Emergent Continuous Symmetry in Anisotropic Flexible Two-Dimensional Materials.

We develop the theory of anomalous elasticity in two-dimensional flexible materials with orthorhombic crystal symmetry. Remarkably, in the universal region, where characteristic length scales are larger than the rather small Ginzburg scale ∼10 nm, these materials possess an infinite set of flat phases. These phases corresponds to a stable line of fixed points and are connected by an emergent continuous symmetry. This symmetry enforces power law scaling with momentum of the anisotropic bending rigidity and Young's modulus, controlled by a single universal exponent-the very same along the whole line of fixed points. These anisotropic flat phases are uniquely labeled by the ratio of absolute Poisson's ratios. We apply our theory to phosphorene.

An innovative route for valorising iron and aluminium oxide rich industrial wastes: Recovery of multiple metals.

Several industrial wastes including biomass, fly ashes, red mud, mill scales, water treatment residues, have significant concentrations of metal oxides: Fe2O3, Al2O3, TiO2, SiO2 etc. Several efforts have been made towards recovering metals within these wastes. Rather than recovering one metal at a time, we report a novel approach for simultaneously extracting multiple metals from mixed oxides in a single process step. Using three distinct furnaces/heating regimes, the carbothermic reduction of Fe2O3/Al2O3/SiO2 system was investigated at 1450-1700 °C for up to 2 h over a wide composition range. Complete reduction was achieved for both Fe2O3 and SiO2 in all cases leading to the formation of Fe and Fe-Si alloys. The reduction of alumina at moderate temperatures was the key challenge. No alumina reduction was observed during reductions at 1450 °C. A partial reduction of alumina and the formation of Fe-Al alloys was detected in the Al2O3/Fe2O3/C system at 1550 °C. The formation of Fe-Si-Al alloys was also observed in the Fe2O3/SiO2/Al2O3/C system at 1550 °C. Complete reduction of alumina was observed at 1600-1700 °C, even for up to 50 wt% alumina in the system. Optimal operating conditions and reference standards were established for the simultaneous recovery of multiple metals from waste oxides. While conserving natural resources, this novel route will lower the burden on waste storage facilities with significant contributions to the economic and environmental sustainability of industrial waste management.

Interaction-Induced Metallicity in a Two-Dimensional Disordered Non-Fermi Liquid.

The interplay of interactions and disorder in two-dimensional (2D) electron systems has actively been studied for decades. The paradigmatic approach involves starting with a clean Fermi liquid and perturbing the system with both disorder and interactions. Instead, we start with a clean non-Fermi liquid near a 2D ferromagnetic quantum critical point and consider the effects of disorder. In contrast with the disordered Fermi liquid, we find that our model does not suffer from runaway flows to strong coupling and the system has a marginally stable fixed point with perfect conduction.

Mesoscopic Stoner Instability in Open Quantum Dots: Suppression of Coleman-Weinberg Mechanism by Electron Tunneling.

The mesoscopic Stoner instability is an intriguing manifestation of symmetry breaking in isolated metallic quantum dots, underlined by the competition between single-particle energy and Heisenberg exchange interaction. Here we study this phenomenon in the presence of tunnel coupling to a reservoir. We analyze the spin susceptibility of electrons on the quantum dot for different values of couplings and temperature. Our results indicate the existence of a "quantum phase transition" at a critical value of the tunneling coupling, which is determined by the Stoner-enhanced exchange interaction. This quantum phase transition is a manifestation of the suppression of the Coleman-Weinberg mechanism of symmetry breaking, induced by coupling to the reservoir.

Multifractality at Anderson transitions with Coulomb interaction.

We explore mesoscopic fluctuations and correlations of the local density of states (LDOS) near localization transition in a disordered interacting electronic system. It is shown that the LDOS multifractality survives in the presence of the Coulomb interaction. We calculate the spectrum of multifractal dimensions in 2+ϵ spatial dimensions and show that it differs from that in the absence of interaction. The multifractal character of fluctuations and correlations of the LDOS can be studied experimentally by scanning tunneling microscopy of two-dimensional and three-dimensional disordered structures.

Enhancement of the critical temperature of superconductors by Anderson localization.

The influence of disorder on the temperature of superconducting transition (T{c}) is studied within the σ-model renormalization-group framework. Electron-electron interaction in particle-hole and Cooper channels is taken into account and assumed to be short range. Two-dimensional systems in the weak localization and antilocalization regime, as well as systems near mobility edge are considered. It is shown that in all these regimes Anderson localization leads to strong enhancement of T{c} related to the multifractality of wave functions. Screening of the long-range Coulomb interaction thus opens a promising direction for searching novel materials for high-T{c} superconductivity.

Impact of Iron on the Fe-Co-Ni Ternary Nanocomposites Structural and Magnetic Features Obtained via Chemical Precipitation Followed by Reduction Process for Various Magnetically Coupled Devices Applications.

This paper presents the synthesis of Fe-Co-Ni nanocomposites by chemical precipitation, followed by a reduction process. It was found that the influence of the chemical composition and reduction temperature greatly alters the phase formation, its structures, particle size distribution, and magnetic properties of Fe-Co-Ni nanocomposites. The initial hydroxides of Fe-Co-Ni combinations were prepared by the co-precipitation method from nitrate precursors and precipitated using alkali. The reduction process was carried out by hydrogen in the temperature range of 300-500 °C under isothermal conditions. The nanocomposites had metallic and intermetallic phases with different lattice parameter values due to the increase in Fe content. In this paper, we showed that the values of the magnetic parameters of nanocomposites can be controlled in the ranges of MS = 7.6-192.5 Am2/kg, Mr = 0.4-39.7 Am2/kg, Mr/Ms = 0.02-0.32, and HcM = 4.72-60.68 kA/m by regulating the composition and reduction temperature of the Fe-Co-Ni composites. Due to the reduction process, drastic variations in the magnetic features result from the intermetallic and metallic face formation. The variation in magnetic characteristics is guided by the reduction degree, particle size growth, and crystallinity enhancement. Moreover, the reduction of the surface spins fraction of the nanocomposites under their growth induced an increase in the saturation magnetization. This is the first report where the influence of Fe content on the Fe-Co-Ni ternary system phase content and magnetic properties was evaluated. The Fe-Co-Ni ternary nanocomposites obtained by co-precipitation, followed by the hydrogen reduction led to the formation of better magnetic materials for various magnetically coupled device applications.

Effect of anomalous elasticity on bubbles in van der Waals heterostructures.

It is shown that the anomalous elasticity of membranes affects the profile and thermodynamics of a bubble in van der Waals heterostructures. Our theory generalizes the nonlinear plate theory as well as the membrane theory of the pressurised blister test to incorporate the power-law scale dependence of the bending rigidity and Young's modulus of a two-dimensional crystalline membrane. This scale dependence, caused by long-range interaction of relevant thermal fluctuations (flexural phonons), is responsible for the nonlinear Hooke law observed recently in graphene. It is shown that this anomalous elasticity affects the dependence of the maximal height of the bubble as a function of its radius and temperature. We determine the characteristic temperature above which the anomalous elasticity is important. It is suggested that, for graphene-based van der Waals heterostructures, the predicted anomalous regime is experimentally accessible at room temperature.

Magnetism of Bi2Se3 thin films with Eu-rich flat inclusions.

We report the results of experimental and theoretical studies of Eu-doped Bi2Se3 thin films with extremely inhomogeneous distribution of magnetic component. The obtained electron microscopy images suggest that Eu atoms are concentrated within platelet-like nanoinclusions. The number of inclusions grows with the increase in Eu content, x. Moreover, at relatively high x values, the stacks of platelets (inclusions located one under another) become rather frequent. A comparative analysis of magnetic properties of the films under study reveals no pronounced changes of their temperature dependence with the increase in x, which, however, leads to the decrease in the average magnetic moment [Formula: see text] per Eu atom. A theoretical analysis of different mechanisms contributing to a possible magnetic ordering in the Eu-doped films demonstrates that at small distances (i.e. within a platelet) a dominant contribution is related to the RKKY interaction via electrons in the bulk, while the ordering at inter-platelet distances is governed by magnetic dipole-dipole interaction. The latter implies the antiferromagnetic ordering within the stacks of platelets explaining a drop of [Formula: see text] per Eu atom. We employ the model of a metallic spin glass to estimate the transition temperature, characterising the interaction within the ensemble of randomly distributed magnetic platelets. This estimate gives satisfactory agreement with the experiment, even if we take into account a finite film thickness, thus, neglecting the interaction anisotropy and including only the antiferromagnetism related to the stacking. While the overall contribution of interface Dirac electrons is damped in the systems under study, we argue that the obtained results can be used for the investigation of ultrathin films with analogous impurity profile, where this contribution should be clearly pronounced.

Strongly correlated two-dimensional plasma explored from entropy measurements.

Charged plasma and Fermi liquid are two distinct states of electronic matter intrinsic to dilute two-dimensional electron systems at elevated and low temperatures, respectively. Probing their thermodynamics represents challenge because of lack of an adequate technique. Here, we report a thermodynamic method to measure the entropy per electron in gated structures. Our technique appears to be three orders of magnitude superior in sensitivity to a.c. calorimetry, allowing entropy measurements with only 10(8) electrons. This enables us to investigate the correlated plasma regime, previously inaccessible experimentally in two-dimensional electron systems in semiconductors. In experiments with clean two-dimensional electron system in silicon-based structures, we traced entropy evolution from the plasma to Fermi liquid regime by varying electron density. We reveal that the correlated plasma regime can be mapped onto the ordinary non-degenerate Fermi gas with an interaction-enhanced temperature-dependent effective mass. Our method opens up new horizons in studies of low-dimensional electron systems.

Potassium polytitanate gas-sensor study by impedance spectroscopy.

Nanocrystalline potassium polytitanates K2O·nTiO2·mH2O represent a new type of semiconducting compounds which are characterized by a high specific surface that makes them promising for use in gas sensors. In this work, we have studied potassium polytitanate mesoporous nanoparticle agglomerates placed over a SiO2/Si substrate equipped with multiple coplanar electrodes to measure the electrical response to various organic vapors, 1000 ppm of concentration, mixed with air by impedance spectrometry in range of the 10(-2)-10(6) Hz. The recorded impedance data for each sensor segment are associated with RC components of an equivalent circuit which are applied to selectively recognize the test vapors exploiting a "multisensor array" approach.

Cotunneling current through a two-level quantum dot coupled to magnetic leads: the role of exchange interaction.

The cotunneling current through a two-level quantum dot weakly coupled to ferromagnetic leads is studied in the Coulomb blockade regime. The cotunneling current is calculated analytically under simple but realistic assumptions as follows: (i) the quantum dot is described by the universal Hamiltonian, (ii) it is doubly occupied, and (iii) it displays a fast spin relaxation. We find that the dependence of the differential conductance on the bias voltage is significantly affected by the exchange interaction on the quantum dot. In particular, for antiparallel magnetic configurations in the leads, the exchange interaction results in the appearance of interference-type contributions from the inelastic processes to the cotunneling current. Such dependence of the cotunneling current on the tunneling amplitude phases should also occur in multi-level quantum dots weakly coupled to ferromagnetic leads near the mesoscopic Stoner instabilities.

Coulomb blockade and superuniversality of the theta angle.

Based on the Ambegaokar-Eckern-Schön approach to the Coulomb blockade, we develop a complete quantum theory of the single electron transistor. We identify a previously unrecognized physical observable in the problem that, unlike the usual average charge on the island, is robustly quantized for any finite value of the tunneling conductance as the temperature goes to absolute zero. This novel quantity is fundamentally related to the nonsymmetrized current noise of the system. Our results display all of the superuniversal topological features of the theta angle concept that previously arose in the theory of the quantum Hall effect.

Energy relaxation in the spin-polarized disordered electron liquid.

Energy relaxation is studied in the spin-polarized disordered electron systems in the diffusive regime. We derive a quantum kinetic equation in which the kernel of the electron-electron collision integral explicitly depends on the electron magnetization. As a consequence, the inelastic scattering rate has a nonmonotonic dependence on the spin polarization of the system.

Metal-insulator transition in two dimensions: experimental test of the two-parameter scaling.

We report a detailed scaling analysis of resistivity rho(T,n) measured for several high-mobility 2D electron systems in the vicinity of the 2D metal-insulator transition. We analyzed the data using the two-parameter scaling approach and general scaling ideas. This enables us to determine the critical electron density, two critical indices, and temperature dependence for the separatrix in the self-consistent manner. In addition, we reconstruct the empirical scaling function describing a two-parameter surface which fits well the rho(T,n) data.