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At least 685 records · Page 38

Prediction filters for the Dst index and the polar cap potential

The technique of linear prediction filtering is used to create filters relating solar wind parameters to the Dst index and to the polar cap potential. The square root of solar wind dynamic pressure and the solar wind electric field together are found to account for nearly 70 percent of the Dst variance. The prediction filter for the polar cap potential requires the square of the solar wind velocity and the solar wind electric field as inputs. The results suggest that both polar cap potential and ring current injection are primarily controlled by the solar wind, and that substorm expansions do not play a major role in ring current injection.

Fay, R. A.↗

Experimental Demonstration of the Dependence of the First Hyperpolarizability of Donor-Acceptor Substituted Polyenes on the Ground-State Polarization and Bond Length Alternation

The dependence of the product of the first hyperpolarizability, beta, and the ground-state dipole moment, mu, for a series of donor-acceptor polyenes with a large range of ground-state polarization, was measured in a variety of solvents by electric field induced second harmonic generation. The observed behavior of mu times beta as a function of ground-state polarization agrees well with theoretical predictions. In particular, as a function of increasing polarization, mu times beta was found to first increase, peak in a positive sense, decrease, pass through zero, become large and negative, and eventually peak in a negative sense.

hyperpolarizability donor-acceptor substituted pol↗

Spin-induced linear polarization of photoluminescence in antiferromagnetic van der Waals crystals

Antiferromagnets are promising components for spintronics due to their terahertz resonance, multilevel states and absence of stray fields. However, the zero net magnetic moment of antiferromagnets makes the detection of the antiferromagnetic order and the investigation of fundamental spin properties notoriously difficult. Here, we report an optical detection of Néel vector orientation through an ultra-sharp photoluminescence in the van der Waals antiferromagnet NiPS 3 from bulk to atomically thin flakes. The strong correlation between spin flipping and electric dipole oscillator results in a linear polarization of the sharp emission, which aligns perpendicular to the spin orientation in the crystal. By applying an in-plane magnetic field, we achieve manipulation of the photoluminescence polarization. Furthermore, this correlation between emitted photons and spins in layered magnets provides routes for investigating magneto-optics in two-dimensional materials, and hence opens a path for developing opto-spintronic devices and antiferromagnet-based quantum information technologies.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

Direct Visualization of Current-Stimulated Oxygen Migration in YBa 2 Cu 3 O 7–δ Thin Films

The past years have witnessed major advancements in all-electrical doping control on cuprates. In the vast majority of cases, the tuning of charge carrier density has been achieved via electric field effect by means of either a ferroelectric polarization or using a dielectric or electrolyte gating. Unfortunately, these approaches are constrained to rather thin superconducting layers and require large electric fields in order to ensure sizable carrier modulations. In this work, we focus on the investigation of oxygen doping in an extended region through current-stimulated oxygen migration in YBa 2 Cu 3 O 7–δ superconducting bridges. The underlying methodology is rather simple and avoids sophisticated nanofabrication process steps and complex electronics. Here, a patterned multiterminal transport bridge configuration allows us to electrically assess the directional counterflow of oxygen atoms and vacancies. Importantly, the emerging propagating front of current-dependent doping δ is probed in situ by optical microscopy and scanning electron microscopy. The resulting imaging techniques, together with photoinduced conductivity and Raman scattering investigations, reveal an inhomogeneous oxygen vacancy distribution with a controllable propagation speed permitting us to estimate the oxygen diffusivity. These findings provide direct evidence that the microscopic mechanism at play in electrical doping of cuprates involves diffusion of oxygen atoms with the applied current. The resulting fine control of the oxygen content would permit a systematic study of complex phase diagrams and the design of electrically addressable devices.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Dipole-Phonon Quantum Logic with Trapped Polar Molecular Ions

The interaction between the electric dipole moment of a trapped molecular ion and the phonon modes of the confined Coulomb crystal couples the orientation of the molecule to its motion. We consider the practical feasibility of harnessing this interaction to initialize, process, and read out quantum information encoded in molecular ion qubits without ever optically illuminating the molecules. We present two schemes wherein a molecular ion can be entangled with a cotrapped atomic ion qubit, providing, among other things, a means for molecular state preparation and measurement. Here, we also show that virtual phonon exchange can significantly boost the range of the intermolecular dipole-dipole interaction, allowing strong coupling between widely separated molecular ion qubits.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Switching the spin cycloid in BiFeO3 with an electric field

Abstract Bismuth ferrite (BiFeO 3 ) is a multiferroic material that exhibits both ferroelectricity and canted antiferromagnetism at room temperature, making it a unique candidate in the development of electric-field controllable magnetic devices. The magnetic moments in BiFeO 3 are arranged into a spin cycloid, resulting in unique magnetic properties which are tied to the ferroelectric order. Previous understanding of this coupling has relied on average, mesoscale measurements. Using nitrogen vacancy-based diamond magnetometry, we observe the magnetic spin cycloid structure of BiFeO 3 in real space. This structure is magnetoelectrically coupled through symmetry to the ferroelectric polarization and this relationship is maintained through electric field switching. Through a combination of in-plane and out-of-plane electrical switching, coupled with ab initio studies, we have discovered that the epitaxy from the substrate imposes a magnetoelastic anisotropy on the spin cycloid, which establishes preferred cycloid propagation directions. The energy landscape of the cycloid is shaped by both the ferroelectric degree of freedom and strain-induced anisotropy, restricting the spin spiral propagation vector to changes to specific switching events.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Controlling the helicity of light by electrical magnetization switching

Controlling the intensity of emitted light and charge current is the basis of transferring and processing information. By contrast, robust information storage and magnetic random-access memories are implemented using the spin of the carrier and the associated magnetization in ferromagnets. In this study, the missing link between the respective disciplines of photonics, electronics and spintronics is to modulate the circular polarization of the emitted light, rather than its intensity, by electrically controlled magnetization. Here we demonstrate that this missing link is established at room temperature and zero applied magnetic field in light-emitting diodes through the transfer of angular momentum between photons, electrons and ferromagnets. With spin-orbit torque a charge current generates also a spin current to electrically switch the magnetization. This switching determines the spin orientation of injected carriers into semiconductors, in which the transfer of angular momentum from the electron spin to photon controls the circular polarization of the emitted light. The spin-photon conversion with the nonvolatile control of magnetization opens paths to seamlessly integrate information transfer, processing and storage. Our results provide substantial advances towards electrically controlled ultrafast modulation of circular polarization and spin injection with magnetization dynamics for the next-generation information and communication technology, including space-light data transfer. The same operating principle in scaled-down structures or using two-dimensional materials will enable transformative opportunities for quantum information processing with spin-controlled single-photon sources, as well as for implementing spin-dependent time-resolved spectroscopies.

74 ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS↗

Revisiting Structural and Electromechanical Properties of the Lead-free (K,Na)NbO 3 High-Piezoelectric Material

Having lead-free systems with excellent piezoelectric responses is crucial to the development of environmentally friendly electromechanical applications. In this work, we build an effective Hamiltonian model to explore the promising (K x Na 1–x )NbO 3 system, whose rich phase diagram near x = 50% remains poorly understood meanwhile exhibiting a colossal effective piezoelectric response. Thanks to the numerical implementation of this effective Hamiltonian scheme into a Monte Carlo Metropolis algorithm, we reveal striking features. First, a long-period state can be the ground state at low temperatures for some concentrations while only a short-period conventional polar ground state exists for larger x. Second, the electric field-driven transformation, via a first-order transition, of this long-period state into a short-period polar state creates large electromechanical strains (on the order of the percent) and is likely the origin of the colossal piezoelectric response reported in KNN, for which we evaluate an effective piezoelectric coefficient of several thousands of pC/N.

(K,Na)NbO3↗

Hydrogen-induced tunable remanent polarization in a perovskite nickelate

Materials with field-tunable polarization are of broad interest to condensed matter sciences and solid-state device technologies. Here, using hydrogen (H) donor doping, we modify the room temperature metallic phase of a perovskite nickelate NdNiO 3 into an insulating phase with both metastable dipolar polarization and space-charge polarization. We then demonstrate transient negative differential capacitance in thin film capacitors. The space-charge polarization caused by long-range movement and trapping of protons dominates when the electric field exceeds the threshold value. First-principles calculations suggest the polarization originates from the polar structure created by H doping. We find that polarization decays within ~1 second which is an interesting temporal regime for neuromorphic computing hardware design, and we implement the transient characteristics in a neural network to demonstrate unsupervised learning. These discoveries open new avenues for designing ferroelectric materials and electrets using light-ion doping.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Determining Sizes of Particles in a Flow from DPIV Data

A proposed method of measuring the size of particles entrained in a flow of a liquid or gas would involve utilization of data from digital particle-image velocimetry (DPIV) of the flow. That is to say, with proper design and operation of a DPIV system, the DPIV data could be processed according to the proposed method to obtain particle sizes in addition to particle velocities. As an additional benefit, one could then compute the mass flux of the entrained particles from the particle sizes and velocities. As in DPIV as practiced heretofore, a pulsed laser beam would be formed into a thin sheet to illuminate a plane of interest in a flow field and the illuminated plane would be observed by means of a charge-coupled device (CCD) camera aimed along a line perpendicular to the illuminated plane. Unlike in DPIV as practiced heretofore, care would be taken to polarize the laser beam so that its electric field would lie in the illuminated plane, for the reason explained in the next paragraph. The proposed method applies, more specifically, to transparent or semitransparent spherical particles that have an index of refraction different from that of the fluid in which they are entrained. The method is based on the established Mie theory, which describes the scattering of light by diffraction, refraction, and specular reflection of light by such particles. In the case of a particle illuminated by polarized light and observed in the arrangement described in the preceding paragraph, the Mie theory shows that the image of the particle on the focal plane of the CCD camera includes two glare spots: one attributable to light reflected toward the camera and one attributable to light refracted toward the camera. The distance between the glare spots is a known function of the size of the particle, the indices of refraction of the particle material, and design parameters of the camera optics. Hence, the size of a particle can be determined from the distance between the glare spots. The proposed method would be implemented in an algorithm that would automatically identify, and measure the distance between, the glare spots for each particle for which a suitable image has been captured in a DPIV image frame. The algorithm (see figure) would begin with thresholding of data from the entire image frame to reduce noise, thereby facilitating discrimination of particle images from the background and aiding in the separation of overlapping particles. It is important not to pick a threshold level so high that the light intensity between a given pair of glare spots does not fall below the threshold value, leaving the glare spots disconnected. The image would then be scanned in a sequence of rows and columns of pixels to identify groups of adjacent pixels that contain nonzero brightnesses and that are surrounded by pixels of zero brightness. Each such group would be assumed to constitute the image of one particle. Each such group would be further analyzed to determine whether the image was saturated; saturated particle images must be rejected because the locations of glare spots in saturated images cannot accurately be determined. Within each unsaturated particle image, the centroids (deemed to be the locations) of the glare spots would be determined by means of gradients of brightness distributions and three-point horizontal and three-point vertical Gaussian estimates based on the brightness values of the brightest pixels and the pixels adjacent to them. If the brightness of a given particle image contained only one peak, then it would be assumed that a second glare spot did not exist and that image would be rejected.

Wernet, M. P.↗

Thermodynamics of Light-Induced Nanoscale Polar Structures in Ferroelectric Superlattices

Here we study the thermodynamics of nanoscale polar structures in PbTiO 3 /SrTiO 3 ferroelectric superlattices induced by above-bandgap optical excitation using a phase-field model explicitly considering both structural and electronic processes. We demonstrate that the light-excited carriers provide the charge compensation of polarization bound charges and the lattice thermal energy, both of which are key to the thermodynamic stabilization of a previously observed supercrystal, a three dimensionally periodic nanostructure, within a window of substrate strains, while different mechanical and electrical boundary conditions can stabilize a number of other nanoscale polar structures by balancing the competing short-range exchange interactions responsible for the domain wall energy and longrange electrostatic and elastic interactions. The insights into the light-induced formation and richness of nanoscale structures from this work offer theoretical guidance for exploring and manipulating the thermodynamic stability of nanoscale polar structures employing a combination of thermal, mechanical, and electrical stimuli as well as light.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Observed Relationship Between Ion Energization and the Broadband ELF Spectrum

Many existing theories linking broadband ELF wave activity (BBELF) to ion energization and outflow are based on the gyro-resonant heating of ions. Recent studies on the properties of these broadband waves show that other mechanisms may be more relevant. Using data from the Polar satellite, we will present an analysis of the observed relationship between the broadband electric field spectrum and ion energization across the cusp, auroral oval, and polar cap.

Coffey, V. N.↗

First-principles effective Hamiltonian for finite-temperature modeling of nonperovskite ferroelectrics

First-principles-based effective Hamiltonian techniques have been widely employed for over three decades to investigate ferroelectricity and related phenomena in perovskite materials. These techniques offer high accuracy, transferability, compatibility with various finite-temperature algorithms, computational efficiency, and ease in incorporating interactions with external fields. They have been adapted to study diverse phenomena, ranging from topological dipole patterns in ferroelectric nanostructures to multicaloric effects. In this work, we develop an effective Hamiltonian for the nonperovskite ferroelectric HfO 2 (hafnia). Applying this methodology to explore the finite-temperature and finite-electric-field properties of ferroelectric hafnia revealed (1) exceptionally large intrinsic coercive fields, an order of magnitude higher than those observed in perovskite ferroelectrics; (2) their atomistic origin; and (3) the existence of a regime where the relationship between the coercive field and the energy barrier for polarization reversal is counterintuitive. Here, these developments could accelerate progress both in methodological advancements for simulating ferroics and in the atomistic understanding of a broad range of ferroelectrics.

Electric polarization↗

Exploring the Impact of Copper Oxide Substitution on Structure, Morphology, Bioactivity, and Electrical Properties of 45S5 Bioglass®

In recent decades, the requirements for implantable medical devices have increased, but the risks of implant rejection still exist. These issues are primarily associated with poor osseointegration, leading to biofilm formation on the implant surface. This study focuses on addressing these issues by developing a biomaterial for implant coatings. 45S5 bioglass® has been widely used in tissue engineering due to its ability to form a hydroxyapatite layer, ensuring a strong bond between the hard tissue and the bioglass. In this context, 45S5 bioglasses®, modified by the incorporation of different amounts of copper oxide, from 0 to 8 mol%, were synthesized by the melt–quenching technique. The incorporation of Cu ions did not show a significant change in the glass structure. Since the bioglass exhibited the capacity for being polarized, thereby promoting the osseointegration effectiveness, the electrical properties of the prepared samples were studied using the impedance spectroscopy method, in the frequency range of 102–106 Hz and temperature range of 200–400 K. The effects of CuO on charge transport mobility were investigated. Additionally, the bioactivity of the modified bioglasses was evaluated through immersion tests in simulated body fluid. The results revealed the initiation of a Ca–P-rich layer formation on the surface within 24 h, indicating the potential of the bioglasses to enhance the bone regeneration process.

Hammami, Imen (ORCID:0000000290072221)↗

Direct observation of nanoscale dynamics of ferroelectric degradation

Failure of polarization reversal, i.e., ferroelectric degradation, induced by cyclic electric loadings in ferroelectric materials, has been a long-standing challenge that negatively impacts the application of ferroelectrics in devices where reliability is critical. It is generally believed that space charges or injected charges dominate the ferroelectric degradation. However, the physics behind the phenomenon remains unclear. Here, using in-situ biasing transmission electron microscopy, we discover change of charge distribution in thin ferroelectrics during cyclic electric loadings. Charge accumulation at domain walls is the main reason of the formation of c domains, which are less responsive to the applied electric field. The rapid growth of the frozen c domains leads to the ferroelectric degradation. This finding gives insights into the nature of ferroelectric degradation in nanodevices, and reveals the role of the injected charges in polarization reversal.

42 ENGINEERING↗

A universal steady state I-V relationship for membrane current

A purely electrical mechanism for the gating of membrane ionic channel gives rise to a simple I-V relationship for membrane current. Our approach is based on the known presence of gating charge, which is an established property of the membrane channel gating. The gating charge is systematically treated as a polarization of the channel protein which varies with the external electric field and modifies the effective potential through which the ions migrate in the channel. Two polarization effects have been considered: 1) the up or down shift of the whole potential function, and 2) the change in the effective electric field inside the channel which is due to familiar effect of the effective reduction of the electric field inside a dielectric body because of the presence of surface charges on its surface. Both effects are linear in the channel polarization. The ionic current is described by a steady state solution of the Nernst-Planck equation with the potential directly controlled by the gating charge system. The solution describes reasonably well the steady state and peak-current I-V relationships for different channels, and when applied adiabatically, explains the time lag between the gating charge current and the rise of the ionic current. The approach developed can be useful as an effective way to model the ionic currents in axons, cardiac cells and other excitable tissues.

NASA Discipline Regulatory Physiology↗

Solar vector magnetograph for Max 1991 programs

An instrument for measuring solar magnetic fields is under construction. Key requirements for any solar vector magnetograph are high spatial resolution, high optical throughput, fine spectral selectivity, and ultralow instrumental polarization. An available 25 cm Cassegrain telescope will provide 0.5 arcsec spatial resolution. Spectral selection will be accomplished with a 150 mA filter based on electrically tunable solid Fabry-Perot etalon. Filter and polarization analyzer design concepts for the magnetograph are described in detail. The instrument will be tested at JHU/APL, and then moved to the National Solar Observatory in late 1988. It will be available to support the Max 1991 program.

Rust, D. M.↗