Abstract
The recent discovery of ferromagnetism in two-dimensional van der Waals crystals has provoked a surge of interest in the exploration of fundamental spin interaction in reduced dimensions. ...However, existing material candidates have several limitations, notably lacking intrinsic room-temperature ferromagnetic order and air stability. Here, motivated by the anomalously high Curie temperature observed in bulk diluted magnetic oxides, we demonstrate room-temperature ferromagnetism in Co-doped graphene-like Zinc Oxide, a chemically stable layered material in air, down to single atom thickness. Through the magneto-optic Kerr effect, superconducting quantum interference device and X-ray magnetic circular dichroism measurements, we observe clear evidences of spontaneous magnetization in such exotic material systems at room temperature and above. Transmission electron microscopy and atomic force microscopy results explicitly exclude the existence of metallic Co or cobalt oxides clusters. X-ray characterizations reveal that the substitutional Co atoms form Co
2+
states in the graphitic lattice of ZnO. By varying the Co doping level, we observe transitions between paramagnetic, ferromagnetic and less ordered phases due to the interplay between impurity-band-exchange and super-exchange interactions. Our discovery opens another path to 2D ferromagnetism at room temperature with the advantage of exceptional tunability and robustness.
A superconducting interfaceInterfaces between materials can harbor quantum states that belong to neither of the materials. A classic example is the superconducting interface between two insulating ...oxides, LaAlO3 and SrTiO3, with a critical temperature of around 200 millikelvin. Liu et al. observed superconductivity at a different interface—formed between KTaO3 as a substrate and an overlayer of either EuO or LaAlO3—at a considerably higher temperature of about 2 kelvin. Transport measurements displayed anisotropy, which may indicate an unusual superconducting state.Science, this issue p. 716The distinctive electronic structure found at interfaces between materials can allow unconventional quantum states to emerge. Here we report on the discovery of superconductivity in electron gases formed at interfaces between (111)-oriented KTaO3 and insulating overlayers of either EuO or LaAlO3. The superconducting transition temperature, as high as 2.2 kelvin, is about one order of magnitude higher than that of the LaAlO3/SrTiO3 system. Notably, similar electron gases at KTaO3 (001) interfaces remain normal down to 25 millikelvin. The critical field and current-voltage measurements indicate that the superconductivity is two-dimensional. In EuO/KTaO3 (111) samples, a spontaneous in-plane transport anisotropy is observed before the onset of superconductivity, suggesting the emergence of a distinct “stripe”-like phase, which is also revealed near the critical field.
Abstract
We theoretically demonstrate that the high-critical-temperature (high-
T
c
) superconductor Bi
2
Sr
2
CaCu
2
O
8+
x
(BSCCO) is a natural candidate for the recently envisioned classical ...space-time crystal. BSCCO intrinsically forms a stack of Josephson junctions. Under a periodic parametric modulation of the Josephson critical current density, the Josephson currents develop coupled space-time crystalline order, breaking the continuous translational symmetry in both space and time. The modulation frequency and amplitude span a (nonequilibrium) phase diagram for a so-defined spatiotemporal order parameter, which displays rigid pattern formation within a particular region of the phase diagram. Based on our calculations using representative material properties, we propose a laser-modulation experiment to realize the predicted space-time crystalline behavior. Our findings bring new insight into the nature of space-time crystals and, more generally, into nonequilibrium driven condensed matter systems.
Classical wave fields are real-valued, ensuring the wave states at opposite frequencies and momenta to be inherently identical. Such a particle-hole symmetry can open up new possibilities for ...topological phenomena in classical systems. Here we show that the historically studied two-dimensional (2D) magnetoplasmon, which bears gapped bulk states and gapless one-way edge states near-zero frequency, is topologically analogous to the 2D topological p+ip superconductor with chiral Majorana edge states and zero modes. We further predict a new type of one-way edge magnetoplasmon at the interface of opposite magnetic domains, and demonstrate the existence of zero-frequency modes bounded at the peripheries of a hollow disk. These findings can be readily verified in experiment, and can greatly enrich the topological phases in bosonic and classical systems.
Abstract
What causes Cooper pairs to form in unconventional superconductors is often elusive because experimental signatures that connect to a specific pairing mechanism are rare. Here, we observe ...distinct dependences of the superconducting transition temperature
T
c
on carrier density
n
2D
for electron gases formed at KTaO
3
(111), (001) and (110) interfaces. For the (111) interface, a remarkable linear dependence of
T
c
on
n
2D
is observed over a range of nearly one order of magnitude. Further, our study of the dependence of superconductivity on gate electric fields reveals the role of the interface in mediating superconductivity. We find that the extreme sensitivity of superconductivity to crystallographic orientation can be explained by pairing via inter-orbital interactions induced by an inversion-breaking transverse optical phonon and quantum confinement. This mechanism is also consistent with the dependence of
T
c
on
n
2D
. Our study may shed light on the pairing mechanism in other superconducting quantum paraelectrics.
Abstract
Quantum fluids exhibit quantum mechanical effects at the macroscopic level, which contrast strongly with classical fluids. Gain-dissipative solid-state exciton-polaritons systems are ...promising emulation platforms for complex quantum fluid studies at elevated temperatures. Recently, halide perovskite polariton systems have emerged as materials with distinctive advantages over other room-temperature systems for future studies of topological physics, non-Abelian gauge fields, and spin-orbit interactions. However, the demonstration of nonlinear quantum hydrodynamics, such as superfluidity and Čerenkov flow, which is a consequence of the renormalized elementary excitation spectrum, remains elusive in halide perovskites. Here, using homogenous halide perovskites single crystals, we report, in both one- and two-dimensional cases, the complete set of quantum fluid phase transitions from normal classical fluids to scatterless polariton superfluids and supersonic fluids—all at room temperature, clear consequences of the Landau criterion. Specifically, the supersonic Čerenkov wave pattern was observed at room temperature. The experimental results are also in quantitative agreement with theoretical predictions from the dissipative Gross-Pitaevskii equation. Our results set the stage for exploring the rich non-equilibrium quantum fluid many-body physics at room temperature and also pave the way for important polaritonic device applications.
Negative longitudinal magnetoresistances (NLMRs) have been recently observed in a variety of topological materials and often considered to be associated with Weyl fermions that have a defined ...chirality. Here we report NLMRs in non-Weyl GaAs quantum wells. In the absence of a magnetic field the quantum wells show a transition from semiconducting-like to metallic behaviour with decreasing temperature. We observe pronounced NLMRs up to 9 Tesla at temperatures above the transition and weak NLMRs in low magnetic fields at temperatures close to the transition and below 5 K. The observed NLMRs show various types of magnetic field behaviour resembling those reported in topological materials. We attribute them to microscopic disorder and use a phenomenological three-resistor model to account for their various features. Our results showcase a contribution of microscopic disorder in the occurrence of unusual phenomena. They may stimulate further work on tuning electronic properties via disorder/defect nano-engineering.
Intrinsic Josephson junctions in high-temperature superconductor Bi
Sr
CaCu
O
(BSCCO) are known for their capability to emit high-power terahertz photons with widely tunable frequencies. Hotspots, ...as inhomogeneous temperature distributions across the junctions, are believed to play a critical role in synchronizing the gauge-invariant phase difference among the junctions, so as to achieve coherent strong emission. In this paper, we demonstrate an on-chip
sensing technique that can characterize hotspot distributions on BSCCO. This is achieved by fabricating a series of micro-nanosized "sensor" junctions on top of an "emitter" junction and measuring the critical current on the sensors versus the bias current applied to the emitter. This fully electronic on-chip design can enable efficient close-loop control of hotspots in BSCCO junctions and significantly enhance the functionality of superconducting terahertz emitters.
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