Interfacial Strain‐Induced Oxygen Disorder as the Cause of Enhanced Critical Current Density in Superconducting Thin Films

To understand the origin of the increase in critical current density of rare earth barium cuprate superconductor thin films with decreasing thickness, a series of sub‐300‐nm EuBa₂Cu₃O_7?δ thin films deposited on SrTiO₃ substrates are studied by X‐ray diffraction and electrical transport measurements. The out‐of‐plane crystallographic mosaic tilt and the out‐of‐plane microstrain both increase with decreasing film thickness. The calculated density of c‐axis threading dislocations matches the extent of the observed low‐field enhancement in critical current density for fields applied parallel to c. The in‐plane mosaic twist and in‐plane microstrain are both around twice the magnitude of the out‐of‐plane values, and both increase with decreasing film thickness. The results are consistent with the observed stronger field enhancement in critical current density for fields applied parallel to ab. The lattice parameter variation with thickness is not as expected from consideration of the biaxial strain with the substrate, indicative of in‐plane microstrain accommodation by oxygen disorder. Collectively, the results point to an enhancement of critical current by interfacial strain induced oxygen disorder which is greatest closest to the film‐substrate interface. The findings of this study have important implications for other thin functional oxide perovskite films and nanostructures where surface and interfacial strains dominate the properties.     

Iterated ultrapowers for the masses

We present a novel, perspicuous framework for building iterated ultrapowers. Furthermore, our framework naturally lends itself to the construction of a certain type of order indiscernibles, here dubbed tight indiscernibles, which are shown to provide smooth proofs of several results in general model theory.     

Time-reversible Born-Oppenheimer molecular dynamics

We present a time-reversible Born-Oppenheimer molecular dynamics scheme, based on self-consistent Hartree-Fock or density functional theory, where both the nuclear and the electronic degrees of freedom are propagated in time. We show how a time-reversible adiabatic propagation of the electronic degrees of freedom is possible despite the nonlinearity and incompleteness of the self-consistent field procedure. With a time-reversible lossless propagation the simulated dynamics is stabilized with respect to a systematic long-term energy drift and the number of self-consistency cycles can be kept low thanks to a good initial guess given from the electronic propagation. The proposed molecular dynamics scheme therefore combines a low computational cost with a physically correct time-reversible representation, which preserves a detailed balance between propagation forwards and backwards in time.     

Naturalness in an emergent analogue spacetime

Effective field theories (EFTs) have been widely used as a framework in order to place constraints on the Planck suppressed Lorentz violations predicted by various models of quantum gravity. There are, however, technical problems in the EFT framework when it comes to ensuring that small Lorentz violations remain small--this is the essence of the "naturalness" problem. Herein we present an "emergent" spacetime model, based on the "analogue gravity" program, by investigating a specific condensed-matter system. Specifically, we consider the class of two-component BECs subject to laser-induced transitions between the components, and we show that this model is an example for Lorentz invariance violation due to ultraviolet physics. Furthermore, our model explicitly avoids the naturalness problem, and makes specific suggestions regarding how to construct a physically reasonable quantum gravity phenomenology.     

A C^r trivariate macro-element based on the Worsey–Farin split of a tetrahedron

We construct trivariate $C^r$ macro-elements for any $r\ge 1$ over the Worsey–Farin refinement of any tetrahedral partition. This extends the construction of $C^1$ cubic Worsey–Farin elements and $C^2$ elements of degree nine to the $C^r$ situation with $r>2$ . We also show that the degree of polynomials used for our macro-elements is the lowest.     

Raman spectroscopy of smithsonite

Raman spectroscopy at both 298 and 77 K has been used to study a series of selected natural smithsonites from different origins. An intense sharp band at 1092 cm⁻¹ is assigned to the CO₃²⁻ symmetric stretching vibration. Impurities of hydrozincite are identified by a band around 1060 cm⁻¹. An additional band at 1088 cm⁻¹ which is observed in the 298 K spectra but not in the 77 K spectra is attributed to a CO₃²⁻ hot band. Raman spectra of smithsonite show a single band in the 1405–1409 cm⁻¹ range assigned to the ν₃ (CO₃)²⁻ antisymmetric stretching mode. The observation of additional bands for the ν₃^g modes for some smithsonites is significant in that it shows distortion of the ZnO₆ octahedron. No ν₂ bending modes are observed for smithsonite. A single band at 730 cm⁻¹ is assigned to the ν₄ in phase bending mode. Multiple bands be attributed to the structural distortion are observed for the carbonate ν₄ in phase bending modes in the Raman spectrum of hydrozincite with bands at 733, 707 and 636 cm⁻¹. An intense band at 304 cm⁻¹ is attributed to the ZnO symmetric stretching vibration. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.