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At least 793 records · Page 44
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2021

Thickness-independent transport in thin (001)-oriented cadmium arsenide films

The three-dimensional Dirac semimetal is a parent phase for a variety of topological phases that can be generated by tuning parameters in material growth or device operation. Notably, it has recently been found that cadmium arsenide, which is ordinarily a three-dimensional Dirac semimetal, can nevertheless realize a three-dimensional topological insulator in (001)-oriented films about 50-nm thick. In this work, we study the quantum Hall effect in thin (001)-oriented cadmium arsenide films, their thickness ranging from 12 to 24 nm. When the carrier density is kept approximately constant across the different films, quantum transport reveals an identical underlying picture. The result is shown to be consistent with the transport's origin in the surface states of a three-dimensional topological insulator, but problematic for a perspective in which the quantum Hall effect originates from the confined subbands of the bulk band structure. As a result, these thin-film results complement previous studies of the quantum Hall effect in 50-nm-thick films.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2022

Iron pnictides and chalcogenides: a new paradigm for superconductivity

Superconductivity is a remarkably widespread phenomenon observed in most metals cooled down to very low temperatures. The ubiquity of such conventional superconductors, and the wide range of associated critical temperatures, is readily understood in terms of the celebrated Bardeen Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) theory. Occasionally, however, unconventional superconductors are found, such as the iron-based materials, which extend and defy this understanding in new and unexpected ways. In the case of the iron-based superconductors, this includes a new appreciation of the ways in which the presence of multiple atomic orbitals can manifest in unconventional superconductivity, giving rise to a rich landscape of gap structures that share the same dominant pairing mechanism. Besides superconductivity, these materials have also led to new insights into the unusual metallic state governed by the Hund’s interaction, the control and mechanisms of electronic nematicity, the impact of magnetic fluctuations and quantum criticality, and the significance of topology in correlated states. Furthermore, over the thirteen years since their discovery, they have proven to be an incredibly fruitful testing ground for the development of new experimental tools and theoretical approaches, both of which have extensively influenced the wider field of quantum materials.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2022

Evidence for electronic signature of a magnetic transition in the topological magnet HoSbTe

Topological insulators with intrinsic magnetic order are emerging as an exciting platform to realize fundamentally new excitations from topological quantum states of matter. To study these systems and their physics, people have proposed a variety of magnetic topological insulator systems, including HoSbTe, an antiferromagnetic weak topological insulator candidate. Here, in this work, we use scanning tunneling microscopy to probe the electronic structure of HoSbTe with antiferromagnetic and ferromagnetic orders that are tuned by applying an external magnetic field. Although around the Fermi energy we find minor differences between the quasiparticle interferences under the ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic orders, deep inside the valance region, a quasiparticle interference signal emerges with ferromagnetism. This observation is consistent with our first-principles calculations indicating the magnetism-driven transition of the electronic states in this spin-orbit coupled topological magnet.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2023

Topological electride phase of sodium at high pressures and temperatures

Sodium, a textbook example of a nearly-free-electron metal, exhibits unforeseen pressure-induced behavior including the stabilization of numerous polymorphs—some possessing extremely complex unit cells—as well as a metal-to-insulator transition to the iconic hP4 phase. However, until recently, most of the experimental and theoretical studies on solid sodium have been restricted to the low-temperature regime. In this work, using ab initio evolutionary structure searches coupled with quasiharmonic calculations, we discover seven new phases of sodium that are more stable than the known hP4 phase at pressure-temperature conditions that were recently attained in ramp-compression experiments. From these, our calculations suggest that P6 3 /m Na is the ground state between ≈250 GPa at 710 K and ≈350 GPa at 1900 K. Electronic structure calculations show that this phase is a topological semimetal with a Dirac nodal surface that is protected by a nonsymmorphic symmetry S 2z and an electride owing to its non-nuclear charge localized within one-dimensional honeycomb channels and zero-dimensional cages. Our results highlight the complexity of dense sodium's free-energy landscape and intricate electronic structure that emerges at finite temperatures and conditions where ionic cores overlap.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2023

Exact solution of the topological symplectic Kondo problem

The Kondo effect is an archetypical phenomenon in the physics of strongly correlated electron systems. Recent attention has focused on the application of Kondo physics to quantum information science by exploiting overscreened Kondo impurities with residual anyon-like impurity entropy. While this physics was proposed in the fine-tuned multi-channel Kondo setup or in the Majorana-based topological Kondo effect, we here study the Kondo effect with symplectic symmetry Sp(2k) and present details about the implementation which importantly only involves conventional s-wave superconductivity coupled to an array of resonant levels and neither requires perfect channel symmetry nor Majorana fermions. Here we carefully discuss the role of perturbations and show that a global Zeeman drives the system to a 2-channel SU(k) fixed point. Exact results for the residual entropy, specific heat and magnetization are derived using the thermodynamic Bethe Ansatz for Sp(2k). This solution not only proves the existence of a quantum critical ground state with anyon-like Hilbert space dimension, but also a particularly weak non-Fermi liquid behavior at criticality. We interpret the weakness of non-analyticities as a manifestation of suppressed density of states at the impurity causing only a very weak connection of putative anyons and conduction electrons. Given this weak connection, the simplicity of the design and the stability of the effect, we conjecture that the symplectic Kondo effect may be particularly suitable for quantum information applications.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2022

Kibble-Zurek mechanism for nonequilibrium phase transitions in driven systems with quenched disorder

Abstract We show that the Kibble-Zurek mechanism applies to nonequilibrium phase transitions found in driven assemblies of superconducting vortices and colloids moving over quenched disorder where a transition occurs from a plastic disordered flowing state to a moving anisotropic crystal. We measure the density of topological defects as a function of quench rate through the nonequilibrium phase transition, and find that on the ordered side of the transition, the topological defect density ρ d scales as a power law, $${\rho }_{{{{{{{{\rm{d}}}}}}}}}\propto 1/{t}_{{{{{{{{\rm{q}}}}}}}}}^{\beta }$$ ρ d ∝ 1 / t q β , where t q is the quench time duration, consistent with the Kibble-Zurek mechanism. We show that scaling with the same exponent holds for varied strengths of quenched disorder and that the exponents fall in the directed percolation universality class. Our results suggest that the Kibble-Zurek mechanism can be applied to the broader class of systems that exhibit absorbing phase transitions.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2023

Multi-$\mathcal{k}$ magnetic structure and large anomalous Hall effect in candidate magnetic Weyl semimetal NdAlGe

Here, the magnetic structure, magnetoresistance (MR), and Hall effect of the noncentrosymmetric magnetic semimetal NdAlGe are investigated, revealing an unusual magnetic state and anomalous transport properties that are associated with the electronic structure of this compound. The magnetization and MR measurements are both highly anisotropic and indicate an Ising-like magnetic system. The magnetic structure is complex in that it involves two magnetic ordering vectors, including an incommensurate spin density wave and commensurate ferrimagnetic state in zero field. We have discovered a large anomalous Hall conductivity that reaches ≈430 Ω –1 cm –1 , implying that it originates from an intrinsic Berry curvature effect stemming from Weyl nodes found in the electronic structure. These electronic structure calculations indicate the presence of nested Fermi surface pockets with nesting wave vectors like the measured magnetic ordering wave vector and the presence of Weyl nodes in proximity to the Fermi surface. We associate the incommensurate magnetic structure with the large anomalous Hall response to be the result of the combination of Fermi surface nesting and the Berry curvature associated with Weyl nodes.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2021

Multitude of topological phase transitions in bipartite dice and Lieb lattices with interacting electrons and Rashba coupling

We report the results of a Hartree-Fock study applied to interacting electrons moving in two different bipartite lattices: the dice and the Lieb lattices, at half-filling. Both lattices develop ferrimagnetic order in the phase diagram U-λ, where U is the Hubbard on-site repulsion and λ is the Rashba spin-orbit coupling strength. Our main result is the observation of an unexpected multitude of topological phases for both lattices. All these phases are ferrimagnetic, but they differ among themselves in their set of six Chern numbers (six numbers because the unit cells have three atoms). Here, the Chern numbers |C| observed in our study range from 0 to 3, showing that large Chern numbers can be obtained by the effect of electronic correlations, adding to the recently discussed methodologies to increase |C| based on extending the hopping range in tight-binding models, using sudden quenches, or photonic crystals, all without including electronic interactions.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2020

Skyrmion–skyrmion interaction in a magnetic film

Interaction of two skyrmions stabilized by the ferromagnetic exchange, Dzyaloshinskii–Moriya interaction (DMI), and external magnetic field has been studied numerically on a 2D lattice of size large compared to the separation, d, between the skyrmions. We show that two skyrmions of the same chirality (determined by the symmetry of the crystal) repel. In accordance with earlier analytical results, their long-range pair interaction falls out with the separation as exp(-d/δ H ), where δ H is the magnetic screening length, independent of the DMI. The prefactor in this expression depends on the DMI that drives the repulsion. The latter results in the spiral motion of the two skyrmions around each other, with the separation between them growing logarithmically with time. When two skyrmions of the total topological charge Q = 2 are pushed close to each other, the discreteness of the atomic lattice makes them collapse into one skyrmion of charge Q = 1 below a critical separation. Experiment is proposed that would allow one to measure the interaction between two skyrmions by holding them in positions with two magnetic tips. Our findings should be of value for designing topologically protected magnetic memory based upon skyrmions.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2020

Semimetal–Mott insulator quantum phase transition of the Hubbard model on the honeycomb lattice

We take advantage of recent improvements in the grand canonical hybrid Monte Carlo algorithm, to perform a precision study of the single-particle gap in the hexagonal Hubbard model, with on-site electron-electron interactions. After carefully controlled analyses of the Trotter error, the thermodynamic limit, and finite-size scaling with inverse temperature, we find a critical coupling of U c /κ = 3.834(14) and the critical exponent zν = 1.185(43). Under the assumption that this corresponds to the expected antiferromagnetic Mott transition, we are also able to provide a preliminary estimate β = 1.095(37) for the critical exponent of the order parameter. We consider our findings in view of the SU(2) Gross-Neveu, or chiral Heisenberg, universality class. Here, we also discuss the computational scaling of the hybrid Monte Carlo algorithm, and possible extensions of our work to carbon nanotubes, fullerenes, and topological insulators.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2021

Control of plasmons in topological insulators via local perturbations

Here, we use a fully quantum mechanical approach to demonstrate control of plasmonic excitations in prototype models of topological insulators by molecule-scale perturbations. Strongly localized surface plasmons are present in the host systems, arising from the topologically nontrivial single-particle edge states. A numerical evaluation of the random phase approximation equations for the perturbed systems reveals how the positions and the internal electronic structure of the added molecules affect the degeneracy of the locally confined collective excitations, i.e., shifting the plasmonic energies of the host system and changing their spatial charge density profile. In particular, we identify conditions under which significant charge transfer from the host system to the added molecules occurs. Furthermore, the induced field energy density in the perturbed topological systems due to external electric fields is determined.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2022

Non-Equilibrium relaxation, aging scaling, and critical depinning dynamics of skyrmions in disordered magnetic films. Final Report

Technical applications of type-II superconductors, especially high-Tc compounds, in external magnetic fields require an effective flux pinning mechanism to reduce Ohmic losses due to flux creep and flow. Naturally abundant point defects, dislocations, and twin boundaries as well as artificially introduced disorder may serve as effective pinning centers for magnetic vortices. The properties of interacting flux lines subject to strong thermal fluctuations and point-like or extended pinning centers have therefore been a major research focus in condensed matter physics, and considerable progress has been achieved in the characterization and mathematical description of the equilibrium phases and non-equilibrium steady states of vortex matter. Detailed studies of the rich phase diagrams that reveal novel glassy states as well as the associated complex dynamical phenomena have in turn enriched the theoretical understanding of condensed matter systems, elucidating specifically the kinetics of elastic objects driven through disordered media and the important role of topological defects such as vortices and dislocations in various materials.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2022

Ground state of Ce 3 Bi 4 Pd 3 unraveled by hydrostatic pressure

Noncentrosymmetric Ce 3 Bi 4 Pd 3 has attracted a lot of attention as a candidate for strongly correlated topological material, yet its experimental ground state remains a matter of contention. Two conflicting scenarios have emerged from a comparison to the prototypical Kondo insulator Ce 3 Bi 4 Pd 3 : Either Ce 3 Bi 4 Pd 3 is a spin-orbit-driven topological semimetal or a Kondo insulator with smaller Kondo coupling than its Pt counterpart. Here, we determine the ground state of Ce 3 Bi 4 Pd 3 via electrical resistivity measurements under hydrostatic pressure, which is a clean symmetry-preserving tuning parameter that increases hybridization but virtually preserves spin-orbit coupling. Ce 3 Bi 4 Pd 3 becomes more insulating under pressures up to 2.3 GPa, which is a signature of Ce-based Kondo insulating materials in the considered pressure range. Its small zero-pressure gap increases quadratically with pressure, similar to the behavior observed in the series Ce 3 Bi 4 (Pt 1 - x Pd x ) 3 , which indicates that Pt substitution and applied pressure have a similar effect. Finally, our result not only demonstrates that Kondo coupling, rather than spin-orbit coupling, is the main tuning parameter in this class of materials, but it also establishes that Ce 3 Bi 4 Pd 3 has a narrow-gap Kondo insulating ground state.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2023

Possible surface magnetism in the topological Kondo insulator candidate FeSi

Our group has previously reported the existence of a conducting surface state (CSS) in FeSi, a candidate for a d-electron topological Kondo insulator (TKI), at low temperature. In this paper, we present the electrical transport properties of single crystals of FeSi studied in the phase space of temperature (T), magnetic field (B), and the angle (θ) between the electrical current and B. The normalized T-dependent electrical resistance (R) of a successively thinned FeSi crystal provides further confirmation of the existence of a CSS. We report that, in the CSS, the magnetoresistance (MR) exhibits a hysteresis loop bounded within ±0.5 T, suggesting two-dimensional magnetic ordering. The hysteretic MR is asymmetric in B and anisotropic with respect to θ. Further exploration of R(θ) at a fixed field of 9 T reveals an initial progressive rotation of the axis for twofold rotational symmetry from 2 to 10 K, then a stabilized axis for twofold symmetry until, at T > 40 K, the anisotropy vanishes, coincident with the disappearance of the CSS. Furthermore, these observations point to a possible magnetically ordered surface state that has been reported in similar systems such as FeSi nanofilms and bulk SmB 6 .

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2023

Accelerating Quantum Materials Development with Advances in Transmission Electron Microscopy

Quantum materials are driving a technology revolution in sensing, communication, and computing, while simultaneously testing many core theories of the past century. Materials such as topological insulators, complex oxides, superconductors, quantum dots, color center-hosting semiconductors, and other types of strongly correlated materials can exhibit exotic properties such as edge conductivity, multiferroicity, magnetoresistance, superconductivity, single photon emission, and optical-spin locking. These emergent properties arise and depend strongly on the material’s detailed atomic-scale structure, including atomic defects, dopants, and lattice stacking. In this review, we describe how progress in the field of electron microscopy (EM), including in situ and in operando EM, can accelerate advances in quantum materials and quantum excitations. We begin by describing fundamental EM principles and operation modes. We then discuss various EM methods such as (i) EM spectroscopies, including electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS), cathodoluminescence (CL), and electron energy gain spectroscopy (EEGS); (ii) four-dimensional scanning transmission electron microscopy (4D-STEM); (iii) dynamic and ultrafast EM (UEM); (iv) complementary ultrafast spectroscopies (UED, XFEL); and (v) atomic electron tomography (AET). We describe how these methods could inform structure–function relations in quantum materials down to the picometer scale and femtosecond time resolution, and how they enable precision positioning of atomic defects and high-resolution manipulation of quantum materials. For each method, we also describe existing limitations to solve open quantum mechanical questions, and how they might be addressed to accelerate progress. Among numerous notable results, our review highlights how EM is enabling identification of the 3D structure of quantum defects; measuring reversible and metastable dynamics of quantum excitations; mapping exciton states and single photon emission; measuring nanoscale thermal transport and coupled excitation dynamics; and measuring the internal electric field and charge density distribution of quantum heterointerfaces- all at the quantum materials’ intrinsic atomic and near atomic-length scale. Finally, we conclude by describing open challenges for the future, including achieving stable sample holders for ultralow temperature (below 10K) atomic-scale spatial resolution, stable spectrometers that enable meV energy resolution, and high-resolution, dynamic mapping of magnetic and spin fields. With atomic manipulation and ultrafast characterization enabled by EM, quantum materials will be poised to integrate into many of the sustainable and energy-efficient technologies needed for the 21st century.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2023

Layer-by-layer disentanglement of Bloch states

Layer-by-layer material engineering has produced interesting quantum phenomena such as interfacial superconductivity and the quantum anomalous Hall effect. However, probing electronic states layer-by-layer remains challenging. This is exemplified by the difficulty in understanding the layer origins of topological electronic states in magnetic topological insulators. In this work, we report a layer-encoded frequency-domain photoemission experiment on the magnetic topological insulator (MnBi 2 Te 4 )(Bi 2 Te 3 ) that characterizes the origins of its electronic states. Infrared laser excitations launch coherent lattice vibrations with the layer index encoded by the vibration frequency. Photoemission spectroscopy then tracks the electron dynamics, where the layer information is carried in the frequency domain. This layer-frequency correspondence reveals wavefunction relocation of the topological surface state from the top magnetic layer into the buried second layer, reconciling the controversy over the vanishing broken-symmetry energy gap in (MnBi 2 Te 4 )(Bi 2 Te 3 ) and its related compounds. The layer-frequency correspondence can be harnessed to disentangle electronic states layer-by-layer in a broad class of van der Waals superlattices.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2023

Band Energy Dependence of Defect Formation in the Topological Semimetal Cd3As2

Cadmium Arsenide (Cd3As2) is a prototypical Dirac semimetal that manifests topological properties in a 3D bulk material. In defect-free Cd3As2, the Fermi level lies at a minimum in the density of states at the Dirac point, but experimentally it forms with excess electron carriers and an elevated EF, thereby masking the topological features. To computationally study the self-doping of Cd3As2, we combine density functional theory (DFT) calculations for defect formation energies with quasi-particle self-consistent GW (QSGW) electronic structure calculations. We demonstrate an innate dependence of the point defect formation energies on carrier concentrations and use the QSGW calculated density of states to extrapolate formation energies to arbitrary electron concentrations. This approach allows the quantitative modeling of thermodynamic defect equilibria in topological semimetals and is used to predict how Cd3As2 growth conditions affect the position of EF relative to the Dirac point.

CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2022

Fractional correlated insulating states at one-third filled magic angle twisted bilayer graphene

Abstract The observation of superconductivity and correlated insulating states in twisted bilayer graphene has motivated much theoretical progress at integer fillings. However, little attention has been given to fractional fillings. Here we show that the three-peak structure of Wannier orbitals, dictated by the symmetry and topology of flat bands, facilitates the emergence of a state we name a “fractional correlated insulator” at commensurate fractional filling of ν = n ± 1/3. Specifically for the filling of 1/3 electrons per moiré unit cell, we show that short-range interactions lead to an extensive entropy due to the “breathing” degree of freedom of an irregular honeycomb lattice that emerges through defect lines. The leading further-range interaction lifts this degeneracy and selects a ferromagnetic nematic state that breaks AB/BA sublattice symmetry. The proposed fractional correlated insulating state might underlie the suppression of superconductivity at ν = 2 − 1/3 filling observed in ref. 1 .

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗