Tuning the electronic structure of Sr2IrO4 thin films by bulk electronic doping using molecular beam epitaxy

By means of oxide molecular beam epitaxy with shutter-growth mode, we have fabricated a series of electron-doped (Sr1-xLax)2IrO4(001)(x = 0, 0.05, 0.1 and 0.15) single crystalline thin films and then investigated the doping dependence of electronic structure utilizing in-situ angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy. We find that with increasing doping proportion, the Fermi levels of samples progressively shift upward. Prominently, an extra electron pocket crossing the Fermi level around the M point has been evidently observed in 15 % nominal doping sample. Moreover, bulk-sensitive transport measurements confirm that doping effectively suppresses the insulating state with respect to the as-grown Sr2IrO4, though doped samples still remain insulating at low temperatures due to the localization effect possibly stemming from disorders including oxygen deficiencies. Our work provides another feasible doping method to tune electronic structure of Sr2IrO4.

Warmth Elevating the Depths: Shallower Voids with Warm Dark Matter

Warm dark matter (WDM) has been proposed as an alternative to cold dark matter (CDM), to resolve issues such as the apparent lack of satellites around the Milky Way. Even if WDM is not the answer to observational issues, it is essential to constrain the nature of the dark matter. The effect of WDM on haloes has been extensively studied, but the small-scale initial smoothing in WDM also affects the present-day cosmic web and voids. It suppresses the cosmic sub-web inside voids, and the formation of both void haloes and subvoids. In $N$-body simulations run with different assumed WDM masses, we identify voids with the ZOBOV algorithm, and cosmic-web components with the ORIGAMI algorithm. As dark-matter warmth increases (i.e., particle mass decreases), void density minima grow shallower, while void edges change little. Also, the number of subvoids decreases. The density field in voids is particularly insensitive to baryonic physics, so if void density profiles and minima could be measured observationally, they would offer a valuable probe of the nature of dark matter. Furthermore, filaments and walls become cleaner, as the substructures in between have been smoothed out; this leads to a clear, mid-range peak in the density PDF.

Fully Gapped s-wave-like Superconducting State and Electronic Structures in the Ir0.95Pd0.05Te2 Single Crystals with Strong Spin-orbital Coupling

Due to the large spin-orbital coupling in the layered 5d-transition metal chalcogenides compound, the occurrence of superconductivity in Ir2-xPdxTe2 offers a good chance to search for possible topological superconducting states in this system. We did comprehensive studies on the superconducting properties and electronic structures of single crystalline Ir0.95Pd0.05Te2 samples. The superconducting gap size, critical fields and coherence length along different directions were experimentally determined. Macroscopic bulk measurements and microscopic low temperature scanning tunneling spectroscopy results suggest that Ir0.95Pd0.05Te2 possesses a BCS-like s-wave state. No sign of zero bias conductance peak were found in the vortex core at 0.4K.

Electronic Structure of Single Crystalline NdO$_{0.5}$F$_{0.5}$BiS$_{2}$ Studied by Angle-resolved Photoemission Spectroscopy

NdO$_{0.5}$F$_{0.5}$BiS$_{2}$ is a new layered superconductor. We have studied the low-lying electronic structure of a single crystalline NdO$_{0.5}$F$_{0.5}$BiS$_{2}$ superconductor, whose superconducting transition temperature is 4.87K, with angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy. The Fermi surface consists of two small electron pockets around the X point and shows little warping along the $k_z$ direction. Our results demonstrate the multi-band and two-dimensional nature of the electronic structure. The good agreement between the photoemission data and the band calculations gives the renormalization factor of 1, indicating the rather weak electron correlations in this material. Moreover, we found that the actual electron doping level and Fermi surface size are much smaller than what are expected from the nominal composition, which could be largely explained by the bismuth dificiency. The small Fermi pocket size and the weak electron correlations found here put strong constraints on theory, and suggest that the BiS$_2$-based superconductors could be conventional BCS superconductors mediated by the electron-phonon coupling.

The Dark Matter Contribution to Galactic Diffuse Gamma Ray Emission

Observations of diffuse Galactic gamma ray emission (DGE) by the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) allow a detailed study of cosmic rays and the interstellar medium. However, diffuse emission models of the inner Galaxy underpredict the Fermi-LAT data at energies above a few GeV and hint at possible non-astrophysical sources including dark matter (DM) annihilations or decays. We present a study of the possible emission components from DM using the high-resolution Via Lactea II N-body simulation of a Milky Way-sized DM halo. We generate full-sky maps of DM annihilation and decay signals that include modeling of the adiabatic contraction of the host density profile, Sommerfeld enhanced DM annihilations, $p$-wave annihilations, and decaying DM. We compare our results with the DGE models produced by the Fermi-LAT team over different sky regions, including the Galactic center, high Galactic latitudes, and the Galactic anti-center. This work provides possible templates to fit the observational data that includes the contribution of the subhalo population to DM gamma-ray emission, with the significance depending on the annihilation/decay channels and the Galactic regions being considered.

Gate depletion of an InSb two-dimensional electron gas

We investigated the gate control of a two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) confined to InSb quantum wells with an Al2O3 gate dielectric formed by atomic layer deposition on a surface layer of Al0.1In0.9Sb or InSb. The wider bandgap of Al0.1In0.9Sb compared to InSb resulted in a linear, sharp, and non-hysteretic response of the 2DEG density to gate bias in the structure with an Al0.1In0.9Sb surface layer. In contrast, a nonlinear, slow, and hysteretic (nonvolatile-memory-like) response was observed in the structure with an InSb surface layer. The 2DEG with the Al0.1In0.9Sb surface layer was completely depleted by application of a small gate voltage (-0.9 V).

Characterization of InSb quantum wells with atomic layer deposited gate dielectrics

We report magnetotransport measurements of a gated InSb quantum well (QW) with high quality Al2O3 dielectrics (40 nm thick) grown by atomic layer deposition. The magnetoresistance data demonstrate a parallel conduction channel in the sample at zero gate voltage (Vg). A good interface between Al2O3 and the top InSb layer ensures that the parallel channel is depleted at negative Vg and the density of two-dimensional electrons in the QW is tuned by Vg with a large ratio of 6.5x1014 m-2V-1 but saturates at large negative Vg. These findings are closely related to layer structures of the QW as suggested by self-consistent Schrodinger-Poisson simulation and two-carrier model.

Sub-barrier fusion of 32S+90,96Zr: semi-classical coupled-channels approach

The fusion excitation functions have been measured with rather good accuracy for 32S+90Zr and 32S+96Zr near and below the Coulomb barrier. The sub-barrier cross sections for 32S+96Zr are much larger compared with 32S+90Zr. Semi-classical coupled-channels calculations including two-phonon excitations are capable to describe sub-barrier enhancement only for 32S+90Zr. The remaining disagreement for 32S+96Zr comes from the positive Q-value intermediate neutron transfers in this system. The comparison with 40Ca+96Zr suggests that couplings to the positive Q-value neutron transfer channels may play a role in the sub-barrier fusion enhancement. A rather simple model calculation taking neutron transfers into account is proposed to overcome the discrepancies of 32S+96Zr.

Gate-Voltage Control of Chemical Potential and Weak Anti-localization in Bismuth Selenide

We report that Bi$_2$Se$_3$ thin films can be epitaxially grown on SrTiO$_{3}$ substrates, which allow for very large tunablity in carrier density with a back-gate. The observed low field magnetoconductivity due to weak anti-localization (WAL) has a very weak gate-voltage dependence unless the electron density is reduced to very low values. Such a transition in WAL is correlated with unusual changes in longitudinal and Hall resistivities. Our results suggest much suppressed bulk conductivity at large negative gate-voltages and a possible role of surface states in the WAL phenomena. This work may pave a way for realizing three-dimensional topological insulators at ambient conditions.

Dynamic Nuclear Polarization and Nuclear Magnetic Resonance in the Simplest Pseudospin Quantum Hall Ferromagnet

We present dynamic nuclear polarization (DNP) in the simplest pseudospin quantum Hall ferromagnet (QHF) of an InSb two-dimensional electron gas with a large g factor using tilted magnetic fields. The DNP-induced amplitude change of a resistance spike of the QHF at large current enables observation of the resistively detected nuclear magnetic resonance of the high nuclear spin isotope 115In with nine quadrupole splittings. Our results demonstrate the importance of domain structures in the DNP process. The nuclear spin relaxation time T1 in this QHF was relatively short (~ 120 s), and almost temperature independent.