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Now showing 1 - 10 of 13
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    Pressure-induced dimerization and valence bond crystal formation in the Kitaev-Heisenberg magnet α-RuCl3
    (College Park, MD : American Physical Society, 2018) Bastien, G.; Garbarino, G.; Yadav, R.; Martinez-Casado, F.J.; Beltrán, Rodríguez, R.; Stahl, Q.; Kusch, M.; Limandri, S.P.; Ray, R.; Lampen-Kelley, P.; Mandrus, D.G.; Nagler, S.E.; Roslova, M.; Isaeva, A.; Doert, T.; Hozoi, L.; Wolter, A.U.B.; Büchner, B.; Geck, J.; Van Den Brink, J.
    Magnetization and high-resolution x-ray diffraction measurements of the Kitaev-Heisenberg material α-RuCl3 reveal a pressure-induced crystallographic and magnetic phase transition at a hydrostatic pressure of p∼0.2 GPa. This structural transition into a triclinic phase is characterized by a very strong dimerization of the Ru-Ru bonds, accompanied by a collapse of the magnetic susceptibility. Ab initio quantum-chemistry calculations disclose a pressure-induced enhancement of the direct 4d-4d bonding on particular Ru-Ru links, causing a sharp increase of the antiferromagnetic exchange interactions. These combined experimental and computational data show that the Kitaev spin-liquid phase in α-RuCl3 strongly competes with the crystallization of spin singlets into a valence bond solid.
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    Single molecule magnet with an unpaired electron trapped between two lanthanide ions inside a fullerene
    (London : Nature Publishing Group, 2017) Liu, F.; Krylov, D.S.; Spree, L.; Avdoshenko, S.M.; Samoylova, N.A.; Rosenkranz, M.; Kostanyan, A.; Greber, T.; Wolter, A.U.B.; Büchner, B.; Popov, A.A.
    Increasing the temperature at which molecules behave as single-molecule magnets is a serious challenge in molecular magnetism. One of the ways to address this problem is to create the molecules with strongly coupled lanthanide ions. In this work, endohedral metallofullerenes Y 2 @C 80 and Dy 2 @C 80 are obtained in the form of air-stable benzyl monoadducts. Both feature an unpaired electron trapped between metal ions, thus forming a single-electron metal-metal bond. Giant exchange interactions between lanthanide ions and the unpaired electron result in single-molecule magnetism of Dy 2 @C 80 (CH 2 Ph) with a record-high 100 s blocking temperature of 18 K. All magnetic moments in Dy 2 @C 80 (CH 2 Ph) are parallel and couple ferromagnetically to form a single spin unit of 21 μ B with a dysprosium-electron exchange constant of 32 cm -1. The barrier of the magnetization reversal of 613 K is assigned to the state in which the spin of one Dy centre is flipped.
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    Mixed dysprosium-lanthanide nitride clusterfullerenes DyM2N@C80-: I h and Dy2MN@C80- i h (M = Gd, Er, Tm, and Lu): Synthesis, molecular structure, and quantum motion of the endohedral nitrogen atom
    (Cambridge : RSC Publ., 2019) Schlesier, C.; Liu, F.; Dubrovin, V.; Spree, L.; Büchner, B.; Avdoshenko, S.M.; Popov, A.A.
    Systematic exploration of the synthesis of mixed-metal Dy-M nitride clusterfullerenes (NCFs, M = Gd, Er, Tm, Lu) is performed, and the impact of the second metal on the relative yield is evaluated. We demonstrate that the ionic radius of the metal appears to be the main factor allowing explanation of the relative yields in Dy-M mixed-metal systems with M = Sc, Lu, Er, and Gd. At the same time, Dy-Tm NCFs show anomalously low yields, which is not consistent with the relatively small ionic radius of Tm3+ but can be explained by the high third ionization potential of Tm. Complete separation of Dy-Gd and Dy-Er, as well as partial separation of Dy-Lu M3N@C80 nitride clusterfullerenes, is accomplished by recycling HPLC. The molecular structures of DyGd2N@C80 and DyEr2N@C80 are analyzed by means of single-crystal X-ray diffraction. A remarkable ordering of mixed-metal nitride clusters is found despite similar size and electronic properties of the metals. Possible pyramidalization of the nitride clusters in these and other nitride clusterfullerenes is critically analyzed with the help of DFT calculations and reconstruction of the nitrogen inversion barrier in M3N@C80 molecules is performed. Although a double-well potential with a pyramidal cluster structure is found to be common for most of them, the small size of the inversion barrier often leads to an apparent planar structure of the cluster. This situation is found for those M3N@C80 molecules in which the energy of the lowest vibrational level exceeds that of the inversion barrier, including Dy3N@C80 and DyEr2N@C80. The genuine pyramidal structure can be observed by X-ray diffraction only when the lowest vibrational level is below the inversion barrier, such as those found in Gd3N@C80 and DyGd2N@C80. The quantum nature of molecular vibrations becomes especially apparent when the size of the inversion barrier is comparable to the energy of the lowest vibrational levels.
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    Spectral field mapping in plasmonic nanostructures with nanometer resolution
    (London : Nature Publishing Group, 2018) Krehl, J.; Guzzinati, G.; Schultz, J.; Potapov, P.; Pohl, D.; Martin, J.; Verbeeck, J.; Fery, A.; Büchner, B.; Lubk, A.
    Plasmonic nanostructures and -devices are rapidly transforming light manipulation technology by allowing to modify and enhance optical fields on sub-wavelength scales. Advances in this field rely heavily on the development of new characterization methods for the fundamental nanoscale interactions. However, the direct and quantitative mapping of transient electric and magnetic fields characterizing the plasmonic coupling has been proven elusive to date. Here we demonstrate how to directly measure the inelastic momentum transfer of surface plasmon modes via the energy-loss filtered deflection of a focused electron beam in a transmission electron microscope. By scanning the beam over the sample we obtain a spatially and spectrally resolved deflection map and we further show how this deflection is related quantitatively to the spectral component of the induced electric and magnetic fields pertaining to the mode. In some regards this technique is an extension to the established differential phase contrast into the dynamic regime. © 2018, The Author(s).
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    Fe1-xNix alloy nanoparticles encapsulated inside carbon nanotubes: Controlled synthesis, structure and magnetic properties
    (Basel : MDPI AG, 2018) Ghunaim, R.; Damm, C.; Wolf, D.; Lubk, A.; Büchner, B.; Mertig, M.; Hampel, S.
    In the present work, different synthesis procedures have been demonstrated to fill carbon nanotubes (CNTs) with Fe1-xNix alloy nanoparticles (x = 0.33, 0.5). CNTs act as templates for the encapsulation of magnetic nanoparticles, and provide a protective shield against oxidation as well as prevent nanoparticles agglomeration. By variation of the reaction parameters, the purity of the samples, degree of filling, the composition and size of filling nanoparticles have been tailored and therefore the magnetic properties. The samples were analyzed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), Bright-field (BF) TEM tomography, X-ray powder diffraction, superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). The Fe1-x Nix-filled CNTs show a huge enhancement in the coercive fields compared to the corresponding bulk materials, which make them excellent candidates for several applications such as magnetic storage devices.
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    Strong spin resonance mode associated with suppression of soft magnetic ordering in hole-doped Ba1-xNaxFe2As2
    (London : Nature Publishing Group, 2019) Waßer, F.; Park, J.T.; Aswartham, S.; Wurmehl, S.; Sidis, Y.; Steffens, P.; Schmalzl, K.; Büchner, B.; Braden, M.
    Spin-resonance modes (SRM) are taken as evidence for magnetically driven pairing in Fe-based superconductors, but their character remains poorly understood. The broadness, the splitting and the spin-space anisotropies of SRMs contrast with the mostly accepted interpretation as spin excitons. We study hole-doped Ba1−xNaxFe2As2 that displays a spin reorientation transition. This reorientation has little impact on the overall appearance of the resonance excitations with a high-energy isotropic and a low-energy anisotropic mode. However, the strength of the anisotropic low-energy mode sharply peaks at the highest doping that still exhibits magnetic ordering resulting in the strongest SRM observed in any Fe-based superconductor so far. This remarkably strong SRM is accompanied by a loss of about half of the magnetic Bragg intensity upon entering the SC phase. Anisotropic SRMs thus can allow the system to compensate for the loss of exchange energy arising from the reduced antiferromagnetic correlations within the SC state.
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    Probing the reconstructed Fermi surface of antiferromagnetic BaFe2As2 in one domain
    (London : Nature Publishing Group, 2019) Watson, M.D.; Dudin, P.; Rhodes, L.C.; Evtushinsky, D.V.; Iwasawa, H.; Aswartham, S.; Wurmehl, S.; Büchner, B.; Hoesch, M.; Kim, T.K.
    A fundamental part of the puzzle of unconventional superconductivity in the Fe-based superconductors is the understanding of the magnetic and nematic instabilities of the parent compounds. The issues of which of these can be considered the leading instability, and whether weak- or strong-coupling approaches are applicable, are both critical and contentious. Here, we revisit the electronic structure of BaFe2As2 using angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES). Our high-resolution measurements of samples “detwinned” by the application of a mechanical strain reveal a highly anisotropic 3D Fermi surface in the low-temperature antiferromagnetic phase. By comparison of the observed dispersions with ab initio calculations, we argue that overall it is magnetism, rather than orbital/nematic ordering, which is the dominant effect, reconstructing the electronic structure across the Fe 3d bandwidth. Finally, using a state-of-the-art nano-ARPES system, we reveal how the observed electronic dispersions vary in real space as the beam spot crosses domain boundaries in an unstrained sample, enabling the measurement of ARPES data from within single antiferromagnetic domains, and showing consistence with the effective mono-domain samples obtained by detwinning.
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    Confined crystals of the smallest phase-change material
    (Washington, DC : American Chemical Society, 2013) Giusca, C.E.; Stolojan, V.; Sloan, J.; Börrnert, F.; Shiozawa, H.; Sader, K.; Rümmeli, M.H.; Büchner, B.; Silva, S.R.P.
    The demand for high-density memory in tandem with limitations imposed by the minimum feature size of current storage devices has created a need for new materials that can store information in smaller volumes than currently possible. Successfully employed in commercial optical data storage products, phase-change materials, that can reversibly and rapidly change from an amorphous phase to a crystalline phase when subject to heating or cooling have been identified for the development of the next generation electronic memories. There are limitations to the miniaturization of these devices due to current synthesis and theoretical considerations that place a lower limit of 2 nm on the minimum bit size, below which the material does not transform in the structural phase. We show here that by using carbon nanotubes of less than 2 nm diameter as templates phase-change nanowires confined to their smallest conceivable scale are obtained. Contrary to previous experimental evidence and theoretical expectations, the nanowires are found to crystallize at this scale and display amorphous-to-crystalline phase changes, fulfilling an important prerequisite of a memory element. We show evidence for the smallest phase-change material, extending thus the size limit to explore phase-change memory devices at extreme scales.
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    Nonlocal dielectric function and nested dark excitons in MoS2
    (London : Nature Publishing Group, 2019) Koitzsch, A.; Pawlik, A.-S.; Habenicht, C.; Klaproth, T.; Schuster, R.; Büchner, B.; Knupfer, M.
    Their exceptional optical properties are a driving force for the persistent interest in atomically thin transition metal dichalcogenides such as MoS2. The optical response is dominated by excitons. Apart from the bright excitons, which directly couple to light, it has been realized that dark excitons, where photon absorption or emission is inhibited by the spin state or momentum mismatch, are decisive for many optical properties. However, in particular the momentum dependence is difficult to assess experimentally and often remains elusive or is investigated by indirect means. Here we study the momentum dependent electronic structure experimentally and theoretically. We use angle-resolved photoemission as a one-particle probe of the occupied valence band structure and electron energy loss spectroscopy as a two-particle probe of electronic transitions across the gap to benchmark a single-particle model of the dielectric function ϵ(q, ω) against momentum dependent experimental measurements. This ansatz captures key aspects of the data surprisingly well. In particular, the energy region where substantial nesting occurs, which is at the origin of the strong light–matter interaction of thin transition metal dichalcogenides and crucial for the prominent C-exciton, is described well and spans a more complex exciton landscape than previously anticipated. Its local maxima in (q≠0,ω) space can be considered as dark excitons and might be relevant for higher order optical processes. Our study may lead to a more complete understanding of the optical properties of atomically thin transition metal dichalcogenides.
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    Spin-glass state and reversed magnetic anisotropy induced by Cr doping in the Kitaev magnet α-RuCl3
    (College Park, MD : American Physical Society, 2019) Bastien, G.; Roslova, M.; Haghighi, M.H.; Mehlawat, K.; Hunger, J.; Isaeva, A.; Doert, T.; Vojta, M.; Büchner, B.; Wolter, A.U.B.
    Magnetic properties of the substitution series Ru1-xCrxCl3 were investigated to determine the evolution from the anisotropic Kitaev magnet α-RuCl3 with Jeff=1/2 magnetic Ru3+ ions to the isotropic Heisenberg magnet CrCl3 with S=3/2 magnetic Cr3+ ions. Magnetization measurements on single crystals revealed a reversal of the magnetic anisotropy under doping, which we argue to arise from the competition between anisotropic Kitaev and off-diagonal interactions on the Ru-Ru links and approximately isotropic Cr-Ru and isotropic Cr-Cr interactions. In addition, combined magnetization, ac susceptibility, and specific-heat measurements clearly show the destabilization of the long-range magnetic order of α-RuCl3 in favor of a spin-glass state of Ru1-xCrxCl3 for a low doping of x≤0.1. The corresponding freezing temperature as a function of Cr content shows a broad maximum around x ≤ 0.45.