Intrinsic factors responsible for brittle versus ductile nature of refractory high-entropy alloys

Tsuru, Tomohito; Han, S.*; Matsuura, Shutaro*; Chen, Z.*; Kishida, Kyosuke; Lobzenko, I.; Rao, S.*; Woodward, C.*; George, E.*; Inui, Haruyuki*

Nature Communications (Internet), 15, p.1706_1 - 1706_10, 2024/02

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-45639-8

Refractory high-entropy alloys (RHEAs) have attracted attention because of their potential for use in ultrahigh-temperature applications. Unfortunately, their body-centered-cubic (BCC) crystal structures make them more brittle than the ductile and fracture-resistant face-centered-cubic (FCC) HEAs. RHEAs also display significantly lower creep strengths than a leading Ni-base superalloy and its FCC matrix. To overcome these drawbacks and develop RHEAs into viable structural materials, improved fundamental understanding is needed of factors that control strength and ductility. Here we investigate two model RHEAs, TiZrHfNbTa and VNbMoTaW, and show that the former is plastically compressible down to 77 K, whereas the latter is not below 298 K. We find that hexagonal close-packed (HCP) elements in TiZrHfNbTa lower its dislocation core energy, increase its lattice distortion, and lower its shear modulus relative to VNbMoTaW whose elements are all BCC, leading to the formers higher ductility and modulus-normalized yield strength. Consistent with our yield strength models, primarily screw dislocations are present in TiZrHfNbTa after deformation, but equal numbers of edge and screw segments in VNbTaMoW. Dislocation cores are compact in VNbTaMoW and extended in TiZrHfNbTa, and different macroscopic slip planes are activated in the two RHEAs, which we attribute to the concentration of HCP elements. Our findings demonstrate how electronic structure changes related to the ratio of HCP to BCC elements can be used to control strength, ductility, and slip behavior to develop the next generation of high-temperature materials for more efficient power plants and transportation.

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

Chiral superconductivity in UTe probed by anisotropic low-energy excitations

Ishihara, Kota*; Roppongi, Masaki*; Kobayashi, Masayuki*; Imamura, Kumpei*; Mizukami, Yuta*; Sakai, Hironori; Opletal, P.; Tokiwa, Yoshifumi; Haga, Yoshinori; Hashimoto, Kenichiro*; et al.

Nature Communications (Internet), 14, p.2966_1 - 2966_7, 2023/05

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-38688-y

The superconducting symmetry of the heavy fermion uranium-based superconductor UTe is investigated using low temperature penetration depth measurements. The anisotropic low-energy quasiparticle excitations indicates multiple superconducting components in a chiral complex form. The most consistent is a chiral non-unitary state.

A Widespread group of large plasmids in methanotrophic archaea

Schoelmerich, M. C.*; Oubouter, H. T.*; Sachdeva, R.*; Penev, P. I.*; Amano, Yuki; West-Roberts, J.*; Welte, C. U.*; Banfield, J. F.*

Nature Communications (Internet), 13, p.7085_1 - 7085_11, 2022/11

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-34588-9

Local bifurcation with spin-transfer torque in superparamagnetic tunnel junctions

Funatsu, Takuya*; Kanai, Shun*; Ieda, Junichi; Fukami, Shunsuke*; Ohno, Hideo*

Nature Communications (Internet), 13, p.4079_1 - 4079_8, 2022/07

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-31788-1

Modulation of the energy landscape by external perturbations governs various thermally-activated phenomena, described by the Arrhenius law. Thermal fluctuation of nanoscale magnetic tunnel junctions with spin-transfer torque (STT) shows promise for unconventional computing, whereas its rigorous representation, based on the Neel-Arrhenius law, has been controversial. In particular, the exponents for thermally-activated switching rate therein, have been inaccessible with conventional thermally-stable nanomagnets with decade-long retention time. Here we approach the Neel-Arrhenius law with STT utilising superparamagnetic tunnel junctions that have high sensitivity to external perturbations and determine the exponents through several independent measurements including homodyne-detected ferromagnetic resonance, nanosecond STT switching, and random telegraph noise. Furthermore, we show that the results are comprehensively described by a concept of local bifurcation observed in various physical systems. The findings demonstrate the capability of superparamagnetic tunnel junction as a useful tester for statistical physics as well as sophisticated engineering of probabilistic computing hardware with a rigorous mathematical foundation.

Multi-scale turbulence simulation suggesting improvement of electron heated plasma confinement

Maeyama, Shinya*; Watanabe, Tomohiko*; Nakata, Motoki*; Nunami, Masanori*; Asahi, Yuichi; Ishizawa, Akihiro*

Nature Communications (Internet), 13, p.3166_1 - 3166_8, 2022/06

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-30852-0

Turbulent transport is a key physics process for confining magnetic fusion plasma. Recent theoretical and experimental studies of existing fusion experimental devices revealed the existence of cross-scale interactions between small (electron)-scale and large (ion)-scale turbulence. Since conventional turbulent transport modelling lacks cross-scale interactions, it should be clarified whether cross-scale interactions are needed to be considered in future experiments on burning plasma, whose high electron temperature is sustained with fusion-born alpha particle heating. Here, we present supercomputer simulations showing that electron scale turbulence in high electron temperature plasma can affect the turbulent transport of not only electrons but also fuels and ash. Electron-scale turbulence disturbs the trajectories of resonant electrons responsible for ion-scale micro-instability and suppresses large-scale turbulent fluctuations. Simultaneously, ion-scale turbulent eddies also suppress electron-scale turbulence. These results indicate a mutually exclusive nature of turbulence with disparate scales. We demonstrate the possibility of reduced heat flux via cross-scale interactions.

-clustering in atomic nuclei from first principles with statistical learning and the Hoyle state character

Otsuka, Takaharu; Abe, Takashi*; Yoshida, Toru*; Tsunoda, Yusuke*; Shimizu, Noritaka*; Itagaki, Naoyuki*; Utsuno, Yutaka; Vary, J. P.*; Maris, P.*; Ueno, Hideki*

Nature Communications (Internet), 13, p.2234_1 - 2234_10, 2022/04

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-29582-0

no abstracts in English

Square and rhombic lattices of magnetic skyrmions in a centrosymmetric binary compound

Takagi, Rina*; Matsuyama, Naofumi*; Ukleev, V.*; Yu, L.*; White, J. S.*; Francoual, S.*; Mardegan, J. R. L.*; Hayami, Satoru*; Saito, Hiraku*; Kaneko, Koji; et al.

Nature Communications (Internet), 13, p.1472_1 - 1472_7, 2022/03

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-29131-9

Observation of spin-space quantum transport induced by an atomic quantum point contact

Ono, Koki*; Higomoto, Toshiya*; Saito, Yugo*; Uchino, Shun; Nishida, Yusuke*; Takahashi, Yoshiro*

Nature Communications (Internet), 12, p.6724_1 - 6724_8, 2021/11

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-27011-2

Quantum transport is ubiquitous in physics. So far, quantum transport between terminals has been extensively studied in solid state systems from the fundamental point of views such as the quantized conductance to the applications to quantum devices. Recent works have demonstrated a cold-atom analog of a mesoscopic conductor by engineering a narrow conducting channel with optical potentials, which opens the door for a wealth of research of atomtronics emulating mesoscopic electronic devices and beyond. Here we realize an alternative scheme of the quantum transport experiment with ytterbium atoms in a two-orbital optical lattice system. Our system consists of a multi-component Fermi gas and a localized impurity, where the current can be created in the spin space by introducing the spin-dependent interaction with the impurity. We demonstrate a rich variety of localized-impurity-induced quantum transports, which paves the way for atomtronics exploiting spin degrees of freedom.

Triplon current generation in solids

Chen, Y.*; Sato, Masahiro*; Tang, Y.*; Shiomi, Yuki*; Oyanagi, Koichi*; Masuda, Takatsugu*; Nambu, Yusuke*; Fujita, Masaki*; Saito, Eiji

Nature Communications (Internet), 12, p.5199_1 - 5199_7, 2021/08

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-25494-7