Crystal-liquid duality driven ultralow two-channel thermal conductivity in -MgAgSb

Li, J.*; Li, X.*; Zhang, Y.*; Zhu, J.*; Zhao, E.*; 古府 麻衣子; 中島 健次; Avdeev, M.*; Liu, P.-F.*; Sui, J.*; et al.

Applied Physics Reviews (Internet), 11(1), p.011406_1 - 011406_8, 2024/03

https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0173680

The desire for intrinsically low lattice thermal conductivity () in thermoelectrics motivates numerous efforts on understanding the microscopic mechanisms of heat transport in solids. Here, based on theoretical calculations, we demonstrate that -MgAgSb hosts low-energy localized phonon bands and avoided crossing of the rattler modes, which coincides with the inelastic neutron scattering result. Using the two-channel lattice dynamical approach, we find, besides the conventional contribution (70% at 300 K) from particlelike phonons propagating, the coherence contribution dominated by the wavelike tunneling of phonons accounts for 30% of total at 300 K. By considering dual contributions, our calculated room-temperature of 0.64 WmK well agrees with the experimental value of 0.63 WmK. More importantly, our computations give a nonstandard dependence, perfectly explaining the abnormal temperature-trend of in experiment for -MgAgSb. By molecular dynamics simulation, we reveal that the structure simultaneously has soft crystalline sublattices with the metavalent bonding and fluctuating liquid-like sublattices with thermally induced large amplitude vibrations. These diverse forms of chemical bonding arouse mixed part-crystal part-liquid state, scatter strongly heat-carrying phonons, and finally produce extremely low . The fundamental research from this study will accelerate the design of ultralow- materials for energy-conversion applications.

Microscopic origin of the spin-reorientation transition in the kagome topological magnet TbMnSn

Huang, Z.*; Wang, W.*; Ye, H.*; Bao, S.*; Shangguan, Y.*; Liao, J.*; Cao, S.*; 梶本 亮一; 池内 和彦*; Deng, G.*; et al.

Physical Review B, 109(1), p.014434_1 - 014434_9, 2024/01

https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.109.014434

TbMnSn is a correlated topological magnet with a Mn-based kagome lattice, in which a Chern gap opens at the Dirac point at low temperatures. The magnetic moment direction of the ferrimagnetic order changes from in the kagome plane to the out-of-plane upon cooling, which is essential for generating the Chern gap, but the underlying mechanism for the spin reorientation remains elusive. Here, we investigate the spin-reorientation transition in TbMnSn using neutron scattering. We provide direct evidence for the spin-reorientation transition and unveil the coexistence of two Tb modes at 200 K. To account for these results, we put forward a model based on SU(N) spin-wave theory, in which there is a temperature evolution of the ground state Tb orbitals, driven by the crystalline electric field, single-ion anisotropy, and exchange interactions between Tb and Mn ions. Our findings shed light on the complex magnetism of TbMnSn, despite its relatively simple ground state magnetic structure, and provide insights into the mechanisms for tuning magnetic topological materials.

Direct observation of topological magnon polarons in a multiferroic material

Bao, S.*; Gu, Z.-L.*; Shangguan, Y.*; Huang, Z.*; Liao, J.*; Zhao, X.*; Zhang, B.*; Dong, Z.-Y.*; Wang, W.*; 梶本 亮一; et al.

Nature Communications (Internet), 14, p.6093_1 - 6093_9, 2023/09

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-41791-9

Magnon polarons are novel elementary excitations possessing hybrid magnonic and phononic signatures, and are responsible for many exotic spintronic and magnonic phenomena. Despite long-term sustained experimental efforts in chasing for magnon polarons, direct spectroscopic evidence of their existence is hardly observed. Here, we report the direct observation of magnon polarons using neutron spectroscopy on a multiferroic FeMoO possessing strong magnon-phonon coupling. Specifically, below the magnetic ordering temperature, a gap opens at the nominal intersection of the original magnon and phonon bands, leading to two separated magnon-polaron bands. Each of the bands undergoes mixing, interconverting and reversing between its magnonic and phononic components. We attribute the formation of magnon polarons to the strong magnon-phonon coupling induced by Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction. Intriguingly, we find that the band-inverted magnon polarons are topologically nontrivial. These results uncover exotic elementary excitations arising from the magnon-phonon coupling, and offer a new route to topological states by considering hybridizations between different types of fundamental excitations.

Pressure engineering of van der Waals compound RhI; Bandgap narrowing, metallization, and remarkable enhancement of photoelectric activity

Fang, Y.*; Kong, L.*; Wang, R.*; Zhang, Z.*; Li, Z.*; Wu, Y.*; Bu, K.*; Liu, X.*; Yan, S.*; 服部 高典; et al.

Materials Today Physics (Internet), 34, p.101083_1 - 101083_7, 2023/05

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mtphys.2023.101083

層状ファンデルワールスハライドは、外部圧力に対して特に敏感であるため、目的とする性質を持つ構造にチューンすることが可能となる。一方で、圧力に非常に敏感であるという特性は、同時に目的とする機能の実現に有害な相転移や格子歪みを引き起こす可能性があるためその操作は依然として困難である。この研究では、層状RhI結晶が持つ極めて弱い層間結合と高い機能可変性を観察した。5GPaという適度な圧力をかけると圧力誘起相転移が起こり、積層構造に変化が現れた。驚くべきことに、この相転移は、圧力に対してほぼ直線的なバンドギャップ減少という傾向に影響を与えなかった。また、より高い圧力では、1.3eVの赤方偏移というかなり大きな調整幅を伴う金属相が観測された。さらに、RhIのキャリア濃度は30GPaで4桁増加し、光電流は7.8GPaで5桁増加することが確認された。これらの結果は、ファンデルワールスハライドの層状構造という特異な特徴を生かした探索、調整、理解のための新たな機会を創出し、原子レベルの薄さを持つマテリアルバイデザインに基づく将来のデバイスとして有望である。

Multiple mechanisms in proton-induced nucleon removal at 100 MeV/nucleon

Pohl, T.*; Sun, Y. L.*; Obertelli, A.*; Lee, J.*; Gmez-Ramos, M.*; 緒方 一介*; 吉田 数貴; Cai, B. S.*; Yuan, C. X.*; Brown, B. A.*; et al.

Physical Review Letters, 130(17), p.172501_1 - 172501_8, 2023/04

https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.130.172501

大きなフェルミ面非対称性を持つ陽子過剰なO原子核からの100MeV/nucleonでの陽子による陽子・中性子除去反応について報告した。この結果は、quasi-freeノックアウト反応、非弾性散乱、核子移行反応を含む複数の反応機構の定量的寄与を初めて示すものである。このようなエネルギー領域では通常無視される非弾性散乱と核子移行の寄与が、弱束縛陽子と強束縛中性子の除去反応断面積にそれぞれ約50%と30%寄与していることが示された。

Extended neutron orbital and the shell closure in Ca

Enciu, M.*; Liu, H. N.*; Obertelli, A.*; Doornenbal, P.*; Nowacki, F.*; 緒方 一介*; Poves, A.*; 吉田 数貴; Achouri, N. L.*; 馬場 秀忠*; et al.

Physical Review Letters, 129(26), p.262501_1 - 262501_7, 2022/12

https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.129.262501

230MeV/nucleonでのCaからの中性子ノックアウト反応が線分光と行われ、と軌道からの中性子ノックアウト反応の運動量分布が測定された。断面積はの閉殻と整合し、Ca同位体でのと閉殻と同程度に強い閉殻であることが確認された。運動量分布の分析からと軌道の平均二乗根半径の差は0.61(23)fmと決定され、これはmodified-shell-modelによる予言の0.7fmと整合した。これは、中性子過剰なCa同位体での軌道半径が大きいことが、中性子数にしたがって線形的に荷電半径が増える意外な現象の原因であることを示唆している。

Status of the uncertainty quantification for severe accident sequences of different NPP-designs in the frame of the H-2020 project MUSA

Brumm, S.*; Gabrielli, F.*; Sanchez-Espinoza, V.*; Groudev, P.*; Ou, P.*; Zhang, W.*; Malkhasyan, A.*; Bocanegra, R.*; Herranz, L. E.*; Berda, M.*; et al.

Proceedings of 10th European Review Meeting on Severe Accident Research (ERMSAR 2022) (Internet), 13 Pages, 2022/05

The current HORIZON-2020 project on "Management and Uncertainties of Severe Accidents (MUSA)" aims at applying Uncertainty Quantification (UQ) in the modeling of Severe Accidents (SA), particularly in predicting the radiological source term of mitigated and unmitigated accident scenarios. Within its application part, the project is devoted to the uncertainty quantification of different severe accident codes when predicting the radiological source term of selected severe accident sequences of different nuclear power plant designs, e.g. PWR, VVER, and BWR. Key steps for this investigation are, (a) the selection of severe accident sequences for each reactor design, (b) the development of a reference input model for the specific design and SA-code, (c) the selection of a list of uncertain model parameters to be investigated, (d) the choice of an UQ-tool e.g. DAKOTA, SUSA, URANIE, etc., (e) the definition of the figures of merit for the UA-analysis, (f) the performance of the simulations with the SA-codes, and, (g) the statistical evaluation of the results using the capabilities, i.e. methods and tools offered by the UQ-tools. This paper describes the project status of the UQ of different SA codes for the selected SA sequences, and the technical challenges and lessons learnt from the preparatory and exploratory investigations performed.

Neutron spectroscopy evidence on the dual nature of magnetic excitations in a van der Waals metallic ferromagnet FeGeTe

Bao, S.*; Wang, W.*; Shangguan, Y.*; Cai, Z.*; Dong, Z.-Y.*; Huang, Z.*; Si, W.*; Ma, Z.*; 梶本 亮一; 池内 和彦*; et al.

Physical Review X, 12(1), p.011022_1 - 011022_15, 2022/02

https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevX.12.011022

In the local or itinerant extreme, magnetic excitations can be described by the Heisenberg model which treats electron spins as localized moments, or by the itinerant-electron model where the exchange interaction between electrons leads to unequal numbers of electrons with up and down spins. However, the nature of the magnetic excitations has been elusive when both local moments and itinerant electrons are present in the intermediate range. Using inelastic neutron scattering, we provide direct spectroscopic evidence on the coexistence of and interplay between local moments and itinerant electrons in a van der Waals metallic ferromagnet FeGeTe, which can sustain tunable room-temperature ferromagnetism down to the monolayer limit. We find that there exist ferromagnetic spin-wave excitations dispersing from the zone center at low energies resulting from local moments and a columnlike broad continuum at the zone boundary at high energies up to over 100 meV resulting from itinerant electrons. Unlike the two-dimensional crystal structure, the low-energy mode exhibits a three-dimensional nature, and the high-energy mode also has an out-of-plane dependence. Both modes persist well above the Curie temperature of 160 K. Our neutron spectroscopic data reveal that the low-energy spin waves at 100 K are more coherent than those at 4 K, which is evidence of the weakening of the Kondo screening at high temperatures. These results unambiguously demonstrate the coexistence of local moments and itinerant electrons and the Kondo effect between these two components in FeGeTe. Such behaviors are generally expected in heavy-fermion systems with heavy electrons but are rarely clearly observed in materials with light electrons. These findings shed light on the understanding of magnetism in transition-metal compounds.

Evidence for strong correlations at finite temperatures in the dimerized magnet NaCuTeO

Shangguan, Y.*; Bao, S.*; Dong, Z.-Y.*; Cai, Z.*; Wang, W.*; Huang, Z.*; Ma, Z.*; Liao, J.*; Zhao, X.*; 梶本 亮一; et al.

Physical Review B, 104(22), p.224430_1 - 224430_8, 2021/12

https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.104.224430

Dimerized magnets forming alternating Heisenberg chains exhibit quantum coherence and entanglement and thus can find potential applications in quantum information and computation. However, magnetic systems typically undergo thermal decoherence at finite temperatures. Here, we show inelastic neutron scattering results on an alternating antiferromagnetic-ferromagnetic chain compound NaCuTeO that the excited quasiparticles can counter thermal decoherence and maintain strong correlations at elevated temperatures. At low temperatures, we observe clear dispersive singlet-triplet excitations arising from the dimers formed along the crystalline -axis. The excitation gap is of 18 meV and the bandwidth is about half of the gap. The band top energy has a weak modulation along the [100] direction, indicative of a small interchain coupling. The gap increases while the bandwidth decreases with increasing temperature, leading to a strong reduction in the available phase space for the triplons. As a result, the Lorentzian-type energy broadening becomes highly asymmetric as the temperature is raised. These results are associated with a strongly correlated state resulting from hard-core constraint and quasiparticle interactions. We consider these results to be not only evidence for strong correlations at finite temperatures in NaCuTeO, but also for the universality of the strongly correlated state in a broad range of quantum magnetic systems.

Investigation of the ground-state spin inversion in the neutron-rich Cl isotopes

Linh, B. D.*; Corsi, A.*; Gillibert, A.*; Obertelli, A.*; Doornenbal, P.*; Barbieri, C.*; Chen, S.*; Chung, L. X.*; Duguet, T.*; Gmez-Ramos, M.*; et al.

Physical Review C, 104(4), p.044331_1 - 044331_16, 2021/10

AA2021-0468.pdf:1.29MB

https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevC.104.044331

理化学研究所のRIビームファクトリーにて中性子過剰Clの励起状態をArからのノックアウト反応によって生成し、脱励起ガンマ線からそのエネルギー準位を測定した。また、陽子ノックアウトの運動量分布からClの基底状態がであることがわかった。その結果を大規模殻模型計算およびいくつかの第一原理計算と比較した。Cl同位体の基底状態および第一励起状態は、計算で用いた相互作用に敏感であることがわかった。それは、陽子の一粒子エネルギーと四重極集団運動との複雑な結合によるためであると考えられる。