No Arabic abstract
We present field effect measurements on discontinuous 2D thin films which are composed of a sub monolayer of nano-grains of Au, Ni, Ag or Al. Like other electron glasses these systems exhibit slow conductance relaxation and memory effects. However, unlike other systems, the discontinuous films exhibit a dramatic slowing down of the dynamics below a characteristic temperature $T^*$. $T^*$ is typically between 10-50K and is sample dependent. For $T<T^*$ the sample exhibits a few other peculiar features such as repeatable conductance fluctuations in millimeter size samples. We suggest that the enhanced system sluggishness is related to the current carrying network becoming very dilute in discontinuous films so that the system contains many parts which are electrically very weakly connected and the transport is dominated by very few weak links. This enables studying the glassy properties of the sample as it transitions from a macroscopic sample to a mesocopic sample, hence, the results provide new insight on the underlying physics of electron glasses.
We report on isothermal magnetization, Mossbauer spectroscopy, and magnetostriction as well as temperature-dependent alternating-current (ac) susceptibility, specific heat, and thermal expansion of single crystalline and polycrstalline Li$_2$(Li$_{1-x}$Fe$_x$)N with $x = 0$ and $x approx 0.30$. Magnetic hysteresis emerges at temperatures below $T approx 50,$K with coercivity fields of up to $mu_0H = 11.6,$T at $T = 2,$K and magnetic anisotropy energies of $310,$K ($27,$meV). The ac susceptibility is strongly frequency dependent ($f,=,10$--$10,000,$Hz) and reveals an effective energy barrier for spin reversal of $Delta E approx 1100,$K. The relaxation times follow Arrhenius behavior for $T > 25,$K. For $T < 10,$K, however, the relaxation times of $tau approx 10^{10},$s are only weakly temperature-dependent indicating the relevance of a quantum tunneling process instead of thermal excitations. The magnetic entropy amounts to more than $25,$J mol$^{-1}_{rm Fe},$K$^{-1}$ which significantly exceeds $R$ln2, the value expected for the entropy of a ground state doublet. Thermal expansion and magnetostriction indicate a weak magneto-elastic coupling in accordance with slow relaxation of the magnetization. The classification of Li$_2$(Li$_{1-x}$Fe$_x$)N as ferromagnet is stressed and contrasted with highly anisotropic and slowly relaxing paramagnetic behavior.
Sr3Ru2O7 belongs to the family of layered strontium ruthenates and exhibits a range of unusual emergent properties, such as electron nematic behavior and metamagnetism. Here, we show that epitaxial film strain significantly modifies these phenomena. In particular, we observe enhanced magnetic interactions and an electron nematic phase that extends to much higher temperatures and over a larger magnetic field range than in bulk single crystals. Furthermore, the films show an unusual anisotropic non-Fermi liquid behavior that is controlled by the direction of the applied magnetic field. At high magnetic fields the metamagnetic transition to a ferromagnetic phase recovers isotropic Fermi-liquid behavior. The results support the interpretation that these phenomena are linked to the special features of the Fermi surface, which can be tuned by both film strain and an applied magnetic field.
Electronic instabilities in transition metal compounds often spontaneously form orbital molecules, which consist of orbital-coupled metal ions at low temperature. Recent local structural studies utilizing the pair distribution function revealed that preformed orbital molecules appear disordered even in the high-temperature paramagnetic phase. However, it is unclear whether preformed orbital molecules are dynamic or static. Here, we provide clear experimental evidence of the slow dynamics of disordered orbital molecules realized in the high-temperature paramagnetic phase of LiVS2, which exhibits vanadium trimerization upon cooling below 314 K. Unexpectedly, the preformed orbital molecules appear as a disordered zigzag chain that fluctuate in both time and space under electron irradiation. Our findings should advance studies on soft matter physics realized in an inorganic material due to disordered orbital molecules.
Analytical representations in the time and frequency domains are derived for the most frequently used phenomenological fit functions for non-Debye relaxation processes. In the time domain the relaxation functions corresponding to the complex frequency dependent Cole-Cole, Cole-Davidson and Havriliak-Negami susceptibilities are also represented in terms of $H$-functions. In the frequency domain the complex frequency dependent susceptibility function corresponding to the time dependent stretched exponential relaxation function is given in terms of $H$-functions. The new representations are useful for fitting to experiment.
Femtosecond (fs)-resolved simultaneous measurements of charge and spin dynamics reveal the coexistence of two different quasi-particle excitations in colossal magneto-resistive (CMR) manganites, with {em fs} and {em ps} relaxation times respectively. Their populations reverse size above a {em photoexcitation-intensity-threshold} coinciding with a sudden antiferro-to-ferromagnetic switching during $<$100 fs laser pulses. We present evidence that fast, metallic, mobile quasi--electrons dressed by {em quantum spin fluctuations} coexist with slow, localized, polaronic charge carriers in non-equilibrium phases. This may be central to CMR transition and leads to a laser-driven charge reorganization simultaneously with quantum fs magnetism via an emergent quantum-spin/charge/lattice transient coupling.