We have carried out the transient nonlinear transport measurements on the layered cobalt oxide ${\mathrm{Ca}}_3{\mathrm{Co}}_4{\mathrm{O}}_9$, in which a spin density wave (SDW) transition is proposed at $T_{\mathrm{SDW}}\simeq 30$ K. We find that, below $T_{\mathrm{SDW}}$, the electrical conductivity systematically varies with both the applied current and the time, indicating a close relationship between the observed nonlinear conduction and the SDW order in this material. The time dependence of the conductivity is well analyzed by considering the dynamics of SDW which involves a low-field deformation and a sliding motion above a threshold field. We also measure the transport properties of the isovalent Sr-substituted systems to examine an impurity effect on the nonlinear response, and discuss the obtained threshold fields in terms of thermal fluctuations of the SDW order parameter.

There is a growing interest in the property dependence of transition metal dichalcogenides as a function of the number of layers and formation of heterostructures. Depending on the stacking, doping, edge effects, and interlayer distance, the properties can be modified, which opens the door to novel applications that require a detailed understanding of the atomic mechanisms responsible for those changes. In this work, we analyze the electronic properties and lattice dynamics of a heterostructure constructed by simultaneously stacking InSe layers and GaSe layers bounded by van der Waals forces. We have assumed the same space group of GaSe, $P\overline{6}m2$ as it becomes the lower energy configuration for other considered stackings. The structural, vibrational, and optical properties of this layered compound have been calculated using density functional theory. The structure is shown to be energetically, thermally, and elastically stable, which indicates its possible chemical synthesis. A correlation of the theoretical physical properties with respect to its parent compounds is extensively discussed. One of the most interesting properties is the low thermal conductivity, which indicates its potential use in thermolectric applications. Additionally, we discuss the possibility of using electronic gap engineering methods, which can help us to tune the optical emission in a variable range close to that used in the field of biological systems (NIR). Finally, the importance of considering properly van der Waals dispersion in layered materials has been emphasized as included in the exchange correlation functional. As for the presence of atoms with important spin-orbit coupling, relativistic corrections have been included.

We develop a theory of solar cell light trapping based on directly solving Maxwell's equations through a nonequilibrium Green's function formalism. This theory rigorously connects the maximum power absorbed by the solar cell to the density of states of the cell. With this theory we are able to reproduce all standard results in solar cell light trapping previously derived using approximate formalisms. Therefore our development places solar cell light trapping theory on a much firmer theoretical foundation. Moreover, here the maximum power formula is derived without the assumption of reciprocity, unlike previous theories on solar cell light trapping. Therefore, we prove that the upper bound of light trapping enhancement cannot be overcome with the use of nonreciprocal structures. As a numerical test, we simulate an absorber structure that consists of a nonreciprocal material, and show that the absorption enhancement factor is largely independent of nonreciprocity, in consistency with the theory.

We present a comprehensive ab initio analysis of the spin-charge correlations at the Tl/Si(111) surface, where the spin-orbit interaction is so strong that a detailed treatment of the noncollinear electron spin appears decisive for the correct description of the response properties. The relativistic limit enforces a unified treatment of the spin and charge densities as a four-vector, and the response function acquires then a $4\times 4$ tensor structure. Our all-electron implementation allows us to resolve the real-space structure of the possible collective modes, and demonstrates the emergence of a novel collective excitation combining transverse-spin and ordinary charge oscillations of a similar order of magnitude, whose spin character is strongly enhanced as we approach the $q\to 0$ momentum limit.

We consider a double quantum dot coupled to a one-dimensional superconducting quantum wire with Majorana bound states at the ends of the wire. We compute the conductance of the double dot in the coherent tunneling regime. When only one of the dots is coupled to one Majorana bound state the conductance is enhanced/diminished in the vicinity of zero voltage if it has minimum/maximum at this voltage with no Majorana bound state and has two local maximums/minimums at voltage equal plus or minus the Majorana bound states overlapping energy. When each dot is coupled to one Majorana bound state with zero overlapping energy it is possible by tuning the magnetic flux through the system to change the zero-voltage conductance from minimum to local maximum. We show that when both electron levels in the double quantum dot are below the right chemical potential the Fano resonance occurs only for the lower energy level.

Motivated by a recent Comment by Höller and Read [Phys. Rev. B 93, 197401 (2016)], we revisit the problem of a chiral Luttinger liquid on a boundary of a Galilean-invariant quantum Hall fluid. After correcting the linear-response calculation, the real part of the longitudinal conductivity derived in the model constructed in our paper agrees with the result found in the Comment for noninteracting fermions confined by a linear potential. We also withdraw our previous conjecture that the longitudinal conductivity contains a universal contribution determined by the “shift” and provide arguments demonstrating its nonuniversal nature.

We study the dynamical thermal conductivity of the Kitaev spin model on a two-leg ladder. In contrast to the majority of conventional one-dimensional spin systems, we show the ladder to exhibit no ballistic channel and a zero-frequency pseudogap. This is a direct consequence of the fractionalization of spins into mobile Majorana matter and a static ${\mathbb{Z}}_2$ gauge field, which acts as an emergent thermally activated disorder. Our finding rests on complementary calculations of the current correlation function, comprising a phenomenological mean-field treatment of thermal gauge fluctuations, a complete summation over all gauge sectors, as well as exact diagonalization of the original spin model. The results will also be contrasted against the conductivity discarding gauge fluctuations.

Two-dimensional electron gases (2DEGs) at oxide interfaces have been a topic of intensive research due to their high carrier mobility and strong confinement. Additionally, strong correlations in the oxide materials can give rise to new and interesting physics, such as magnetism and metal-insulator transitions at the interface. Using first-principles calculations based on density functional theory, we demonstrate the presence of a highly spin-polarized 2DEG at the interface between the Mott insulator $\mathrm{GdTi}{\mathrm{O}}_3$ and a band insulator $\mathrm{SrTi}{\mathrm{O}}_3$. The strong correlations in the dopant cause ferromagnetic alignment of the interface Ti atoms and result in a fully spin-polarized 2DEG. The 2DEG consists of two types of carriers distinguished by their orbital character. The majority of the interface charge is strongly localized on the $\mathrm{Ti}{d}_{xy}$ orbitals at the interface and a smaller fraction resides on the delocalized $\mathrm{Ti}{d}_{xz,yz}$ states.

Among the iron-based superconductors, the 1111-type Fe-As–based superconductors $\mathrm{REFeAs}{\mathrm{O}}_{1\text{−}x}{\mathrm{F}}_x$ (RE = rare earth) exhibit high transition temperatures $\left(T_c\right)$ above 40 K. We perform first-principles calculations based on density functional theory with the consideration of both electronic correlations and spin-orbit couplings on rare earths and Fe ions to study the underlying mechanism as the microscopic structural distortions in REFeAsO tuned by both lanthanide contraction and external strain. The electronic structures evolve similarly in both cases. It is found that there exist an optimal structural regime that will not only initialize but also optimize the orbital fluctuations due to the competing Fe-As and Fe-Fe crystal fields. We also find that the key structural features in REFeAsO, such as As-Fe-As bond angle, intrinsically induce the modification of the Fermi surface and dynamic spin fluctuation. These results suggest that the superconductivity is mediated by antiferromagnetic spin fluctuations. Simultaneously, we show that the rare-earth $4f$ electrons play important roles on the high transition temperature whose behavior might be analogous to that of the heavy-fermion superconductors. The superconductivity of these 1111-type iron-based superconductors with high-$T_c$ is considered to originate from the synergistic effects of local structures and $4f$ electrons.

We investigate the nature of the magnetic phase transition induced by the short-ranged electron-electron interactions in a Weyl semimetal by using the perturbative renormalization-group method. We find that the critical point associated with the quantum phase transition is characterized by a Gaussian fixed point perturbed by a dangerously irrelevant operator. Although the low-energy and long-distance physics is governed by a free theory, the velocities of the fermionic quasiparticles and the magnetic fluctuations suffer from nontrivial renormalization effects. In particular, their ratio approaches one at low energies, which indicates an emergent Lorentz symmetry at the quantum critical point. We further investigate the stability of the fixed point in the presence of weak disorder preserving the chiral symmetry. We show that while the fixed point is generally stable against weak disorder, a moderately strong random chemical potential and/or random vector potential may induce a quantum phase transition towards a disorder-dominated phase. We propose a global phase diagram of the Weyl semimetal in the presence of both electron-electron interactions and disorder based on our results.

Negative differential resistance (NDR) was observed in the most well known organic conductor, TTF-TCNQ, in its low-temperature Peierls insulator phase below 53 K. The voltage-current $\left(V\text{−}I\right)$ characteristics below this temperature, measured by a four-probe method, exhibited unique NDR behavior, in which the $\mathrm{d}V/\mathrm{d}I$ versus conductivity (σ) plots had the inflection points at the three σ values without depending on temperature. These σ values were found to coincide with the conductivities at the three transition temperatures (53, 49, and 38 K) for the formation of the charge-density waves in TTF-TCNQ. This suggests that the electronic structure of the Peierls insulating phase of TTF-TCNQ is governed by the total carrier density, which is determined by not only thermal excitation but also carrier injection.

The electronic structure of Yb-based Kondo lattices ${\mathrm{Yb}}_2{\mathrm{Pt}}_6{X}_{15}$ ($X$=Al, Ga) has been investigated by means of photoemission spectroscopy using hard x-ray ($h\nu =5.95$ keV) and vacuum ultraviolet ($h\nu =182$ eV) synchrotron radiation. The Yb $3d$ spectra of ${\mathrm{Yb}}_2{\mathrm{Pt}}_6{X}_{15}$ showed both ${\mathrm{Yb}}^{2+}$- and ${\mathrm{Yb}}^{3+}$-derived structures, directly indicating valence fluctuation. The Yb valences of ${\mathrm{Yb}}_2{\mathrm{Pt}}_6{\mathrm{Al}}_{15}$ were estimated to be $2.89\pm 0.01$ at 250 K and $\sim 2.83$ at 20 K, while those of ${\mathrm{Yb}}_2{\mathrm{Pt}}_6{\mathrm{Ga}}_{15}$ were $\sim 2.34$ at 300 K with almost no temperature dependence. With changing $X$ ions from Al to Ga, the Pt $5d$ and Pt $4f$ peaks were shifted to shallower binding energies, and the ${\mathrm{Yb}}^{3+}$ $4f$ peaks were shifted to the deeper binding energies. The $X$ dependences of the Yb valence and the Kondo temperature of ${\mathrm{Yb}}_2{\mathrm{Pt}}_6{X}_{15}$ are discussed based on the ${\mathrm{Yb}}^{3+}$ $4f$ hole level relative to the Fermi level $E_F$ and Pt-derived density of states at $E_F$.

The interplay of almost degenerate levels in quantum dots and molecular junctions with possibly different couplings to the reservoirs has lead to many observable phenomena, such as the Fano effect, transmission phase slips, and the $\mathrm{SU}\left(4\right)$ Kondo effect. Here we predict a dramatic repeated disappearance and re-emergence of the $\mathrm{SU}\left(4\right)$ and anomalous SU(2) Kondo effects with increasing gate voltage. This phenomenon is attributed to the level occupation switching which has been previously invoked to explain the universal transmission phase slips in the conductance through a quantum dot. We use analytical arguments and numerical renormalization group calculations to explain the observations and discuss their experimental relevance and dependence on the physical parameters.

Majorana boundary quasiparticles may naturally emerge in a spin-singlet superconductor with Rashba spin-orbit interactions when a Zeeman magnetic field breaks time-reversal symmetry. Their existence and robustness against adiabatic changes is deeply related, via a bulk-edge correspondence, to topological properties of the band structure. The present paper shows that the spin-orbit may be responsible for topological transitions when the superconducting system has an underlying sublattice structure, as it appears in a dimerized Peierls chain, graphene, and phosphorene. These systems, which belong to the Bogoliubov–de Gennes class D, are found to have an extra symmetry that plays the role of the parity. It enables the characterization of the topology of the particle-hole symmetric band structure in terms of band inversions. The topological phase diagrams this leads to are then obtained analytically and exactly. They reveal that, because of the underlying sublattice structure, the existence of topological superconducting phases requires a minimum doping fixed by the strength of the Rashba spin orbit. Majorana boundary quasiparticles are finally predicted to emerge when the Fermi level lies in the vicinity of the bottom (top) of the conduction (valence) band in semiconductors such as the dimerized Peierls chain and phosphorene. In a two-dimensional topological superconductor based on (stretched) graphene, which is semimetallic, Majorana quasiparticles cannot emerge at zero and low doping, that is, when the Fermi level is close to the Dirac points. Nevertheless, they are likely to appear in the vicinity of the van Hove singularities.

We report on the observation of a topologically protected edge state at the interface between two topologically distinct domains of the Su-Schrieffer-Heeger model, which we implement in arrays of evanescently coupled dielectric-loaded surface-plasmon polariton waveguides. Direct evidence of the topological character of the edge state is obtained through several independent experiments: Its spatial localization at the interface as well as the restriction to one sublattice is confirmed by real-space leakage radiation microscopy. The corresponding momentum-resolved spectrum obtained by Fourier imaging reveals the midgap position of the edge state as predicted by theory.

Metal rare-earth magnetic/nonmagnetic Ho/Y superlattice structures possess a coherent spin helix propagating through many superlattice layer repetitions. An external magnetic field applied in the film plane induces a nonzero average chirality of the helices. It is shown that the direction of the applied in-plane field can modify the value and sign of the chirality parameter $\gamma$. The dependence of $\gamma$ on the relative angle of applied field during the field-cooling procedure has an oscillatory character and can be described by simple sinusoidal function with π periodicity. The experimental finding is discussed from the point of view of an interbalance between Zeeman energy, magnetocrystalline anisotropy, and induced uniaxial anisotropy.

Jerky magnetic and acoustic noises were evoked in a single variant martensitic ${\mathrm{Ni}}_2\mathrm{MnGa}$ single crystal (produced by uniaxial compression) by application of an external magnetic field along the hard magnetization direction. It is shown that after reaching the detwinning threshold, spontaneous reorientation of martensite variants (twins) leads not only to acoustic emission but magnetic two-directional noises as well. At small magnetic fields, below the above threshold, unidirectional magnetic emission is also observed and attributed to a Barkhausen-type noise due to magnetic domain wall motions during magnetization along the hard direction. After the above first run, in cycles of decreasing and increasing magnetic field, at low-field values, weak, unidirectional Barkhausen noise is detected and attributed to the discontinuous motion of domain walls during magnetization along the easy magnetization direction. The magnetic noise is also measured by constraining the sample in the same initial variant state along the hard direction and, after the unidirectional noise (as obtained also in the first run), a two-directional noise package is developed and it is attributed to domain rotations. From the statistical analysis of the above noises, the critical exponents, characterizing the power-law behavior, are calculated and compared with each other and with the literature data. Time correlations within the magnetic as well as acoustic signals lead to a common scaled power function (with $\beta =-1.25$ exponent) for both types of signals.

We present a first-principles approach to calculate the phonon thermal conductivity based on the Green-Kubo formalism. In this approach, the density functional theory energy is distributed to each atom, and a two-step method in the molecular dynamics is introduced to avoid the atomic position $\mathbf{R}$ wrapping problem in a periodic system when the heat current is calculated. We show that this first-principles Green-Kubo approach is particularly suitable for disordered systems like amorphous and liquid, where the thermal conductivities are small due to strong phonon scattering but difficult to be calculated using anharmonic interaction energy. We have applied our method to liquid Ar, liquid Si, and amorphous Si. The calculated thermal conductivities agree well with previous theoretical and experimental results. We have also compared our method to previous works combining first-principles simulations with the Green-Kubo formalism.

The superconducting transition of ${\mathrm{FeSe}}_{1-x}{\mathrm{S}}_x$ with three distinct sulfur concentrations $x$ was studied under hydrostatic pressures up to $\sim 70$ kbar via bulk ac susceptibility. The pressure dependence of the superconducting transition temperature ($T_c$) features a small dome-shaped variation at low pressures for $x=0.04$ and $x=0.12$, followed by a more substantial $T_c$ enhancement to a value of around 30 K at moderate pressures. In $x=0.21$, a similar overall pressure dependence of $T_c$ is observed, except that the small dome at low pressures is flattened. For all three concentrations, a significant weakening of the diamagnetic shielding is observed beyond the pressure around which the maximum $T_c$ of 30 K is reached near the verge of the pressure-induced magnetic phase. This observation points to a strong competition between the magnetic and high-$T_c$ superconducting states at high pressure in this system.