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    Multiple fermion scattering in the weakly coupled spin-chain compound YbAlO3
    (London : Nature Publishing Group, 2021) Nikitin, S.; Nishimoto, S.; Fan, Y.; Wu, J.; Wu, L.; Sukhanov, A.; Brando, M.; Pavlovskii, N.; Xu, J.; Vasylechko, L.; Yu, R.; Podlesnyak, A.
    The Heisenberg antiferromagnetic spin-1/2 chain, originally introduced almost a century ago, is one of the best studied models in quantum mechanics due to its exact solution, but nevertheless it continues to present new discoveries. Its low-energy physics is described by the Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid of spinless fermions, similar to the conduction electrons in one-dimensional metals. In this work we investigate the Heisenberg spin-chain compound YbAlO3 and show that the weak interchain coupling causes Umklapp scattering between the left- and right-moving fermions and stabilizes an incommensurate spin-density wave order at q = 2kF under finite magnetic fields. These Umklapp processes open a route to multiple coherent scattering of fermions, which results in the formation of satellites at integer multiples of the incommensurate fundamental wavevector Q = nq. Our work provides surprising and profound insight into bandstructure control for emergent fermions in quantum materials, and shows how neutron diffraction can be applied to investigate the phenomenon of coherent multiple scattering in metals through the proxy of quantum magnetic systems.
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    Towards tellurium-free thermoelectric modules for power generation from low-grade heat
    (London : Nature Publishing Group, 2021) Ying, Pingjun; He, Ran; Mao, Jun; Zhang, Qihao; Reith, Heiko; Sui, Jiehe; Ren, Zhifeng; Nielsch, Kornelius; Schierning, Gabi
    Thermoelectric technology converts heat into electricity directly and is a promising source of clean electricity. Commercial thermoelectric modules have relied on Bi2Te3-based compounds because of their unparalleled thermoelectric properties at temperatures associated with low-grade heat (<550 K). However, the scarcity of elemental Te greatly limits the applicability of such modules. Here we report the performance of thermoelectric modules assembled from Bi2Te3-substitute compounds, including p-type MgAgSb and n-type Mg3(Sb,Bi)2, by using a simple, versatile, and thus scalable processing routine. For a temperature difference of ~250 K, whereas a single-stage module displayed a conversion efficiency of ~6.5%, a module using segmented n-type legs displayed a record efficiency of ~7.0% that is comparable to the state-of-the-art Bi2Te3-based thermoelectric modules. Our work demonstrates the feasibility and scalability of high-performance thermoelectric modules based on sustainable elements for recovering low-grade heat.