Novel electronic states close to Mott transition in low-dimensional and frustrated systems

Recent studies demonstrated that there may appear different novel states in correlated systems close to localized-itinerant crossover. Especially favourable conditions for that are met in low-dimensional and in frustrated systems. In this paper I discuss on concrete examples some of such novel states. In particular, for some spinels and triangular systems there appears a "partial Mott transition", in which first some finite clusters (dimers, trimes, tetramers, heptamers) go over to the itinerant regime, and the real bulk Mott transition occurs only later. Also some other specific possibilities in this crossover regime are shortly discussed, such as spin-Peierls-Peierls transition in TiOCl, spontaneous charge disproportionation in some cases, etc.Comment: To be published in Journal of Physics - Condensed Matter, conference serie

Tuning of Electrical and Optical Properties of Highly Conducting and Transparent Ta-Doped TiO2 Polycrystalline Films

We present a detailed study on polycrystalline transparent conducting Ta-doped TiO2 films, obtained by room temperature pulsed laser deposition followed by an annealing treatment at 550°C in vacuum. The effect of Ta as a dopant element and of different synthesis conditions are explored in order to assess the relationship between material structure and functional properties, i.e. electrical conductivity and optical transparency. We show that for the doped samples it is possible to achieve low resistivity (of the order of 5×10-4 Ωcm) coupled with transmittance values exceeding 80% in the visible range, showing the potential of polycrystalline Ta:TiO2 for application as a transparent electrode in novel photovoltaic devices. The presence of trends in the structural (crystalline domain size, anatase cell parameters), electrical (resistivity, charge carrier density and mobility) and optical (transmittance, optical band gap, effective mass) properties as a function of the oxygen background pressures and laser fluence used during the deposition process and of the annealing atmosphere is discussed, and points towards a complex defect chemistry ruling the material behavior. The large mobility values obtained in this work for Ta:TiO2 polycrystalline films (up to 13 cm2V-1s-1) could represent a definitive advantage with respect to the more studied Nb-doped TiO2

Seasonal Migration of Sika Deer in the Oku-Chichibu Mountains, Central Japan

Movements and seasonal home ranges of 6 GPS collared sika deer were investigated at the Oku-Chichibu Mountains, central Honshu, from April 2009 to March 2010. All deer migrated between discrete summer and winter home ranges. The linear migration distance ranged from 2.5 to 31.9 km. Mean elevation during the summer and the winter ranged from 980 to 1,782 m, and from 1,204 to 1,723 m, respectively. Two deer were upward migrants and 4 deer were downward migrants. Taking into consideration of the relatively small snow accumulation in the summer home range, the possibility of autumn migration to avoid deep snow is low. The percentage of steep slope in the winter home range was higher than that in the summer. Bamboo grass was not found in the summer home range, but was predominant in the winter home range. Road density decreased in the winter home range compared to the summer. Only 2 out of 6 deer stayed mainly in the wildlife protection area during the winter. Our results indicate that the autumn migration was affected by winter forage and human disturbance, thereby assured the survival of the deer during winter.ArticleMAMMAL STUDY. 37(2):127-137 (2012)journal articl

Crystallographic reconstruction study of the effects of finish rolling temperature on the variant selection during bainite transformation in C-Mn high-strength steels

The effect of finish rolling temperature (FRT) on the austenite- () to-bainite () phase transformation is quantitatively investigated in high-strength C-Mn steels. In particular, the present study aims to clarify the respective contributions of the conditioning during the hot rolling and the variant selection (VS) during the phase transformation to the inherited texture. To this end, an alternative crystallographic reconstruction procedure, which can be directly applied to experimental electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) mappings, is developed by combining the best features of the existing models: the orientation relationship (OR) refinement, the local pixel-by-pixel analysis and the nuclei identification and spreading strategy. The applicability of this method is demonstrated on both quenching and partitioning (Q&P) and as-quenched lath-martensite steels. The results obtained on the C-Mn steels confirm that the sample finish rolled at the lowest temperature (829{\deg}C) exhibits the sharpest transformation texture. It is shown that this sharp texture is exclusively due to a strong VS from parent brass {110}, S {213} and Goss {110} grains, whereas the VS from the copper {112} grains is insensitive to the FRT. In addition, a statistical VS analysis proves that the habit planes of the selected variants do not systematically correspond to the predicted active slip planes using the Taylor model. In contrast, a correlation between the Bain group to which the selected variants belong and the FRT is clearly revealed, regardless of the parent orientation. These results are discussed in terms of polygranular accommodation mechanisms, especially in view of the observed development in the hot-rolled samples of high-angle grain boundaries with misorientation axes between and