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Heat management in thermoelectric and power devices as well as in random access memories poses a grand challenge and can make the difference between a working and an abandoned device design. Despite the prevalence of dislocations in all these technologies, the modeling of their thermal resistance is based on 50-year-old analytical approximations, whose simplicity was driven by practical limitations rather than physical insight. We introduce an efficient ab initio approach based on Green's functions computed by two-dimensional reciprocal space integration. By combining elasticity theory and density functional theory, we calculate the scattering strength of a 90° misfit edge dislocation in Si. Because of the breakdown of the Born approximation, earlier literature models fail, even qualitatively. We find that a dislocation density larger than 109cm-2 is necessary to substantially influence thermal conductivity at room temperature and above. We quantify how much of the reduction of thermal conductivity measured in nanograined samples can be explained by realistic dislocation concentrations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The design and synthesis of three-dimensional denser carbons are one of the hot issues in condensed matter physics because of their fascinating properties. Here we identify by ab initio calculations several tetragonal and monoclinic polymorphs of carbon that adopt the t32, t32*, m32, and m32* structures in P421c, P43212, P21/c, and C2 symmetry, respectively. These carbon polymorphs have large 32-atom unit cells in all-sp3 bonding networks comprising five- and six-membered rings that are dynamically stable, as verified by a phonon mode analysis. Electronic band structure calculations show that they are insulators with band gaps in the range of 5.19-5.41 eV, close to the calculated band gap of 5.34 eV for diamond. Remarkably, these carbon phases possess an extremely high atom number density exceeding that of diamond. The present results establish different types of carbon phases and offer insights into their outstanding structural and electronic properties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The spin-orbit interactions in heavy-metal/ferromagnet heterostructures have attracted considerable attention because they provide an efficient way to manipulate the magnetization with strong current-driven spin-orbit torques (SOTs) via the spin Hall effect in the heavy metal or Rashba effect due to the symmetry breaking at the interface. Theoretical calculations predict no dependence of the SOTs on the out-of-plane angle of magnetization due to spin Hall effect, but Rashba effect induces a nontrivial angular dependence of SOTs. Quantitative measurements with adiabatic harmonic Hall technique have observed the angular dependence in Ta/CoFeB/MgO or Pt/Co/AlOx with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy. However, this method is complicated because the signal consists of both anomalous and planar Hall contributions. In addition, the fitting of the measurement data is sensitive to the fitting parameters, particularly to the perpendicular anisotropy, in a certain angle region (40-70°). To avoid this uncertainty, we have developed a scheme to quantify the angular dependence of SOTs based on the magneto-optic Kerr effect with field calibration. Without fitting procedures, we precisely determine the SOTs and their angle dependence on the magnetization orientation. We observe a strong angular dependence that is different from the previous experimental observations. Based on this strong dependence, we conclude that a Rashba effect at the same interface, that is responsible for the perpendicular magnetic anisotropy, is the dominant mechanism for the current-driven SOTs in this system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The interfacial Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI) in ultrathin magnetic thin film heterostructures provides a new approach for controlling spin textures on mesoscopic length scales. Here we investigate the dependence of the interfacial DMI constant D on a Pt wedge insertion layer in Ta/CoFeB/Pt(wedge)/MgO thin films by observing the asymmetric spin-wave dispersion using Brillouin light scattering. Continuous tuning of D by more than a factor of 3 is realized by inserting less than one monolayer of Pt. The observations provide new insights for designing magnetic thin film heterostructures with tailored D for controlling skyrmions and magnetic domain-wall chirality and dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]