 rewritten; Appendix adde

C0C_0-positivity and a classification of closed three-dimensional CR torsion solitons

A closed CR 3-manifold is said to have $C_{0}$-positive pseudohermitian curvature if $(W+C_{0}Tor)(X,X)>0$ for any $0\neq X\in T_{1,0}(M)$. We discover an obstruction for a closed CR 3-manifold to possess $C_{0}$-positive pseudohermitian curvature. We classify closed three-dimensional CR Yamabe solitons according to $C_{0}$-positivity and $C_{0}$-negativity whenever $C_{0}=1$ and the potential function lies in the kernel of Paneitz operator. Moreover, we show that any closed three-dimensional CR torsion soliton must be the standard Sasakian space form. At last, we discuss the persistence of $C_{0}$-positivity along the CR torsion flow starting from a pseudo-Einstein contact form.Comment: Texts in the preliminary section, where we recall some basic notions in CR geometry, have some overlap with our previous wor

Entanglements in Systems with Multiple Degrees of Freedom

We present the entanglement properties of the spin-orbital coupling systems with multiple degrees of freedom. After constructing the maximally entangled spin-orbital basis of bipartite, we find that the quantum entanglement length in the noninteracting itinerant Fermion system with spin and orbit is considerably larger than that in the system with only spin. In the SU(2)$\otimes$SU(2) spin-orbital interacting system, the entanglement, expressed in terms of the spin-orbital correlation functions, clearly manifests the close relationship with the quantum phases in strongly correlated systems; and the entanglement phase diagram of the finite-size systems is in agreement with the magnetic and orbital phase diagram of the infinite systems. The application of the present theory on nucleon systems is suggested.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, submitte

Electron Localization Enhances Cation Diffusion in Reduced ZrO2, CeO2 and BaTiO3

According to defect chemistry, the experimental observations of enhanced cation diffusion in a reducing atmosphere in zirconia, ceria and barium titanate are in support of an interstitial mechanism. Yet previous computational studies always found a much higher formation energy for cation interstitials than for cation vacancies, which would rule out the interstitial mechanism. The conundrum has been resolved via first-principles calculations comparing migration of reduced cations and oxidized ones, in cubic ZrO2, CeO2 and BaTiO3. In nearly all cases, reduction alone lowers the migration barrier, and pronounced lowering results if cation's electrostatic energy at the saddle point decreases. The latter is most effectively realized when a Ti cation is allowed to migrate via an empty Ba site thus being fully screened all the way by neighboring anions. Since reduction creates oxygen vacancies as well, which are highly mobile, we also studied their effect on cation migration, and found it only marginally lowers the migration barrier. In several cases, however, a large synergistic effect between cation reduction and oxygen vacancy is revealed, causing an electron to localize in the saddle-point state at a much lower energy than normal, signaling that the saddle point is a negative-U state in which the soft environment enables a large electron-phonon interaction that can over-compensate the on-site Coulomb repulsion. These general findings are expected to be applicable to defect-mediated ion migration in most transitional metal oxides.Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1808.0519