| 1. |
- Chakraborty, Debmalya, et al.
(författare)
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Disorder-robust phase crystal in high-temperature superconductors stabilized by strong correlations
- 2022
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Ingår i: npj Quantum Materials. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2397-4648. ; 7:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The simultaneous interplay of strong electron–electron correlations, topological zero-energy states, and disorder is yet an unexplored territory but of immense interest due to their inevitable presence in many materials. Copper oxide high-temperature superconductors (cuprates) with pair breaking edges host a flat band of topological zero-energy states, making them an ideal playground where strong correlations, topology, and disorder are strongly intertwined. Here we show that this interplay in cuprates generates a fully gapped ‘phase crystal’ state that breaks both translational and time-reversal invariance, characterized by a modulation of the d-wave superconducting phase co-existing with a modulating extended s-wave superconducting order. In contrast to conventional wisdom, we find that this phase crystal state is remarkably robust to omnipresent disorder, but only in the presence of strong correlations, thus giving a clear route to its experimental realization.
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| 2. |
- Danilov, Michael, et al.
(författare)
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Degenerate plaquette physics as key ingredient of high-temperature superconductivity in cuprates
- 2022
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Ingår i: npj Quantum Materials. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2397-4648. ; 7:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We study the physics of high-temperature cuprate superconductors starting from the highly degenerate four-site plaquette of the t− t′− U Hubbard model as a reference system. The degeneracy causes strong fluctuations when a lattice of plaquettes is constructed. We show that there is a large binding energy between holes when a set of four plaquettes is considered. The next-nearest-neighbour hopping t′ plays a crucial role in the formation of these strongly bound electronic bipolarons whose coherence at lower temperature could be the explanation for superconductivity. A complementary approach is cluster dual fermion starting from a single degenerate plaquette, which contains the relevant short-ranged fluctuations from the beginning. It gives d-wave superconductivity as the leading instability under a reasonably broad range of parameters. The origin of the pseudogap is also discussed in terms of the coupling of degenerate plaquettes. Thus, some of the essential elements of cuprate superconductivity appear from the local plaquette physics.
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| 3. |
- Escribano, Samuel D., et al.
(författare)
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Semiconductor-ferromagnet-superconductor planar heterostructures for 1D topological superconductivity
- 2022
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Ingår i: npj Quantum Materials. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2397-4648. ; 7:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Hybrid structures of semiconducting (SM) nanowires, epitaxially grown superconductors (SC), and ferromagnetic-insulator (FI) layers have been explored experimentally and theoretically as alternative platforms for topological superconductivity at zero magnetic field. Here, we analyze a tripartite SM/FI/SC heterostructure but realized in a planar stacking geometry, where the thin FI layer acts as a spin-polarized barrier between the SM and the SC. We optimize the system’s geometrical parameters using microscopic simulations, finding the range of FI thicknesses for which the hybrid system can be tuned into the topological regime. Within this range, and thanks to the vertical confinement provided by the stacking geometry, trivial and topological phases alternate regularly as the external gate is varied, displaying a hard topological gap that can reach half of the SC one. This is a significant improvement compared to setups using hexagonal nanowires, which show erratic topological regions with typically smaller and softer gaps. Our proposal provides a magnetic field-free planar design for quasi-one-dimensional topological superconductivity with attractive properties for experimental control and scalability.
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| 4. |
- Galler, Anna, et al.
(författare)
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Intrinsically weak magnetic anisotropy of cerium in potential hard-magnetic intermetallics
- 2021
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Ingår i: npj Quantum Materials. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2397-4648. ; 6:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Cerium-based intermetallics are currently attracting much interest as a possible alternative to existing high-performance magnets containing scarce heavy rare-earth elements. However, the intrinsic magnetic properties of Ce in these systems are poorly understood due to the difficulty of a quantitative description of the Kondo effect, a many-body phenomenon where conduction electrons screen out the Ce-4f moment. Here, we show that the Ce-4f shell in Ce–Fe intermetallics is partially Kondo screened. The Kondo scale is dramatically enhanced by nitrogen interstitials suppressing the Ce-4f contribution to the magnetic anisotropy, in striking contrast to the effect of nitrogenation in isostructural intermetallics containing other rare-earth elements. We determine the full temperature dependence of the Ce-4f single-ion anisotropy and show that even unscreened Ce-4f moments contribute little to the room-temperature intrinsic magnetic hardness. Our study thus establishes fundamental constraints on the potential of cerium-based permanent magnet intermetallics.
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| 5. |
- Goerzen, Moritz A., et al.
(författare)
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Lifetime of coexisting sub-10 nm zero-field skyrmions and antiskyrmions
- 2023
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Ingår i: npj Quantum Materials. - : Nature Publishing Group. - 2397-4648. ; 8:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Magnetic skyrmions have raised high hopes for future spintronic devices. For many applications, it would be of great advantage to have more than one metastable particle-like texture available. The coexistence of skyrmions and antiskyrmions has been proposed in inversion-symmetric magnets with exchange frustration. However, so far only model systems have been studied and the lifetime of coexisting metastable topological spin structures has not been obtained. Here, we predict that skyrmions and antiskyrmions with diameters below 10 nm can coexist at zero magnetic field in a Rh/Co bilayer on the Ir(111) surface—an experimentally feasible system. We show that the lifetimes of metastable skyrmions and antiskyrmions in the ferromagnetic ground state are above one hour for temperatures up to 75 and 48 K, respectively. The entropic contribution to the nucleation and annihilation rates differs for skyrmions and antiskyrmions. This opens the route to the thermally activated creation of coexisting skyrmions and antiskyrmions in frustrated magnets with Dzyaloshinskii–Moriya interaction.
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| 6. |
- Grytsiuk, Sergii, et al.
(författare)
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Nb3Cl8 : a prototypical layered Mott-Hubbard insulator
- 2024
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Ingår i: npj Quantum Materials. - 2397-4648. ; 9:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Despite its simplicity and relevance for the description of electronic correlations in solids, the Hubbard model is seldom inarguably realized in real materials. Here, we show that monolayer Nb3Cl8 is an ideal candidate to be described within a single-orbital Hubbard model, constructed within a “molecular” rather than atomic basis set using ab initio constrained random phase approximation calculations. We provide the necessary ingredients to connect experimental reality with ab initio material descriptions and correlated electron theory, which clarifies that monolayer Nb3Cl8 is a Mott insulator with a gap of about 1.4 to 2.0 eV depending on its dielectric environment. Comparisons to an atomistic three-orbital model show that the single-molecular-orbital description is adequate and reliable. We further comment on the electronic and magnetic structure of the compound and show that the Mott insulating state survives in the low-temperature bulk phases of the material featuring distinct experimentally verifiable characteristics.
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| 7. |
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| 8. |
- Heiler, Jonah, et al.
(författare)
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Spectral stability of V2 centres in sub-micron 4H-SiC membranes
- 2024
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Ingår i: NPJ QUANTUM MATERIALS. - : NATURE PORTFOLIO. - 2397-4648. ; 9:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Colour centres in silicon carbide emerge as a promising semiconductor quantum technology platform with excellent spin-optical coherences. However, recent efforts towards maximising the photonic efficiency via integration into nanophotonic structures proved to be challenging due to reduced spectral stabilities. Here, we provide a large-scale systematic investigation on silicon vacancy centres in thin silicon carbide membranes with thicknesses down to 0.25 mu m. Our membrane fabrication process involves a combination of chemical mechanical polishing, reactive ion etching, and subsequent annealing. This leads to highly reproducible membranes with roughness values of 3-4 A, as well as negligible surface fluorescence. We find that silicon vacancy centres show close-to lifetime limited optical linewidths with almost no signs of spectral wandering down to membrane thicknesses of similar to 0.7 mu m. For silicon vacancy centres in thinner membranes down to 0.25 mu m, we observe spectral wandering, however, optical linewidths remain below 200 MHz, which is compatible with spin-selective excitation schemes. Our work clearly shows that silicon vacancy centres can be integrated into sub-micron silicon carbide membranes, which opens the avenue towards obtaining the necessary improvements in photon extraction efficiency based on nanophotonic structuring.
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| 9. |
- Horio, M., et al.
(författare)
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Electronic reconstruction forming a C-2-symmetric Dirac semimetal in Ca3Ru2O7
- 2021
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Ingår i: npj Quantum Materials. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2397-4648. ; 6:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Electronic band structures in solids stem from a periodic potential reflecting the structure of either the crystal lattice or electronic order. In the stoichiometric ruthenate Ca3Ru2O7, numerous Fermi surface-sensitive probes indicate a low-temperature electronic reconstruction. Yet, the causality and the reconstructed band structure remain unsolved. Here, we show by angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy, how in Ca3Ru2O7 a C-2-symmetric massive Dirac semimetal is realized through a Brillouin-zone preserving electronic reconstruction. This Dirac semimetal emerges in a two-stage transition upon cooling. The Dirac point and band velocities are consistent with constraints set by quantum oscillation, thermodynamic, and transport experiments, suggesting that the complete Fermi surface is resolved. The reconstructed structure-incompatible with translational-symmetry-breaking density waves-serves as an important test for band structure calculations of correlated electron systems.
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| 10. |
- Kim, Soyeun, et al.
(författare)
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Orbital-selective Mott and Peierls transition in H xVO2
- 2022
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Ingår i: npj Quantum Materials. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2397-4648. ; 7:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Materials displaying metal-insulator transitions (MITs) as a function of external parameters such as temperature, pressure, or composition are most intriguing from the fundamental point of view and also hold high promise for applications. Vanadium dioxide (VO2) is one of the most prominent examples of MIT having prospective applications ranging from intelligent coatings, infrared sensing, or imaging, to Mott memory and neuromorphic devices. The key aspects conditioning possible applications are the controllability and reversibility of the transition. Here we present an intriguing MIT in hydrogenated vanadium dioxide, HxVO2. The transition relies on an increase of the electron occupancy through hydrogenation on the transition metal vanadium, driving the system insulating by a hybrid of two distinct MIT mechanisms. The insulating phase observed in HVO2 with a nominal d2 electronic configuration contrasts with other rutile d2 systems, most of which are metallic. Using spectroscopic tools and state-of-the-art many-body electronic structure calculations, our investigation reveals a correlation-enhanced Peierls and a Mott transition taking place in an orbital-selective manner cooperate to stabilize an insulating phase. The identification of the hybrid mechanism for MIT controlled by hydrogenation opens the way to radically design strategies for future correlated oxide devices by controlling phase reversibly while maintaining high crystallinity.
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