A procedure for clean deposition of100Pd on surfaces

For a program of surface and interface experiments with the PAC isotope¹⁰⁰Pd, a procedure has been developed to chemically separate¹⁰⁰Pd from irradiated rhodium and deposit it on surfaces by evaporation under UHV conditions. First results have been obtained for¹⁰⁰Pd on an Ni(111) surface.     

Gold-surface binding of molecular switches studied by M?ssbauer spectroscopy

The nonanuclear coordination compound [Mo^IV{(CN)Fe^III(3-methyl-saldptn)}₈]Cl₄ exhibits multiple spin transitions (3-methyl-saldptn = N,N′-bis(3′′-methyl-2′′-hydroxy-benzyliden)-1,7-diamino-4-azaheptane). This spin crossover cluster is bound via a self-assembled monolayer onto a two dimensional array gold surface. M?ssbauer spectroscopy indicates that the thermally and optically induced spin crossover of the compound is maintained. Thereby, the foundation for its potential practical application (e.g. in the field of information storage) was laid.     

Phase-sensitive measurements of order parameters for ultracold atoms through two-particle interferometry

Nontrivial symmetry of order parameters is crucial in some of the most interesting quantum many-body states of ultracold atoms as well as condensed matter systems. Examples in cold atoms include p-wave Feshbach molecules and d-wave paired states of fermions that could be realized in optical lattices in the Hubbard regime. Identifying these states in experiments requires measurements of the relative phase of different components of the entangled pair wave function. We propose and discuss two schemes for such phase-sensitive measurements, based on two-particle interference revealed in atom-atom or atomic density correlations. Our schemes can also be used for relative phase measurements for nontrivial particle-hole order parameters, such as d-density wave order.     

Tunnel magnetoresistance in alumina, magnesia and composite tunnel barrier magnetic tunnel junctions

Using magnetron sputtering, we have prepared Co-Fe-B/tunnel barrier/Co-Fe-B magnetic tunnel junctions with tunnel barriers consisting of alumina, magnesia, and magnesia-alumina bilayer systems. The highest tunnel magnetoresistance ratios we found were 73% for alumina and 323% for magnesia-based tunnel junctions. Additionally, tunnel junctions with a unified layer stack were prepared for the three different barriers. In these systems, the tunnel magnetoresistance ratios at optimum annealing temperatures were found to be 65% for alumina, 173% for magnesia, and 78% for the composite tunnel barriers. The similar tunnel magnetoresistance ratios of the tunnel junctions containing alumina provide evidence that coherent tunneling is suppressed by the alumina layer in the composite tunnel barrier.     

Scintillation properties of K2LaCl5 with Ce doping

In this work we present the scintillation properties of K₂LaCl₅ doped with Ce³⁺ concentrations of 0, 0.1, 1 and 10%. Under X-ray excitation the crystals show the efficient Ce³⁺ (5d–4f) luminescence between 340 and 400 nm. Depending on the Ce concentration, the light yields vary between 24,000 and 50,000 photons/MeV (ph/MeV). Experiments with 662 KeV gamma ray excitation show light yields varying between 13,000 and 30,000 ph/MeV. For Ce luminescence a single exponential decay time of approximately 40 ns is expected. However, for K₂LaCl₅:10%Ce, the decay is not single exponential. As a function of the time t, it can be described by a 1/t^1.63 behaviour for large t. With a crystal of K₂LaCl₅:10%Ce we obtained an energy resolution of 5.1% for 662 KeV gamma ray excitation of ¹³⁷Cs.