2016, Fedorov, A., Yaresko, A., Kim, T.K., Kushnirenko, Y., Haubold, E., Wolf, T., Hoesch, M., Grüneis, A., Büchner, B., Borisenko, S.V.

Electronically driven nematic order is often considered as an essential ingredient of high-temperature superconductivity. Its elusive nature in iron-based superconductors resulted in a controversy not only as regards its origin but also as to the degree of its influence on the electronic structure even in the simplest representative material FeSe. Here we utilized angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy and density functional theory calculations to study the influence of the nematic order on the electronic structure of FeSe and determine its exact energy and momentum scales. Our results strongly suggest that the nematicity in FeSe is electronically driven, we resolve the recent controversy and provide the necessary quantitative experimental basis for a successful theory of superconductivity in iron-based materials which takes into account both, spin-orbit interaction and electronic nematicity.

2016, Wild, Martin, Griebel, Jan, Hajduk, Anna, Friedrich, Dirk, Stark, Annegret, Abel, Bernd, Siefermann, Katrin R.

The class of triarylamine-based dyes has proven great potential as efficient light absorbers in inverse (p-type) dye sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). However, detailed investigation and further improvement of p-type DSSCs is strongly hindered by the fact that available synthesis routes of triarylamine-based dyes are inefficient and particularly demanding with regard to time and costs. Here, we report on an efficient synthesis strategy for triarylamine-based dyes for p-type DSSCs. A protocol for the synthesis of the dye-precursor (4-(bis(4-bromophenyl)amino)benzoic acid) is presented along with its X-ray crystal structure. The dye precursor is obtained from the commercially available 4(diphenylamino)benzaldehyde in a yield of 87% and serves as a starting point for the synthesis of various triarylamine-based dyes. Starting from the precursor we further describe a synthesis protocol for the dye 4-{bis[4′-(2,2-dicyanovinyl)-[1,1′-biphenyl]-4-yl]amino}benzoic acid (also known as dye P4) in a yield of 74%. All synthesis steps are characterized by high yields and high purities without the need for laborious purification steps and thus fulfill essential requirements for scale-up.

2016, Grosse, Corinna, Alemayehu, Matti B., Falmbigl, Matthias, Mogilatenko, Anna, Chiatti, Olivio, Johnson, David C., Fischer, Saskia F.

Hybrid electronic heterostructure films of semi- and superconducting layers possess very different properties from their bulk counterparts. Here, we demonstrate superconductivity in ferecrystals: turbostratically disordered atomic-scale layered structures of single-, bi- and trilayers of NbSe2 separated by PbSe layers. The turbostratic (orientation) disorder between individual layers does not destroy superconductivity. Our method of fabricating artificial sequences of atomic-scale 2D layers, structurally independent of their neighbours in the growth direction, opens up new possibilities of stacking arbitrary numbers of hybrid layers which are not available otherwise, because epitaxial strain is avoided. The observation of superconductivity and systematic Tc changes with nanostructure make this synthesis approach of particular interest for realizing hybrid systems in the search of 2D superconductivity and the design of novel electronic heterostructures.

2016, Khazaee, Maryam, Xia, Wei, Lackner, Gerhard, Mendes, Rafael G., Rümmeli, Mark, Muhler, Martin, Lupascu, Doru C.

The synthesis and characterization of gas phase oxygen- and nitrogen-functionalized multi-walled carbon nanotubes (OMWCNTs and NMWCNTs) and the dispersibility of these tubes in organic solvents were investigated. Recently, carbon nanotubes have shown supreme capacity to effectively enhance the efficiency of organic solar cells (OSCs). A critical challenge is to individualize tubes from their bundles in order to provide homogenous nano-domains in the active layer of OSCs. OMWCNTs and NMWCNTs were synthesized via HNO3 vapor and NH3 treatments, respectively. Surface functional groups and the structure of the tubes were analyzed by temperature-programmed desorption, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy, and Raman spectroscopy which confirmed the formation of functional groups on the tube surface and the enhancement of surface defects. Elemental analysis demonstrated that the oxygen and nitrogen content increased with increasing treatment time of the multi-walled carbon nanotube (MWCNT) in HNO3 vapor. According to ultra-violet visible spectroscopy, modification of the MWCNT increased the extinction coefficients of the tubes owing to enhanced compatibility of the functionalized tubes with organic matrices.

2016, Kourtchev, Ivan, Giorio, Chiara, Manninen, Antti, Wilson, Eoin, Mahon, Brendan, Aalto, Juho, Kajos, Maija, Venables, Dean, Ruuskanen, Taina, Levula, Janne, Loponen, Matti, Connors, Sarah, Harris, Neil, Zhao, Defeng, Kiendler-Scharr, Astrid, Mentel, Thomas, Rudich, Yinon, Hallquist, Mattias, Doussin, Jean-Francois, Maenhaut, Willy, Bäck, Jaana, Petäjä, Tuukka, Wenger, John, Kulmala, Markku, Kalberer, Markus

Secondary organic aerosol (SOA) accounts for a dominant fraction of the submicron atmospheric particle mass, but knowledge of the formation, composition and climate effects of SOA is incomplete and limits our understanding of overall aerosol effects in the atmosphere. Organic oligomers were discovered as dominant components in SOA over a decade ago in laboratory experiments and have since been proposed to play a dominant role in many aerosol processes. However, it remains unclear whether oligomers are relevant under ambient atmospheric conditions because they are often not clearly observed in field samples. Here we resolve this long-standing discrepancy by showing that elevated SOA mass is one of the key drivers of oligomer formation in the ambient atmosphere and laboratory experiments. We show for the first time that a specific organic compound class in aerosols, oligomers, is strongly correlated with cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) activities of SOA particles. These findings might have important implications for future climate scenarios where increased temperatures cause higher biogenic volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions, which in turn lead to higher SOA mass formation and significant changes in SOA composition. Such processes would need to be considered in climate models for a realistic representation of future aerosol-climate-biosphere feedbacks.

2016, Bragaglia, V., Holldack, K., Boschker, J.E., Arciprete, F., Zallo, E., Flissikowski, T., Calarco, R.

A combination of far-infrared and Raman spectroscopy is employed to investigate vibrational modes and the carrier behavior in amorphous and crystalline ordered GeTe-Sb2Te3 alloys (GST) epitaxially grown on Si(111). The infrared active GST mode is not observed in the Raman spectra and vice versa, indication of the fact that inversion symmetry is preserved in the metastable cubic phase in accordance with the Fm3 space group. For the trigonal phase, instead, a partial symmetry break due to Ge/Sb mixed anion layers is observed. By studying the crystallization process upon annealing with both the techniques, we identify temperature regions corresponding to the occurrence of different phases as well as the transition from one phase to the next. Activation energies of 0.43 eV and 0.08 eV for the electron conduction are obtained for both cubic and trigonal phases, respectively. In addition a metal-insulator transition is clearly identified to occur at the onset of the transition between the disordered and the ordered cubic phase.

2016, Zhang, L., Pauly, S., Tang, M.Q., Eckert, J., Zhang, H.F.

The microstructural evolution of cast Ti/Zr-based bulk metallic glass composites (BMGCs) containing β-Ti still remains ambiguous. This is why to date the strategies and alloys suitable for producing such BMGCs with precisely controllable volume fractions and crystallite sizes are still rather limited. In this work, a Ti-based BMGC containing β-Ti was developed in the Ti-Zr-Cu-Co-Be system. The glassy matrix of this BMGC possesses an exceptional glass-forming ability and as a consequence, the volume fractions as well as the composition of the β-Ti dendrites remain constant over a wide range of cooling rates. This finding can be explained in terms of a two-phase quasi-equilibrium between the supercooled liquid and β-Ti, which the system attains on cooling. The two-phase quasi-equilibrium allows predicting the crystalline and glassy volume fractions by means of the lever rule and we succeeded in reproducing these values by slight variations in the alloy composition at a fixed cooling rate. The two-phase quasi-equilibrium could be of critical importance for understanding and designing the microstructures of BMGCs containing the β-phase. Its implications on the nucleation and growth of the crystalline phase are elaborated.

2016, Marra, Pasquale, van den Brink, Jeroen, Sykora, Steffen

We develop a phenomenological theory to predict the characteristic features of the momentum-dependent scattering amplitude in resonant inelastic x-ray scattering (RIXS) at the energy scale of the superconducting gap in iron-based super-conductors. Taking into account all relevant orbital states as well as their specific content along the Fermi surface we evaluate the charge and spin dynamical structure factors for the compounds LaOFeAs and LiFeAs, based on tight-binding models which are fully consistent with recent angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) data. We find a characteristic intensity redistribution between charge and spin dynamical structure factors which discriminates between sign-reversing and sign-preserving quasiparticle excitations. Consequently, our results show that RIXS spectra can distinguish between s± and s++ wave gap functions in the singlet pairing case. In addition, we find that an analogous intensity redistribution at small momenta can reveal the presence of a chiral p-wave triplet pairing.

2016, Nag, P.K., Schlegel, R., Baumann, D., Grafe, H.-J., Beck, R., Wurmehl, S., Büchner, B., Hess, C.

A non-trivial temperature evolution of superconductivity including a temperature-induced phase transition between two superconducting phases or even a time-reversal symmetry breaking order parameter is in principle expected in multiband superconductors such as iron-pnictides. Here we present scanning tunnelling spectroscopy data of LiFeAs which reveal two distinct superconducting phases: at = 18 K a partial superconducting gap opens, evidenced by subtle, yet clear features in the tunnelling spectra, i.e. particle-hole symmetric coherence peak and dip-hump structures. At Tc = 16 K, these features substantiate dramatically and become characteristic of full superconductivity. Remarkably, the distance between the dip-hump structures and the coherence peaks remains practically constant in the whole temperature regimeT ≤ . This rules out the connection of the dip-hump structures to an antiferromagnetic spin resonance.

2016, Sun, Xinxing, Ehrhardt, Martin, Lotnyk, Andriy, Lorenz, Pierre, Thelander, Erik, Gerlach, Jürgen W., Smausz, Tomi, Decker, Ulrich, Rauschenbach, Bernd

The amorphous to crystalline phase transformation of Ge2Sb2Te5 (GST) films by UV nanosecond (ns) and femtosecond (fs) single laser pulse irradiation at the same wavelength is compared. Detailed structural information about the phase transformation is collected by x-ray diffraction and high resolution transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The threshold fluences to induce crystallization are determined for both pulse lengths. A large difference between ns and fs pulse irradiation was found regarding the grain size distribution and morphology of the crystallized films. For fs single pulse irradiated GST thin films, columnar grains with a diameter of 20 to 60 nm were obtained as evidenced by cross-sectional TEM analysis. The local atomic arrangement was investigated by highresolution Cs-corrected scanning TEM. Neither tetrahedral nor off-octahedral positions of Ge-atoms could be observed in the largely defect-free grains. A high optical reflectivity contrast (~25%) between amorphous and completely crystallized GST films was achieved by fs laser irradiation induced at fluences between 13 and 16 mJ/cm2 and by ns laser irradiation induced at fluences between 67 and 130 mJ/cm2. Finally, the fluence dependent increase of the reflectivity is discussed in terms of each photon involved into the crystallization process for ns and fs pulses, respectively.