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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 451 records · Page 25

Spatially resolved ultrafast magnetic dynamics initiated at a complex oxide heterointerface

Static strain in complex oxide heterostructures 1,2 has been extensively used to engineer electronic and magnetic properties at equilibrium 3 . In the same spirit, deformations of the crystal lattice with light may be used to achieve functional control across heterointerfaces dynamically 4 . Here, by exciting large-amplitude infrared-active vibrations in a LaAlO 3 substrate we induce magnetic order melting in a NdNiO 3 film across a heterointerface. Femtosecond resonant soft X-ray diffraction is used to determine the spatiotemporal evolution of the magnetic disordering. We observe a magnetic melt front that propagates from the substrate interface into the film, at a speed that suggests electronically driven motion. Lastly, light control and ultrafast phase front propagation at heterointerfaces may lead to new opportunities in optomagnetism, for example by driving domain wall motion to transport information across suitably designed devices.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

Exciton photoluminescence and benign defect complex formation in zinc tin nitride

Emerging photovoltaic materials need to prove their viability by demonstrating excellent electronic properties. In ternary and multinary semiconductors, disorder and off-stoichiometry often cause defects that limit the potential for high-efficiency solar cells. We report on Zn-rich ZnSnN 2 (Zn/(Zn + Sn) = 0.67) photoluminescence, high-resolution X-ray diffraction, and electronic structure calculations based on Monte-Carlo structural models. The mutual compensation of Zn excess and O incorporation affords a desirable reduction of the otherwise degenerate n-type doping, but also leads to a strongly off-stoichiometric and disordered atomic structure. It is therefore remarkable that we observe only near-edge photoluminescence from well-resolved excitons and shallow donors and acceptors. Based on first principles calculations, this result is explained by the mutual passivation of Zn Sn and O N defects that renders both electronically benign. The calculated bandgaps range between 1.4 and 1.8 eV, depending on the degree of non-equilibrium disorder. The experimentally determined value of 1.5 eV in post-deposition annealed samples falls within this interval, indicating that further bandgap engineering by disorder control should be feasible via appropriate annealing protocols.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

A metastable Ru III azido complex with metallo-Staudinger reactivity

The metastable purple [(Py 5 Me 2 )Ru III (N 3 )] 2+ ion reacts with PPh 3 at room temperature to form the phosphinimine complex [(Py 5 Me 2 )Ru II (N(H)PPh 3 )] 2+ and free [H 2 NPPh 3 ] + in a combined 23% conversion. Here, mechanistic studies suggest that this is the first metallo-Staudinger reaction of a late transition metal that bypasses the nitrido mechanism and instead utilizes a Ru–N=N=N–PPh 3 phosphazide intermediate.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Hybrid gels via bulk interfacial complexation of supramolecular polymers and polyelectrolytes

Hierarchical self-assembly leading to organized supramolecular structures across multiple length scales has been of great recent interest. Earlier work from our laboratory reported the complexation of peptide amphiphile (PA) supramolecular polymers with oppositely charged polyelectrolytes into a single solid membrane at a macroscopic interface. We report here the formation of bulk gels with many internal interfaces between the covalent and supramolecular polymer components formed by the rapid chaotic mixing of solutions, one containing negatively charged PA nanofibers and the other the positively charged biopolymer chitosan. We found that formation of a contact layer at the interface of the solutions locks the formation of hydrogels with lamellar microstructure. The nanofiber morphology of the supramolecular polymer is essential to this process since gels do not form when solutions of supramolecular assemblies form spherical micelles. Here, we found that rheological properties of the gels can be tuned by changing the relative amounts of each component. Furthermore, both positively and negatively charged proteins are easily encapsulated within the contact layer of the gel, which provides an interesting biomedical function for these systems.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Energy transfer from conjugated polymer to bacterial light-harvesting complex

Energy transfer from a conjugated polymer blend (poly(9,9-dioctylfluorenyl-2,7-diyl):poly (2-methoxy-5-(2-ethylhexyloxy)-1, 4-phenylenevinylene) to a light-harvesting complex 2 from purple bacteria has been demonstrated using time-resolved fluorescence spectroscopy. For our hybrid nanostructure, we observe a 30% reduction of the fluorescence lifetime of the polymer emission as compared to the pure polymer layer. This result is an important step towards integrating naturally evolved biomolecules with synthetic materials into biohybrid organic electronic systems.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

Using coupled micropillar compression and micro-Laue diffraction to investigate deformation mechanisms in a complex metallic alloy Al{sub 13}Co{sub 4}

In this study, we have used in-situ micro-Laue diffraction combined with micropillar compression of focused ion beam milled Al{sub 13}Co{sub 4} complex metallic alloy to investigate the evolution of deformation in Al{sub 13}Co{sub 4}. Streaking of the Laue spots shows that the onset of plastic flow occurs at stresses as low as 0.8 GPa, although macroscopic yield only becomes apparent at 2 GPa. The measured misorientations, obtained from peak splitting, enable the geometrically necessary dislocation density to be estimated as 1.1 × 10{sup 13 }m{sup −2}.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Linear-algebraic bath transformation for simulating complex open quantum systems

In studying open quantum systems, the environment is often approximated as a collection of non-interacting harmonic oscillators, a configuration also known as the star-bath model. It is also well known that the star-bath can be transformed into a nearest-neighbor interacting chain of oscillators. The chain-bath model has been widely used in renormalization group approaches. The transformation can be obtained by recursion relations or orthogonal polynomials. Based on a simple linear algebraic approach, we propose a bath partition strategy to reduce the system-bath coupling strength. As a result, the non-interacting star-bath is transformed into a set of weakly coupled multiple parallel chains. Furthermore, the transformed bath model allows complex problems to be practically implemented on quantum simulators, and it can also be employed in various numerical simulations of open quantum dynamics.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Quantifying electronic correlation strength in a complex oxide: a combined DMFT and ARPES study of LaNiO{sub 3}

The electronic correlation strength is a basic quantity that characterizes the physical properties of materials such as transition metal oxides. Determining correlation strengths requires both precise definitions and a careful comparison between experiment and theory. In this paper, we define the correlation strength via the magnitude of the electron self-energy near the Fermi level. For the case of LaNiO3, we obtain both the experimental and theoretical mass enhancements m/m by considering high resolution angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) measurements and density functional+dynamical mean field theory (DFT+DMFT) calculations.We use valence-band photoemission data to constrain the free parameters in the theory and demonstrate a quantitative agreement between the experiment and theory when both the realistic crystal structure and strong electronic correlations are taken into account. In addition, by considering DFT+DMFT calculations on epitaxially strained LaNiO3, we find a strain-induced evolution of m/m in qualitative agreement with trends derived from optics experiments. These results provide a benchmark for the accuracy of the DFT+DMFT theoretical approach, and can serve as a test case when considering other complex materials. By establishing the level of accuracy of the theory, this work also will enable better quantitative predictions when engineering new emergent properties in nickelate heterostructures.

Nowadnick, E. A.↗