Pulsed reactive crossed beam laser ablation of La0.6Ca0.4CoO3 using O: Where does the oxygen come from?

The composition of thin perovskite films, especially the oxygen content, is a crucial parameter which influences many physical properties, such as conductivity and catalytic activity. Films produced by pulsed laser deposition are normally annealed in an oxygen atmosphere after deposition to achieve a desired oxygen content. In pulsed reactive crossed beam laser ablation, no annealing step is necessary, but a fundamental question regarding this deposition technique is still open: where does the oxygen in the films come from?There are three possibilities, i.e. from the target, from the gas background, or from the gas pulse. To answer this question two experiments were performed: ¹⁸O₂ was used during the deposition process as background gas with ¹⁶O anions in the target and ¹⁶O₂ gas pulse, and a ¹⁸O₂ gas pulse with ¹⁶O from the target and background. These experiments revealed that the quantification of the oxygen origin is only possible, when no oxygen exchange occurs at the deposition temperature. The films are characterized after deposition by elastic recoil detection analysis (ERDA) to determine the ¹⁶O/¹⁸O ratio. Experiments with different oxidizing species in the gas pulse (N₂O and O₂) confirm that the oxidizing potential (N₂O > O₂) as well as the number of molecules are important.     

Pulsed laser deposition of atomically flat La1-xSrxMnO3 thin films using a novel target geometry

A new ablation target geometry is presented that was used to produce thin films of La_1-xSr_xMnO₃ grown heteroepitaxially on SrTiO₃ by pulsed reactive crossed-beam laser ablation. The films were grown in order to perform angle-resolved photoelectron spectroscopy, which demands that the surface be atomically flat. In situ and ex situ analysis shows that this condition was met, even after depositing to a thickness of over 100 nm. PACS 61.10.-i; 61.18.Bn; 68.47.Gh; 71.27.+a; 81.15.Fg     

Multiparameter Polynomial Adaptive Stabilizers

In 1983 Morse proved, for unknown scalar one-dimensional linearsystems, the nonexistence of rational or polynomial universalstabilizers (UAS). In 1983, Nussbaum gave an example of an analyticUAS. In our paper, it is shown that there exist time-invariantpolynomial UAS's with multidimensional gain adaptation. Thedesign procedure is developed for linear, minimum-phase systemsof relative degree one. Convergence of the closed-loop systemis proved. Some numerical simulations are provided.     

Deposition of complex multielemental thin films

Modern condensed-matter physics is increasingly concerned with the design, synthesis, analysis, and exploitation of chemically complex materials and structures. Complex metal oxides and strongly correlated electron systems such as YBa₂Cu₃O_7−x and La_1−xSr_xMnO₃ are paradigmatic examples. Their production in the form of high-quality thin films is of both technological and fundamental importance and has stimulated a concerted effort in the last two decades to find and optimize efficient techniques to this end. This review discusses the physics behind and the requirements for synthesizing high-quality films of such materials and examines fundamental aspects of the growth processes associated with magnetron sputtering and pulsed laser deposition, the two techniques which presently offer the best solutions in this burgeoning field.     

Constructions for Terraces and R‐Sequencings,Including a Proof That Bailey's Conjecture Holds for Abelian Groups

Every abelian group of even order with a noncyclic Sylow 2‐subgroup is known to be R‐sequenceable except possibly when the Sylow 2‐subgroup has order 8. We construct an R‐sequencing for many groups with elementary abelian Sylow 2‐subgroups of order 8 and use this to show that all such groups of order other than 8 also have terraces. This completes the proof of Bailey's Conjecture in the abelian case: all abelian groups other than the noncyclic elementary abelian 2‐groups have terraces. For odd orders it is known that abelian groups are R‐sequenceable except possibly those with noncyclic Sylow 3‐subgroups. We show how the theory of narcissistic terraces can be exploited to find R‐sequencings for many such groups, including infinitely many groups with each possible of Sylow 3‐subgroup type of exponent at most 3¹² and all groups whose Sylow 3‐subgroups are of the form or .     

A new ent-labdane eiterpenoid lactone from Andrographis paniculata

A new ent-labdane diterpenoid lactone with a new natural product was isolated from Andrographis paniculata. Their structures were elucidated on the basis of spectral evidences including 2D NMR.     

Asymmetric synthesis of pedamide using I_2-induced heterocyclization to construct the skeleton

An alternative approach to synthesize pedamide,a key building block of pederin was described.Iodine-induced asymmetric heterocyclization was used as the key step to construct the skeleton,a tetrahydropyran ring with three chiral centers.Brown's asymmetric allylation and Lewis acid-mediated allylation were investigated to introduce chains and chiral alcohols.Sharpless dihydroxylation decorated the side chain.And high optically pure target was obtained by removing the epimers formed in these reactions on c...     

Microwave-assisted one-pot synthesis of 3-substituted-3,4-dihydrocoumarins via tendem Konevenagel and Hantzsch reactions

A convenient route for the synthesis of 3,4-dihydrocoumarin derivates from salicylaldehyde derivates and 1,3-dicarbonyl compounds under solvent-free microwave irradiation conditions was described. In this way, a range of compounds was obtained in moderate to good yields in a short reaction time.     

Evolution of the interfacial structure of LaAlO3 on SrTiO3

The evolution of the atomic structure of LaAlO_{3} grown on SrTiO_{3} was investigated using surface x-ray diffraction in conjunction with model-independent, phase-retrieval algorithms between two and five monolayers film thickness. A depolarizing buckling is observed between cation and oxygen positions in response to the electric field of polar LaAlO_{3}, which decreases with increasing film thickness. We explain this in terms of competition between elastic strain energy, electrostatic energy, and electronic reconstructions. Based on these structures, the threshold for formation of a two-dimensional electron system at a film thickness of 4 monolayers is quantitatively explained. The findings are also qualitatively reproduced by density-functional-theory calculations.     

Self-injection length in La0.7Ca0.3MnO3-YBa2Cu3O7-δ ferromagnet-superconductor multilayer thin films

We have carried out extensive studies on the self-injection problem in barrierless heterojunctions between La_0.7Ca_0.3MnO₃ (LCMO) and YBa₂Cu₃O_7-δ (YBCO) thin films. The heterojunctions were formed in situ by sequentially growing LCMO and YBCO films on 〈100〉 LaAlO₃ (LAO) substrate using a pulsed laser deposition (PLD) system. YBCO micro-bridges with 64 μm width were patterned both on the LAO (control) and LCMO side of the substrate. Critical current, I _c, was measured at 77 K on both the control side as well as the LCMO side for different YBCO film thickness. It was observed that while the control side showed a J _c of ∼ 2 × 10⁶ A/cm², the LCMO side showed about half the value for the same thickness (1800 ?). The difference in J _c indicates that a certain thickness of YBCO has become ‘effectively’ normal due to self-injection. From the measurement of J _c at two different thicknesses (1800 ? and 1500 ?) of YBCO films both on the LAO as well as the LCMO side, the value of self-injection length (at 77 K) was estimated to be ∼ 900 ?. To the authors’ best knowledge, this is the first time that self-injection length has been quantified. A control experiment carried out with LaNiO₃ deposited by PLD on YBCO did not show any evidence of self-injection.