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We present a study on the development of Finnish first-year physics majors' attitudes towards physics, as measured by the Colorado Learning Attitudes about Science Survey, before, during and after the period of mandatory remote learning due to the coronavirus pandemic. We find that in the years before the pandemic, these attitudes did not change, but the period of extended remote learning due to the pandemic had a negative effect on the students' expert-like views. Similarly, the students who experienced the remote learning period in high school displayed a lower level of expert-like thinking as they entered university. As contact teaching resumed, moderate positive gains were seen, bridging some but not all of the gap in student attitudes left by the pandemic., Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures

We studied for the first time the magnetic phase diagram of the rare-earth manganites series Gd$_{1-x}$Ca$_{x}$MnO$_{3}$ (GCMO) over the full concentration range based on density functional theory. GCMO has been shown to form solid solutions. We take into account this disordered character by adapting special quasi random structures at different concentration steps. The magnetic phase diagram is mainly described by means of the magnetic exchange interactions between the Mn sites and Monte Carlo simulations were performed to estimate the corresponding transition temperatures. They agree very well with recent experiments. The hole doped region $x<0.5$ shows a strong ferromagnetic ground state, which competes with A-type antiferromagnetism at higher Ca concentrations $x>0.6$., Comment: Submitted to PRB

Since oxide materials like Sr$_2$FeMoO$_6$ are usually applied as thin films, we studied the effect of biaxial strain, resulting from the substrate, on the electronic and magnetic properties and, in particular, on the formation energy of point defects. From our first-principles calculations, we determined that the probability of forming point defects - like vacancies or substitutions - in Sr$_2$FeMoO$_6$ could be adjusted by choosing a proper substrate. For example, the amount of anti-site disorder can be reduced with compressive strain in order to obtain purer Sr$_2$FeMoO$_6$ as needed for spintronic applications, while the formation of oxygen vacancies is more likely for tensile strain, which improves the functionality of Sr$_2$FeMoO$_6$ as a basis material of solid oxide fuel cells. In addition, we were also be able to include the oxygen partial pressure in our study by using its thermodynamic connection with the chemical potential. Strontium vacancies become for example more likely than oxygen vacancies at a pressure of 1$\,$bar. Hence, this degree of freedom might offer in general another potential method for defect engineering in oxides besides, e.g., experimental growth conditions like temperature or gas pressure., Comment: submitted to Physical Review Materials

The quantization of magnetic flux in superconductors is usually seen as vortices penetrating the sample. While vortices are unstable in bulk type I superconductors, restricting the superconductor causes a variety of vortex structures to appear. We present a systematic study of giant vortex states in type I superconductors obtained by numerically solving the Ginzburg-Landau equations. The size of the vortices is seen to increase with decreasing film thickness. In type I superconductors, giant vortices appear at intermediate thicknesses but they do not form a well-defined vortex lattice. In the thinnest type I films, singly quantized vortices seem to be stabilized by the geometry of the sample instead of an increase in the effective Ginzburg-Landau parameter., Comment: 11 pages, 7 figures, to be published in J. Phys.: Condens. Matter

Flux pinning is still the main limiting factor for the critical current of the high-temperature superconductors in high fields. In this paper we model the field dependence of the critical current in thin films with columnar defects aligned with the field. The characteristic shape of the critical current of the BaZrO$_3$ doped YBa$_2$Cu$_3$O$_{6+x}$ thin films is reproduced and explained. The model is based on solving the Ginzburg-Landau equations with columnar defects present in the lattice. The size of the columnar defect is found to be of key importance in explaining the rounded shape of the critical current of the BaZrO$_3$ doped YBa$_2$Cu$_3$O$_{6+x}$ thin films. It is also found that the size of the rod changes the long range order of the vortex lattice., Comment: 18 pages, 9 figures