On the role of austenite stability in yielding behavior of a medium Mn steel with a duplex austenite-martensite microstructure

Wang, Y.*; Gong, W.; Harjo, S.; 7 of others*

Acta Materialia, 288, p.120840_1 - 120840_14, 2025/04

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actamat.2025.120840

Solid-state Alder-ene reaction of 1-hexene under high pressure

Xu, J.*; Lang, P.*; Liang, S.*; Zhang, J.*; Fei, Y.*; Wang, Y.*; Gao, D.*; Hattori, Takanori; Abe, Jun*; Dong, X.*; et al.

Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters (Internet), p.2445 - 2451, 2025/00

https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpclett.4c03696

The Alder-ene reaction is a chemical reaction between an alkene with an allylic hydrogen, and it provides an efficient method to construct the C-C bond. Traditionally, this reaction requires catalysts, high temperatures, or photocatalysis. In this study, we reported a high-pressure-induced solid-state Alder-ene reaction of 1-hexene at room temperature without a catalyst. 1-Hexene crystallizes at 4.3 GPa and polymerizes at 18 GPa, forming olefins. By exploring gas chromatography-mass spectrometry, we discovered that 1-hexene generates dimeric products through the Alder-ene reaction under high pressures. The in situ neutron diffraction shows that the reaction process did not obey the topochemical rule. A six-membered ring transition state including one C-H bond and two alkene bonds was evidenced by the theoretical calculation, whose energy obviously decreased when compressed to 20 GPa. Our work offers a novel and promising method to realize the Alder-ene reaction at room temperature without a catalyst, expanding the application of this important reaction.

Brightening triplet excitons enable high-performance white-light emission in organic small molecules via integrating n-- transitions

Yang, Q.*; Yang, X.*; Wang, Y.*; Fei, Y.*; Li, F.*; Zheng, H.*; Li, K.*; Han, Y.*; Hattori, Takanori; Zhu, P.*; et al.

Nature Communications (Internet), 15, p.7778_1 - 7778_9, 2024/09

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-52196-7

Luminescent materials that simultaneously embody bright singlet and triplet excitons hold great potential in optoelectronics, signage, and information encryption. However, achieving high-performance white-light emission is severely hampered by their inherent unbalanced contribution of fluorescence and phosphorescence. Herein, we address this challenge by pressure treatment engineering via hydrogen bonding cooperativity effect to realize the mixture of n-- transitions, where the triplet state emission was boosted from 7% to 40% in isophthalic acid (IPA). A superior white-light emission based on hybrid fluorescence and phosphorescence was harvested in pressure-treated IPA, and the photoluminescence quantum yield was increased to 75% from the initial 19% (blue-light emission). In-situ high-pressure IR spectra, X ray diffraction, and neutron diffraction reveal continuous strengthening of the hydrogen bonds with the increase of pressure. Furthermore, this enhanced hydrogen bond is retained down to the ambient conditions after pressure treatment, awarding the targeted IPA efficient intersystem crossing for balanced singlet/triplet excitons population and resulting in efficient white-light emission. This work not only proposes a route for brightening triplet states in organic small molecule, but also regulates the ratio of singlet and triplet excitons to construct high-performance white-light emission.

Dual nanoprecipitation and nanoscale chemical heterogeneity in a secondary hardening steel for ultrahigh strength and large uniform elongation

Wang, S.*; Wang, J.*; Zhang, S.*; Wei, D.*; Chen, Y.*; Rong, X.*; Gong, W.; Harjo, S.; Liu, X.*; Jiao, Z.*; et al.

Journal of Materials Science & Technology, 185, p.245 - 258, 2024/06

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmst.2023.10.048

Onset of collectivity for argon isotopes close to

Linh, B. D.*; Corsi, A.*; Gillibert, A.*; Obertelli, A.*; Doornenbal, P.*; Barbieri, C.*; Duguet, T.*; Gmez-Ramos, M.*; Holt, J. D.*; Hu, B. S.*; et al.

Physical Review C, 109(3), p.034312_1 - 034312_15, 2024/03

https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevC.109.034312

no abstracts in English

Validation of the Be ground-state molecular structure using Be()He triple differential reaction cross-section measurements

Li, P. J.*; Beaumel, D.*; Lee, J.*; Assi, M.*; Chen, S.*; Franchoo, S.*; Gibelin, J.*; Hammache, F.*; Harada, T.*; Kanada-En'yo, Yoshiko*; et al.

Physical Review Letters, 131(21), p.212501_1 - 212501_7, 2023/11

https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.131.212501

The cluster structure of the neutron-rich isotope Be has been probed via the () reaction. The triple differential cross-section was extracted and compared to distorted-wave impulse approximation reaction calculations performed in a microscopic framework using the Tohsaki-Horiuchi-Schuck-Rpke wave function and the wave function deduced from Antisymmetrized Molecular Dynamics calculations. The remarkable agreement between calculated and measured cross-sections in both shape and magnitude validates the description of the Be ground-state as a rather compact nuclear molecule.

PANDORA Project for the study of photonuclear reactions below

Tamii, Atsushi*; Pellegri, L.*; Sderstrm, P.-A.*; Allard, D.*; Goriely, S.*; Inakura, Tsunenori*; Khan, E.*; Kido, Eiji*; Kimura, Masaaki*; Litvinova, E.*; et al.

European Physical Journal A, 59(9), p.208_1 - 208_21, 2023/09

https://doi.org/10.1140/epja/s10050-023-01081-w

no abstracts in English

A One-third magnetization plateau phase as evidence for the Kitaev interaction in a honeycomb-lattice antiferromagnet

Shangguan, Y.*; Bao, S.*; Dong, Z.-Y.*; Xi, N.*; Gao, Y.-P.*; Ma, Z.*; Wang, W.*; Qi, Z.*; Zhang, S.*; Huang, Z.*; et al.

Nature Physics, 19(12), p.1883 - 1889, 2023/09

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-023-02212-2

Level structures of Ca cast doubt on a doubly magic Ca

Chen, S.*; Browne, F.*; Doornenbal, P.*; Lee, J.*; Obertelli, A.*; Tsunoda, Yusuke*; Otsuka, Takaharu*; Chazono, Yoshiki*; Hagen, G.*; Holt, J. D.*; et al.

Physics Letters B, 843, p.138025_1 - 138025_7, 2023/08

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physletb.2023.138025

Gamma decays were observed in Ca and Ca following quasi-free one-proton knockout reactions from Sc. For Ca, a ray transition was measured to be 1456(12) keV, while for Ca an indication for a transition was observed at 1115(34) keV. Both transitions were tentatively assigned as the decays. A shell-model calculation in a wide model space with a marginally modified effective nucleon-nucleon interaction depicts excellent agreement with experiment for level energies, two-neutron separation energies, and reaction cross sections, corroborating the formation of a new nuclear shell above the N = 34 shell. Its constituents, the and orbitals, are almost degenerate. This degeneracy precludes the possibility for a doubly magic Ca and potentially drives the dripline of Ca isotopes to Ca or even beyond.

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.*; Hattori, Takanori; et al.

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

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

The layered van der Waals halides are particularly sensitive to external pressure, suggesting a feasible route to pinpoint their structure with extraordinary behavior. However, a very sensitive pressure response usually lead to a detrimental phase transition and/or lattice distortion, making the approach of materials manipulation in a continuous manner remain challenging. Here, the extremely weak interlayer coupling and high tunability of layered RhI crystals are observed. A pressure-driven phase transition occurs at a moderate pressure of 5 GPa, interlinking to a change of layer stack mode. Strikingly, such a phase transition does not affect the tendency of quasi-linear bandgap narrowing, and a metallization with an ultra-broad tunability of 1.3 eV redshift is observed at higher pressures. Moreover, the carrier concentration increases by 4 orders of magnitude at 30 GPa, and the photocurrent enhances by 5 orders of magnitude at 7.8 GPa. These findings create new opportunities for exploring, tuning, and understanding the van der Waals halides by harnessing their unusual feature of a layered structure, which is promising for future devices based on materials-by-design that are atomically thin.