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Electrical generation and transduction of polarized electron spins in semiconductors (SCs) are of central interest in spintronics and quantum information science. While spin generation in SCs is frequently realized via electrical injection from a ferromagnet (FM), there are significant advantages in nonmagnetic pathways of creating spin polarization. One such pathway exploits the interplay of electron spin with chirality in electronic structures or real space. Here, utilizing chirality-induced spin selectivity (CISS), the efficient creation of spin accumulation in n-doped GaAs via electric current injection from a normal metal (Au) electrode through a self-assembled monolayer (SAM) of chiral molecules (α-helix l-polyalanine, AHPA-L), is demonstrated. The resulting spin polarization is detected as a Hanle effect in the n-GaAs, which is found to obey a distinct universal scaling with temperature and bias current consistent with chirality-induced spin accumulation. The experiment constitutes a definitive observation of CISS in a fully nonmagnetic device structure and demonstration of its ability to generate spin accumulation in a conventional SC. The results thus place key constraints on the physical mechanism of CISS and present a new scheme for magnet-free SC spintronics.

Controlling heat flow is a key challenge for applications ranging from thermal management in electronics to energy systems, industrial processing, and thermal therapy. However, progress has generally been limited by slow response times and low tunability in thermal conductance. In this work, we demonstrate an electronically gated solid-state thermal switch using self-assembled molecular junctions to achieve excellent performance at room temperature. In this three-terminal device, heat flow is continuously and reversibly modulated by an electric field through carefully controlled chemical bonding and charge distributions within the molecular interface. The devices have ultrahigh switching speeds above 1 megahertz, have on/off ratios in thermal conductance greater than 1300%, and can be switched more than 1 million times. We anticipate that these advances will generate opportunities in molecular engineering for thermal management systems and thermal circuit design.

Chirality has been a property of central importance in physics, chemistry and biology for more than a century. Recently, electrons were found to become spin polarized after transmitting through chiral molecules, crystals, and their hybrids. This phenomenon, called chirality-induced spin selectivity (CISS), presents broad application potentials and far-reaching fundamental implications involving intricate interplays among structural chirality, topological states, and electronic spin and orbitals. However, the microscopic picture of how chiral geometry influences electronic spin remains elusive, given the negligible spin-orbit coupling (SOC) in organic molecules. In this work, we address this issue via a direct comparison of magnetoconductance (MC) measurements on magnetic semiconductor-based chiral molecular spin valves with normal metal electrodes of contrasting SOC strengths. The experiment reveals that a heavy-metal electrode provides SOC to convert the orbital polarization induced by the chiral molecular structure to spin polarization. Our results illustrate the essential role of SOC in the metal electrode for the CISS spin valve effect. A tunneling model with a magnetochiral modulation of the potential barrier is shown to quantitatively account for the unusual transport behavior.

There is increasing interest in the study of chiral degrees of freedom occurring in matter and in electromagnetic fields. Opportunities in quantum sciences will likely exploit two main areas that are the focus of this Review: (1) recent observations of the chiral-induced spin selectivity (CISS) effect in chiral molecules and engineered nanomaterials and (2) rapidly evolving nanophotonic strategies designed to amplify chiral light-matter interactions. On the one hand, the CISS effect underpins the observation that charge transport through nanoscopic chiral structures favors a particular electronic spin orientation, resulting in large room-temperature spin polarizations. Observations of the CISS effect suggest opportunities for spin control and for the design and fabrication of room-temperature quantum devices from the bottom up, with atomic-scale precision and molecular modularity. On the other hand, chiral-optical effects that depend on both spin- and orbital-angular momentum of photons could offer key advantages in all-optical and quantum information technologies. In particular, amplification of these chiral light-matter interactions using rationally designed plasmonic and dielectric nanomaterials provide approaches to manipulate light intensity, polarization, and phase in confined nanoscale geometries. Any technology that relies on optimal charge transport, or optical control and readout, including quantum devices for logic, sensing, and storage, may benefit from chiral quantum properties. These properties can be theoretically and experimentally investigated from a quantum information perspective, which has not yet been fully developed. There are uncharted implications for the quantum sciences once chiral couplings can be engineered to control the storage, transduction, and manipulation of quantum information. This forward-looking Review provides a survey of the experimental and theoretical fundamentals of chiral-influenced quantum effects and presents a vision for their possible future roles in enabling room-temperature quantum technologies.

We investigate the interplay between topological effects and Mott physics in two dimensions on a graphenelike lattice, via a tight-binding model containing an anisotropic spin-orbit coupling on the next-nearest-neighbor links and the Hubbard interaction. We thoroughly analyze the resulting phases, namely, a topological band insulator phase or anisotropic quantum spin Hall phase until moderate-strength interactions and a Neel and a spiral phase at large interactions in the Mott regime, as well as the formation of a spin-orbital texture in the bulk at the Mott transition. The emergent magnetic orders at large interactions are analyzed through a spin-wave analysis and mathematical arguments. At weak interactions, by analogy with the Kane-Mele model, the system is described through a Z2 topological invariant. In addition, we describe how the anisotropic spin-orbit coupling already produces an exotic spin texture at the edges. The physics at the Mott transition is described in terms of a U(1) slave-rotor theory. Taking into account gauge fluctuations around the mean-field saddle-point solution, we show how the spin texture now proliferates into the bulk above the Mott critical point. The latter emerges from the response of the spinons under the insertion of monopoles and this becomes more pronounced as the spin-orbit coupling becomes prevalent. We discuss implications of our predictions for thin films of the iridate compound Na2IrO3 and also graphenelike systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Full intermetallic compound (IMC) solder joints present fascinating advantages in high-temperature applications. In this study, the mechanical properties and elastic anisotropy of η′-Cu6Sn5 and Cu3Sn intermetallic compounds were investigated using first-principles calculations. The values of single-crystal elastic constants, the elastic (E), shear (G), and bulk (B) moduli, and Poisson's ratio (ν) were identified. In addition, the two values of G/B and ν indicated that the two IMCs were ductile materials. The elastic anisotropy of η′-Cu6Sn5 was found to be higher than Cu3Sn by calculating the universal anisotropic index. Furthermore, an interesting discovery was that the above two types of monocrystalline IMC exhibited mechanical anisotropic behavior. Specifically, the anisotropic degree of E and B complied with the following relationship: η′-Cu6Sn5 > Cu3Sn; however, the relationship was Cu3Sn > η′-Cu6Sn5 for the G. It is noted that the anisotropic degree of E and G was similar for the two IMCs. In addition, the anisotropy of the B was higher than the G and E, respectively, for η′-Cu6Sn5; however, in the case of Cu3Sn, the anisotropic degree of B, G, and E was similar. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

PbS quantum dots (QDs) are a promising nanostructured material for solar cells. However, limited works have been done to explore the active layer thickness, layer deposition techniques, stability improvement, and cost reduction for PbS QD solar cells. We address those issues of device fabrication herein and suggest their possible solutions. In our work, to get the maximum current density from a PbS QD solar cell, we estimated the optimized active layer thickness using Matlab simulation. After that, we fabricated a high-performance and low-cost QD photovoltaic (PV) device with the simulated optimized active layer thickness. We implemented this low-cost device using a 10 mg/mL PbS concentration. Here, spin coating and drop-cast layer deposition methods were used and compared. We found that the device prepared by the spin coating method was more efficient than that by the drop cast method. The spin-coated PbS QD solar cell provided 6.5% power conversion efficiency (PCE) for the AM1.5 light spectrum. Besides this, we observed that Cr (chromium) interfaced with the Ag (Cr–Ag) electrode can provide a highly air-stable electrode. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For the purpose of exploring the application of two-dimensional (2D) material in the field of gas sensors, the adsorption properties of gas molecules, CO, CO2, CH2O, O2, NO2, and SO2 on the surface of monolayered tin selenium in β phase (β-SnSe) has been researched by first principles calculation based on density functional theory (DFT). The results indicate that β-SnSe sheet presents weak physisorption for CO and CO2 molecules with small adsorption energy and charge transfers, which show that a β-SnSe sheet is not suitable for sensing CO and CO2. The adsorption behavior of CH2O molecules adsorbed on a β-SnSe monolayer is stronger than that of CO and CO2, revealing that the β-SnSe layer can be applied to detect CH2O as physical sensor. Additionally, O2, NO2, and SO2 are chemically adsorbed on a β-SnSe monolayer with moderate adsorption energy and considerable charge transfers. All related calculations reveal that β-SnSe has a potential application in detecting and catalyzing O2, NO2, and SO2 molecules. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We provide analytical and numerical evidence of spin-triplet Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov (FFLO) superconductivity in the itinerant Kitaev-Heisenberg model (antiferromagnetic Kitaev coupling and ferromagnetic Heisenberg coupling) on the honeycomb lattice around quarter filling. The strong spin-orbit coupling in our model leads to the emergence of six inversion symmetry centers for the Fermi surface at nonzero momenta in the first Brillouin zone. We show how the Cooper pairs condense into these nontrivial momenta, causing spatial modulation of the superconducting order parameter. Applying a Ginzburg-Landau expansion analysis, we find that the superconductivity has three separated degenerate ground states with three different spin-triplet pairings. Exact diagonalizations on finite clusters support this picture while ruling out a spin (charge) density wave. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electrical generation and transduction of polarized electron spins in semiconductors (SCs) are of central interest in spintronics and quantum information science. While spin generation in SCs is frequently realized via electrical injection from a ferromagnet (FM), there are significant advantages in nonmagnetic pathways of creating spin polarization. One such pathway exploits the interplay of electron spin with chirality in electronic structures or real space. Here, utilizing chirality-induced spin selectivity (CISS), the efficient creation of spin accumulation in n-doped GaAs via electric current injection from a normal metal (Au) electrode through a self-assembled monolayer (SAM) of chiral molecules (α-helix l-polyalanine, AHPA-L), is demonstrated. The resulting spin polarization is detected as a Hanle effect in the n-GaAs, which is found to obey a distinct universal scaling with temperature and bias current consistent with chirality-induced spin accumulation. The experiment constitutes a definitive observation of CISS in a fully nonmagnetic device structure and demonstration of its ability to generate spin accumulation in a conventional SC. The results thus place key constraints on the physical mechanism of CISS and present a new scheme for magnet-free SC spintronics., (© 2024 Wiley‐VCH GmbH.)

Controlling heat flow is a key challenge for applications ranging from thermal management in electronics to energy systems, industrial processing, and thermal therapy. However, progress has generally been limited by slow response times and low tunability in thermal conductance. In this work, we demonstrate an electronically gated solid-state thermal switch using self-assembled molecular junctions to achieve excellent performance at room temperature. In this three-terminal device, heat flow is continuously and reversibly modulated by an electric field through carefully controlled chemical bonding and charge distributions within the molecular interface. The devices have ultrahigh switching speeds above 1 megahertz, have on/off ratios in thermal conductance greater than 1300%, and can be switched more than 1 million times. We anticipate that these advances will generate opportunities in molecular engineering for thermal management systems and thermal circuit design.

We report the synthesis, magnetic properties, and transport properties of paramagnetic metal complexes, [Co(DMF) 4 (TCNQ) 2 ](TCNQ) 2 ( 1 ), [La(DMF) 8 (TCNQ)](TCNQ) 5 ( 2 ), and [Nd(DMF) 7 (TCNQ)](TCNQ) 5 ( 3 ) (DMF = N , N -dimethylformamide, TCNQ = 7,7,8,8-tetracyanoquinodimethane). All three compounds contain fractionally charged TCNQ δ- anions (0 < δ < 1) and mononuclear complex cations in which the coordination environment of a metal center includes several DMF molecules and one or two terminally coordinated TCNQ δ- anions. The coordinated TCNQ δ- anions participate in π-π stacking interactions with noncoordinated TCNQ δ- anions, forming columnar substructures that provide efficient charge-transporting pathways. As a result, temperature-dependent conductivity measurements demonstrate that all three compounds exhibit semiconducting behavior.

The ability to create micro-/nanopatterns of organic self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) on semiconductor surfaces is crucial for fundamental studies and applications in a number of emerging fields in nanoscience. Here, we demonstrate the direct patterning of thiolate SAMs on oxide-free GaAs surface by dip-pen nanolithography (DPN) and microcontact printing (μCP), facilitated by a process of surface etching and passivation of the GaAs. A quantitative analysis on the molecular diffusion on GaAs was conducted by examining the writing of nanoscale dot and line patterns by DPN, which agrees well with surface diffusion models. The functionality of the patterned thiol molecules was demonstrated by directed self-assembly of gold nanoparticles (Au NPs) onto a template of 4-aminothiophenol (ATP) SAM on GaAs. The highly selective assembly of the Au NPs was made evident with atomic force microscopy (AFM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The ability to precisely control the assembly of Au NPs on oxide-free semiconductor surfaces using molecular templates may lead to an efficient bottom-up method for the fabrication of nanoplasmonic structures.