Shape evolution in neutron-rich Rh isotopes; First measurement of negative-parity isomers in Rh

Zhang, J. Z.*; Chen, Z. Q.*; Qu, T.*; Wang, Y. K.*; Li, Z. H.*; Orlandi, R.; 62 of others*

Physics Letters B, 873, p.140144_1 - 140144_9, 2026/02

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physletb.2025.140144

Seniority structure in neutron-rich nucleus Ag; Evidence for robustness of =82 shell closure in silver isotopes

Luo, D. W.*; Zhang, J. Z.*; Li, Z. H.*; Orlandi, R.; 64 of others*

Physical Review Letters, 134(23), p.232502_1 - 232502_7, 2025/06

https://doi.org/10.1103/wq9m-trj8

Giant barocaloric effects in sodium hexafluorophosphate and hexafluoroarsenate

Zhang, Z.*; Hattori, Takanori; Song, R.*; Yu, D.*; Mole, R.*; Chen, J.*; He, L.*; Zhang, Z.*; Li, B.*

Journal of Applied Physics, 136(3), p.035105_1 - 035105_8, 2024/07

https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0211085

Solid-state refrigeration using barocaloric materials is environmentally friendly and highly efficient, making it a subject of global interest over the past decade. Here, we report giant barocaloric effects in sodium hexafluorophosphate (NaPF) and sodium hexafluoroarsenate (NaAsF) that both undergo a cubic-to-rhombohedral phase transition near room temperature. We have determined that the low-temperature phase structure of NaPF is a rhombohedral structure with space group R and NaAsF, i.e., F, E, and A. The phase transition temperature varies with pressure at a rate of dT/dP = 250 and 310 K/GPa for NaPF and NaAsF. The pressure-induced entropy changes of NaPF and NaAsF are determined to be around 45.2 and 35.6J kgK, respectively. The saturation driving pressure is about 40 MPa. The pressure-dependent neutron powder diffraction suggests that the barocaloric effects are related to the pressure-induced cubic-to-rhombohedral phase transitions.

A Systematic approach for the adequacy analysis of a set of experimental databases; Application in the framework of the ATRIUM activity

Baccou, J.*; Glantz, T.*; Ghione, A.*; Sargentini, L.*; Fillion, P.*; Damblin, G.*; Sueur, R.*; Iooss, B.*; Fang, J.*; Liu, J.*; et al.

Nuclear Engineering and Design, 421, p.113035_1 - 113035_16, 2024/05

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nucengdes.2024.113035

Tetrahedral triple-Q magnetic ordering and large spontaneous Hall conductivity in the metallic triangular antiferromagnet CoTaS

Park, P.*; Cho, W.*; Kim, C.*; An, Y.*; Kang, Y.-G.*; Avdeev, M.*; Sibille, R.*; Iida, Kazuki*; Kajimoto, Ryoichi; Lee, K. H.*; et al.

Nature Communications (Internet), 14, p.8346_1 - 8346_9, 2023/12

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-43853-4

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

Grain refinement in titanium prevents low temperature oxygen embrittlement

Chong, Y.*; Gholizadeh, R.*; Tsuru, Tomohito; Zhang, R.*; Inoue, Koji*; Gao, W.*; Godfrey, A.*; Mitsuhara, Masatoshi*; Morris, J. W. Jr.*; Minor, A. M.*; et al.

Nature Communications (Internet), 14, p.404_1 - 404_11, 2023/02

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-36030-0

Interstitial oxygen embrittles titanium, particularly at cryogenic temperatures, which necessitates a stringent control of oxygen content in fabricating titanium and its alloys. Here, we propose a structural strategy, via grain refinement, to alleviate this problem. Compared to a coarse-grained counterpart that is extremely brittle at 77K, the uniform elongation of an ultrafine-grained (UFG) microstructure (grain size 2.0 m) in Ti-0.3wt.%O was successfully increased by an order of magnitude, maintaining an ultrahigh yield strength inherent to the UFG microstructure. This unique strength-ductility synergy in UFG Ti-0.3wt.%O was achieved via the combined effects of diluted grain boundary segregation of oxygen that helps to improve the grain boundary cohesive energy and enhanced dislocation activities that contribute to the excellent strain hardening ability. The present strategy could not only boost the potential applications of high strength Ti-O alloys at low temperatures, but could also be applied to other alloy systems, where interstitial solution hardening results into an undesirable loss of ductility.

Transport model comparison studies of intermediate-energy heavy-ion collisions

Walter, H.*; Colonna, M.*; Cozma, D.*; Danielewicz, P.*; Ko, C. M.*; Kumar, R.*; Ono, Akira*; Tsang, M. Y. B*; Xu, J.*; Zhang, Y.-X.*; et al.

Progress in Particle and Nuclear Physics, 125, p.103962_1 - 103962_90, 2022/07

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ppnp.2022.103962

Transport models are the main method to obtain physics information on the nuclear equation of state and in-medium properties of particles from low to relativistic-energy heavy-ion collisions. The Transport Model Evaluation Project (TMEP) has been pursued to test the robustness of transport model predictions to reach consistent conclusions from the same type of physical model. To this end, calculations under controlled conditions of physical input and set-up were performed by the various participating codes. These included both calculations of nuclear matter in a periodic box, which test individual ingredients of a transport code, and calculations of complete collisions of heavy ions. Over the years, five studies were performed within this project. They show, on one hand, that in box calculations the differences between the codes can be well understood and a convergence of the results can be reached. These studies also highlight the systematic differences between the two families of transport codes, known under the names of Boltzmann-Uehling-Uhlenbeck (BUU) and Quantum Molecular Dynamics (QMD) type codes. On the other hand, there still exist substantial differences when these codes are applied to real heavy-ion collisions. The results of transport simulations of heavy-ion collisions will have more significance if codes demonstrate that they can verify benchmark calculations such as the ones studied in these evaluations.

Certification of uranium isotope amount ratios in a suite of uranium ore concentrate certified reference materials

Zhang, R.*; Nadeau, K.*; Gautier, E. A.*; Babay, P. A.*; Ramella, J. L.*; Virgolici, M.*; Serban, A. E.*; Fugaru, V.*; Kimura, Yoshiki; Venchiarutti, C.*; et al.

Geostandards and Geoanalytical Research, 46(1), p.43 - 56, 2021/11

https://doi.org/10.1111/ggr.12409

Distance-selected topochemical dehydro-diels-alder reaction of 1,4-Diphenylbutadiyne toward crystalline graphitic nanoribbons

Zhang, P.*; Tang, X.*; Wang, Y.*; Wang, X.*; Gao, D.*; Li, Y.*; Zheng, H.*; Wang, Y.*; Wang, X.*; Fu, R.*; et al.

Journal of the American Chemical Society, 142(41), p.17662 - 17669, 2020/10

https://doi.org/10.1021/jacs.0c08274

Solid-state topochemical polymerization (SSTP) is a promising method to construct functional crystalline polymeric materials, but in contrast to various reactions that happen in solution, only very limited types of SSTP reactions are reported. Diels-Alder (DA) and dehydro-DA (DDA) reactions are textbook reactions for preparing six-membered rings in solution but are scarcely seen in solid-state synthesis. Here, using multiple cutting-edge techniques, we demonstrate that the solid 1,4-diphenylbutadiyne (DPB) undergoes a DDA reaction under 10-20 GPa with the phenyl as the dienophile. The crystal structure at the critical pressure shows that this reaction is "distance-selected". The distance of 3.2 between the phenyl and the phenylethynyl facilitates the DDA reaction, while the distances for other DDA and 1,4-addition reactions are too large to allow the bonding. The obtained products are crystalline armchair graphitic nanoribbons, and hence our studies open a new route to construct the crystalline carbon materials with atomic-scale control.