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Moiré superlattices provide in-plane quantum restriction for light-matter interactions in twisted bilayer graphene (tBLG), leading to the exotic photon-Moiré physics and potential applications for light manipulation. Recently, our experiment identified a highly confined slow surface plasmons polaritons (SPPs) mode in tBLG. Here, we demonstrate that the propagation of the slow SPPs mode in tBLG is spatially tailored and steered at deep subwavelengths. Analysis by the perturbation theory indicates that the coupling between the slow SPPs mode and the Moiré system is greatly strengthened, which regulates the wavefront at the atomic scale and makes tBLG serve as a universal optical metamaterial. Consequently, the negative refraction is achieved at the interface of monolayer graphene and tBLG, by which a metalens with a controllable focal length and an extremely high resolution up to 1/150 of wavelength is devised. Our work paves the way for constructing optical metamaterial at the atomic scale and develops future photon-Moiré interaction systems.

Free-standing silicon nanoprobes (SiNPs) are critical tools for intracellular bioelectrical signal recording, while a scalable fabrication of these tiny SiNPs with ab initio geometry designs has not been possible. In this work, we demonstrate a novel growth shaping of slim Si nanowires (SiNWs) into SiNPs with sharp tips (curvature radii

Growing high quality silicon nanowires (SiNWs) at elevated temperature on cooler polymer films seems to be contradictive but highly desirable for building high performance flexible and wearable electronics. In this work, we demonstrate a superfast (vnw > 3.5 μm·s-1) growth of high quality SiNWs on polymer/glass substrates, powered by self-selected laser at 808 nm heating of indium catalyst droplets that absorb amorphous Si layer to produce SiNWs. Because of the tiny heat capacity of the nanodroplets, the SiNW growth can be quickly heated up and frozen via rapid laser ON/OFF switching, enabling a deterministic diameter modulation in the ultralong SiNWs. Finally, prototype field effect transistors are also fabricated upon the laser-droplet-heating grown SiNWs with a high Ion/Ioff ratio of >104 and reasonable subthreshold swing of 386 mV·dec-1, opening a generic new route to integrate high-quality NW channels directly upon large area and lightweight polymer substrates for developing high-performance flexible electronics.

Graphene nanoribbons are ideal candidates to serve as highly conductive, flexible, and transparent interconnections, or the active channels for nanoelectronics. However, patterning narrow graphene nanoribbons to 30%, while carrying stable and repeatable electronic transport. We suggest that this convenient scalable nanowire lithography technology has great potential to establish a general and efficient strategy to batch-pattern or integrate various two-dimensional materials as active channels and interconnections for emerging flexible electronic applications.

Photogenerated nonequilibrium hot carriers play a key role in graphene's intriguing optoelectronic properties. Compared to conventional photoexcitation, plasmon excitation can be engineered to enhance and control the generation and dynamics of hot carriers. Here, we report an unusual negative differential photoresponse of plasmon-induced "ultrahot" electrons in a graphene-boron nitride-graphene tunneling junction. We demonstrate nanocrescent gold plasmonic nanostructures that substantially enhance the absorption of long-wavelength photons whose energy is greatly below the tunneling barrier and significantly boost the electron thermalization in graphene. We further analyze the generation and transfer of ultrahot electrons under different bias and power conditions. We find that the competition among thermionic emission, the carrier-cooling effect, and the field effect results in a hitherto unusual negative differential photoresponse in the photocurrent-bias plot. Our results not only exemplify a promising platform for detecting low-energy photons, enhancing the photoresponse, and reducing the dark current but also reveal the critically coupled pathways for harvesting ultrahot carriers.

Three-dimensional (3D) construction of free-standing silicon (Si) nanohelices has been a formidable challenge for planar lithography and etching technology. We here demonstrate a convenient 3D growth and integration of Si nanohelices (SiNHs) upon bamboolike cylinders with corrugated sidewall grooves, where the indium catalyst droplets grow around the cylinders in a helical fashion, while consuming precoated amorphous Si (a-Si) thin film to produce crystalline Si nanowires on the sidewalls. At the end of each groove cycle, the droplets are enforced to linefeed/switch into the neighbor groove to continue a spiral growth of SiNHs with readily tunable diameter, pitch, aspect-ratio, and chiral/achiral symmetries. In addition, the SiNHs can be reliably released as free-standing units to serve as elastic links, supports and vibrational resonators. These results highlight the unexplored potential of high precision 3D self-assembly growth in constructing a wide range of sophisticated electromechanical, sensor, and optoelectronic functionalities.

Geometric and compositional modulations are the principal parameters of control to tailor the band profile in germanium/silicon (Ge/Si) heteronanowires (NWs). This has been achieved mainly by alternating the feeding precursors during a uniaxial growth of Ge/Si NWs. In this work, a self-automated growth of Ge/Si hetero island-chain nanowires (hiNWs), consisting of wider c-Ge islands connected by thinner c-Si chains, has been accomplished via an indium (In) droplet-mediated transformation of uniform amorphous a-Si/a-Ge bilayer thin films. The surface-running In droplet enforces a circulative hydrodynamics in the nanoscale droplet, which can modulate the absorption depth into the amorphous bilayer and enable a single-run growth of a superlattice-like hiNWs without the need for any external manipulation. Meanwhile, the separation and accumulation of electrons and holes in the phase-modulated Ge/Si superlattice leads to a modulated surface potential profile that can be directly resolved by Kelvin probe force microscopy. This simple self-assembly growth and modulation dynamics can help to establish a powerful new concept or strategy to tailor and program the geometric and compositional profiles of more complex hetero nanowire structures, as promising building blocks to develop advanced nanoelectronics or optoelectronics.

Line-shape engineering is a key strategy to endow extra stretchability to 1D silicon nanowires (SiNWs) grown with self-assembly processes. We here demonstrate a deterministic line-shape programming of in-plane SiNWs into extremely stretchable springs or arbitrary 2D patterns with the aid of indium droplets that absorb amorphous Si precursor thin film to produce ultralong c-Si NWs along programmed step edges. A reliable and faithful single run growth of c-SiNWs over turning tracks with different local curvatures has been established, while high resolution transmission electron microscopy analysis reveals a high quality monolike crystallinity in the line-shaped engineered SiNW springs. Excitingly, in situ scanning electron microscopy stretching and current-voltage characterizations also demonstrate a superelastic and robust electric transport carried by the SiNW springs even under large stretching of more than 200%. We suggest that this highly reliable line-shape programming approach holds a strong promise to extend the mature c-Si technology into the development of a new generation of high performance biofriendly and stretchable electronics.

The evolution of a two-dimensional silicon surface under hydrogen thermal treatment is studied by kinetic Monte Carlo simulations, focusing on the dependence of the migration behaviors of surface atoms on both the temperature and hydrogen pressure. We adopt different activation energies to analyze the influence of hydrogen pressure on the evolution of surface morphology at high temperatures. The reduction in surface roughness is divided into two stages, both exhibiting exponential dependence on the equilibrium time. Our results indicate that a high hydrogen pressure is conducive to obtaining optimized surfaces, as a strategy in the applications of three-dimensional devices.

Assembling nanoscale building blocks into an orderly network with a programmable layout and channel designs represents a critical capability to enable a wide range of stretchable electronics. Here, we demonstrate the growth-in-place integration of silicon nanowire (SiNW) springs into highly stretchable, transparent, and quasicontinuous functional networks with a close to unity interconnection among the discrete electrode joints because of a unique double-lane/double-step guiding edge design. The SiNW networks can be reliably transferred to a soft elastomer substrate, conformally attached to highly curved surfaces, or deployed as self-supporting/movable membranes suspended over voids. A high stretchability of >40% is achieved for the SiNW network on an elastomer, which can be employed as a transparent and semiconducting thin-film material endowed with a high carrier mobility of >50 cm2/(V s), Ion/Ioff ratio >104, and a tunable transmission of >80% over a wide spectrum range. Reversibly stretchable and bendable sensors based on the SiNW network have been successfully demonstrated, where the local strain distribution within the spring network can be directly observed and analyzed by finite element simulations. This SiNW network has a unique potential to eventually establish a new generically purposed waferlike platform for constructing soft electronics with Si-based hard performances.

Crystalline Si nanowire (SiNW) springs, produced via a low temperature (

2D organic materials with in-plane van der Waals forces among molecules have unique characteristics that ensure a brilliant future for multifunctional applications. Soluble organic semiconductors can be used to achieve low-cost and high-throughput manufacturing of electronic devices. However, achieving solution-processed 2D single-crystalline semiconductors with uniform morphology remains a substantial challenge. Here, the fabrication of 2D molecular single-crystal semiconductors with precise layer definition by using a floating-coffee-ring-driven assembly is presented. In particular, bilayer molecular films exhibit single-crystalline features with atomic smoothness and high film uniformity over a large area; field-effect transistors yield average and maximum carrier mobilities of 4.8 and 13.0 cm2 V−1 s−1, respectively. This work demonstrates the strong potential of 2D molecular crystals for low-cost, large-area, and high-performance electronics.

The conventional field cooling process for antiferromagnetic/ferromagnetic bilayer system might strongly damage the interface of BiFeO3 (BFO) with metallic ferromagnetic layer, leading to significant deterioration of exchange bias (EB). In this paper, a field cooling process with fast laser annealing has been proposed and applied on polycrystalline-BFO/Co bilayers, which can effectively modify the EB. In those samples with obvious EB, it is found that the exchange field (HE) increases abruptly when the laser fluence rises to a critical value, and decreases when the laser fluence is large enough. On the other hand, in those samples with negligible HE, EB could be easily induced after field cooling with proper laser fluence. In addition, the sign of HE could also be changed, depending on the direction of the cooling field. In contrast, after field cooling by conventional heat treatment, EB could be neither induced nor enhanced. The feasibility of fast laser annealing accompanied with field cooling to enhance or induce EB in the BFO/Co bilayer can be understood by much less interfacial diffusion in comparison with conventional field cooling.

In this paper, 1D In2Te3 nanowires were synthesizes through a simple solvothermal approach. The morphology was first studied by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and Transmission electron microscopy (TEM). From the results, the nanowires have a diameter from 100 to 200 nm and a length of dozens of microns. X-ray Diffraction (XRD), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and Raman spectrum were used to study the composition, crystal structures, and optical property. Based on the typical nanowire sample, experiment factors were changed to synthsize other samples in order to study the influence factors. A possible growth mechanism of the nanowires was proposed based on a series of experimental results. This material has a broad light detection range covering the UV-visible-NIR region from the photoelectrical test, which makes it potential for applications in photodetectors and solar cells.

Wafer-scale three-dimensional (3D) surface enhancement Raman scattering (SERS) substrates were prepared using the plasma etching and ion sputtering methods that are completely compatible with well-established silicon device technologies. The substrates are highly sensitive with excellent uniformity and reproducibility, exhibiting an enhancement factor up to 10 12 with a very low relative standard deviation (RSD) around 5%. These are attributed mainly to the uniform-distributed, multiple-type high-density hot spots originating from the structural characteristics of Ag nanoparticles (NPs) decorated Si nanocone (NC) arrays. We demonstrate that the trace dimethyl phthalate (DMP) at a concentration of 10 −7 M can be well detected using this SERS substrate, showing that the AgNPs-decorated SiNC arrays can serve as efficient SERS substrates for phthalate acid esters (PAEs) detection with high sensitivity.

A 3.5 nm amorphous CoFeB film was sputtered on GaAs (001) wafer substrate without applying magnetic field during deposition, and a significant in-plane uniaxial magnetic anisotropy (UMA) field (Hu) of about 300 Oe could be achieved. To precisely determine the intrinsic Gilbert damping constant (α) of this film, both ferromagnetic resonance (FMR) and time-resolved magneto-optical Kerr effect (TRMOKE) techniques were utilized. With good fitting of the dynamic spectra of FMR and TRMOKE, α is calculated to be 0.010 and 0.013, respectively. Obviously, the latter is 30% larger than the former, which is due to the transient heating effect during the TRMOKE measurement. In comparison with ordinary amorphous CoFeB films with negligible magnetic anisotropies, α is enhanced significantly in the CoFeB/GaAs(001) film, which may be mainly resulted from the enhanced spin-orbit coupling induced by the CoFeB/GaAs interface. However, the significant in-plane UMA plays minor role in the enhancement of α.

The heteroepitaxial growth of crystal silicon thin films on sapphire, usually referred to as SoS, has been a key technology for high-speed mixed-signal integrated circuits and processors. Here, we report a novel nanoscale SoS heteroepitaxial growth that resembles the in-plane writing of self-aligned silicon nanowires (SiNWs) on R-plane sapphire. During a low-temperature growth at 900 °C, the bottom heterointerface cultivates crystalline Si pyramid seeds within the catalyst droplet, while the vertical SiNW/catalyst interface subsequently threads the seeds into continuous nanowires, producing self-oriented in-plane SiNWs that follow a set of crystallographic directions of the sapphire substrate. Despite the low-temperature fabrication process, the field effect transistors built on the SoS-SiNWs demonstrate a high on/off ratio of >5 × 104 and a peak hole mobility of >50 cm2/V·s. These results indicate the novel potential of deploying in-...

Effective control of the domain wall (DW) motion along the magnetic nanowires is of great importance for fundamental research and potential application in spintronic devices. In this work, a series of permalloy nanowires with an asymmetric notch in the middle were fabricated with only varying the width (d) of the right arm from 200 nm to 1000 nm. The detailed pinning and depinning processes of DWs in these nanowires have been studied by using focused magneto-optic Kerr effect (FMOKE) magnetometer, magnetic force microscopy (MFM) and micromagnetic simulation. The experimental results unambiguously exhibit the presence of a DW pinned at the notch in a typical sample with d equal to 500 nm. At a certain range of 200 nm d d dependences, which may be originated from different potential well/barrier generated by the asymmetric notch with varying d.

Microcrystalline silicon (μc-Si) films were deposited at a high rate and low temperature using jet-type inductively coupled plasma chemical vapor deposition (jet-ICPCVD), and the deposition rate, microstructure and electrical properties of the deposited films were investigated. It was demonstrated that a high deposition rate of over 20 nm/s can be achieved while maintaining high crystallinity and low dark conductivity. The deposition rate is well controlled by regulating the generation rate and transport of growth precursors. High crystallinity of the films results principally from hydrogen-induced chemical annealing. Furthermore, the excellent electrical properties benefit from the low oxygen content and/or low deposition temperature.

Suppressing the stochastic domain wall (DW) motion in magnetic nanowires is of great importance for designing DW-related spintronic devices. In this work, we have investigated the pinning/depinning processes of DWs in permalloy nanowires with three different types of notches by using longitudinal magnetoresistance (MR) measurement. The averaged MR curves demonstrate that the stochastic DW depinning is suppressed partly or even completely by a transversely asymmetric notch. The single-shot MR curves show that how the resistance changes with the applied field also depends strongly on the notch type while the DW is pinned around the notch. In the case of two depinning fields, larger (smaller) change of resistance always corresponds to larger (smaller) depinning field, regardless of the notch type. These phenomena can be understood by that the spin structure around the notch changes differently with the notch type when the DW is traveling through the notch.

We have produced glycerol-bonded 3C-SiC nanocrystal (NC) films, which when excited by photons of different wavelengths, produce strong and tunable violet to blue-green (360-540 nm) emission as a result of the quantum confinement effects rendered by the 3C-SiC NCs. The emission is so intense that the emission spots are visible to the naked eyes. The light emission is very stable and even after storing in air for more than six months, no intensity degradation can be observed. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and absorption fine structure measurements indicate that the Si-terminated NC surfaces are completely bonded to glycerol molecules. Calculations of geometry optimization and electron structures based on the density functional theory for 3C-SiC NCs with attached glycerol molecules show that these molecules are bonded on the NCs causing strong surface structural change, while the isolated levels in the conduction band of the bare 3C-SiC NCs are replaced with quasi-continuous bands that provide continuous tunability of the emitted light by changing the frequencies of exciting laser. As an application, we demonstrate the potential of using 3C-SiC NCs to fabricate full-color emitting solid films by incorporating porous silicon.

Using molecular-dynamic simulations for a vortex lattice with random pinning, thermal fluctuations and vortex-vortex interactions, we study the order-disorder transition from a Bragg glass (BG) to an amorphous vortex glass (VG) or a vortex liquid (VL) in the pinning strength-temperature phase diagram. The order-disorder transition line is determined by calculating the static structure factor of vortex lattice and the finite-size exponent. A portion of the BG region is found to be sandwiched in between the VG phase at lower temperatures and VL phase at higher temperatures, exhibiting inverse melting behavior observed recently on Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8 crystals by Avraham et al. (Nature, 411 (2001) 451). This unusual behavior is attributed to the temperature-enhanced interaction between vortices.

International audience; Growing self-assembled silicon nanowires (SiNWs) into precise locations represents a critical capability to scale up SiNW-based functionalities. We here report a novel epitaxy growth phenomenon and strategy to fabricate orderly arrays of self-aligned in-plane SiNWs on Si(100) substrates following exactly the underlying crystallographic orientations. We observe also a rich set of distinctive growth dynamics/modes that lead to remarkably different morphologies of epitaxially grown SiNWs/or grains under variant growth balance conditions. High-resolution transmission electron microscopy cross-section analysis confirms a coherent epitaxy (or partial epitaxy) interface between the in-plane SiNWs and the Si(100) substrate, while conductive atomic force microscopy characterization reveals that electrically rectifying p-n junctions are formed between the p-type doped in-plane SiNWs and the n-type c-Si(100) substrate. This in-plane epitaxy growth could provide an effective means to define nanoscale junction and doping profiles, providing a basis for exploring novel nanoelectronics.

A roll-on transfer strategy is developed to enable large-scale and uniform assembly of CdS nanowires on various rigid and flexible substrate materials. In this method, the CdS nanowires were synthesized by the hydrothermal method. The dispersed CdS NWs could be firstly aligned and selectively deposited at the micro/nanochannels between aligned nanofibers on the surface of the donor roller as a result of evaporation-induced flow and capillary action, and then the directional and aligned transfer of the CdS NWs from the donor roller to a receiver substrate via roll-on transfer technique. Finally, a device structures consisting of the nanowire channel and two metal electrodes was fabricated. The electrical property of this device was observed.

Stochastic phenomena in magnetic nanowires based on domain wall (DW) motion is scientifically important thus to understand and control such behaviors are very meaningful. Here we report on the investigation of pinning and depinning of DWs in permalloy nanowires with six types of longitudinally asymmetric notches using focused magneto-optic Kerr effect (FMOKE) magnetometer and magnetic force microscopy (MFM). The hysteresis loops obtained by FMOKE indicate the generation of one or two distinct depinning fields by creating one notch close to the edge of the nanowires, in comparison multiple depinning processes occur in the nanowires with two identical notches symmetrically placed along the transverse direction, indicating more remarkable stochastic DW depinning phenomena. The MFM images verify the existence of DW in each type of nanowires and the DW sizes in the latter kind of nanowires are generally larger than those in the former ones. These observations can be explained by considering the thermal perturbation and edge or surface roughness effects in nanowires.

This article presents optical characteristics of ZnSe/ZnS0.12Se0.88 strained‐layer superlattices (SLs) with ZnS0.06Se0.94 buffers pseudomorphically grown on GaAs(100) substrates by molecular beam epitaxy. The SL samples exhibit strong blue luminescence. The main emission peaks in photoluminescence spectra can be attributed to the free exciton transitions between lowest electron subband and ground heavy‐hole subband of ZnSe wells. The temperature dependence of PL was investigated in detail. The experimental results of temperature dependence of peak positions and linewidths (FWHM) were fitted to the theoretical calculations, based on Varshni’s formula and broadening model. The activation energies of the samples were derived from the temperature dependence of PL intensities. The effects of strain and quantum confinement in ZnSe/ZnS0.12Se0.88 strained‐layer SLs with different well thicknesses of 30, 60, and 120 A were studied by experiments and theoretical calculations. Theoretical calculations and experiment...

The static and dynamic lattice strain effects on the competition between ferromagnetic and charge/orbital ordering (COO) phase, phase separation (PS) and transport properties were studied in Pr0.7(Ca0.6Sr0.4)0.3MnO3 (PCSMO) films. It is found that the tensile strained films show pronounced percolative transport behaviors with increased hysteresis, indicating that the stability of the long-range COO is enhanced by the tensile strain. On the other hand, a nearly reversible insulator-metal transition was observed in the compressive strained films, suggesting a strong suppression of the long-range COO. The experiment of dynamic strain effect induced by the bias electric field further verifies the conclusion. Moreover, coactions of the ferroelectric polarization of the substrate and the dynamic strain effect on the PS were found in present PCSMO/PMN-PT film.

We herein reported the dielectric properties of ZnO single crystals, and three dielectric anomalies were found. The first anomaly shows a relaxor-like behavior. It is composed of two oxygen-vacancy-related relaxation processes: a dipolar relaxation related to the hopping motions of single-ionized oxygen vacancies and a Maxwell-Wagner relaxation as the defects were blocked by the interfaces of sample/electrode contacts. The second anomaly behaves as a phase-transition-like behavior. It is ascribed to the distribution state transition for oxygen vacancies from static disorder to dynamic disorder. The third anomaly exhibits a relaxor-like behavior. It is an artificial effect caused by negative capacitance.

Understanding the p-n junctions is of great importance because p-n junctions are the essential elements of semiconductor devices. In this study, we experimentally investigated the strain induced electrical properties modulation of Si p+-n and n+-p junctions. It is found that, under the uniaxial tensile stress, the current in the large-forward-bias region increases significantly, while a rather small current increase is observed in the diffusion-current-dominant region. Besides, the ideality factors in the diffusion-current-dominant region and the large-forward-bias region decrease when the amount of the applied stress increases. The observations are explained by the strain induced variations in energy band structure, their effect on minority carrier concentrations, and the piezoresistance effect.

All-perovskite oxide heterojunctions composed of electron-doped titanate LaxSr1 − xTiO3 (x = 0.1, 0.15) and hole-doped manganite La0.67Ca0.33MnO3 films were fabricated on piezoelectric substrate of (001)-0.7Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3-0.3PbTiO3 (PMN-PT). Taking advantage of the excellent converse piezoelectric effect of PMN-PT, we investigated the influence of the dynamic lattice strain on transport properties of the heterojunctions by applying external bias electric fields on the PMN-PT substrate. Photovoltaic experiments were carried out to characterize the interfacial barrier of the heterojunction. A linear reduction in the barrier height was observed with the increase of the bias field applied on PMN-PT. The value of the barrier height reduces from ∼1.55 (∼1.30) to 1.02 (1.08) eV as the bias field increases from 0 to 12 kV/cm for the junction of La0.10Sr0.9TiO3/La0.67Ca0.33MnO3 (La0.15Sr0.85TiO3/La0.67Ca0.33MnO3). The observed dependency of barrier height on external field can be ascribed to the increasing release of trapped carriers by strain modulation, which results in a suppression of the depletion layer and increases the opportunity for electron tunneling across the depletion area.

Here, we report the co-substitution of Fe and Co for Ni atoms on metamagnetic behavior, martensitic transformation, and transport and magnetocaloric properties in Ni45(Co1−xFex)5Mn36.6In13.4 (x = 0∼0.05) alloys. It is found that the introduction of Fe atoms stabilizes martensitic phase and shifts martensitic temperature (TM) to higher temperature. Meanwhile, the Curie temperature TC of parent phase notably decreases. Upon Fe doping, the low magnetization of martensitic phase keeps nearly unchanged while the magnetization of parent phase slightly decreases. As a result, the Fe-doped samples maintain strong metamagnetic behavior and show great MR and MCE in an extended temperature range around room temperature. The hysteresis loss is reduced upon Fe-doping, which leads to an enhancement of effective RC by 15%.

Tensile and compressive strains were introduced by epitaxially growing Pr(Ca0.8Sr0.2)0.3MnO3 thin films on different substrates with different lattice constants. The large tensile strain in films on SrTiO3 enhances the stability of the long-range charge-orbital (CO) phase and a 5 T magnetic field cannot melt the CO phase. However, the CO phase in the film on (LaAlO3)0.3(Sr2AlTaO6)0.7 (LSAT) is less robust due to a smaller tensile strain and can be partially melt by a 5T field. On the other hand, compressive strained films on LaAlO3 (LAO) show different behavior. Sharp metal-insulator transition with pronounced hysteresis was observed, indicating that the long-range CO is suppressed, whereas the short-rang ferromagnetic (FM)/CO is favored. Upon magnetic field application, resistance reduces remarkably, whereas the insulator-metal (IM) transition and hysteresis becomes broader and insignificant.

The transport behaviors of La0.5Ca0.5MnO3/LaMnO3/SrTiO3:Nb heterojunctions with a LaMnO3 layer thickness of between 0 and 12 nm have been systematically studied. The effect of the magnetic field on the junction without the buffer layer is weak. The influence of the magnetic field on the junction is maximized when the layer thickness is ∼3 nm, demonstrated by a significant field-induced increase in current when the bias voltage is fixed. The corresponding magnetoresistance of the junction is negative, and its maximal value is ∼−32% for a field change of 5 T at 80 K. Based on a quantitative analysis of the current-voltage characteristics, the interfacial barrier can be derived, and it shows a complex variation with an increase in layer thickness, first decreasing and then increasing. This is the apparent reason for the change in buffer-layer-enhanced negative magnetoresistance of the junctions for different layer thicknesses.

The substrate-induced strain effect in La7/8Sr1/8MnO3 (LSMO) thin films grown on (001)-oriented SrTiO3 and ferroelectric 0.7Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3–0.3PbTiO3 (PMN-PT) substrates was investigated. A metal-insulator transition was observed at low temperature in LSMO/PMN-PT, which was ascribed to charge/orbital ordering (COO) formation due to a large tensile strain. The impact of strain modification on the transport properties around COO transition was investigated by using converse piezoelectric effect in PMN-PT. We found the magnetoresistance reduction due to the strain modification at COO state was much larger than that at disordering one, indicating the sensitivity of the COO phase to strain state. This fact presents a collateral evidence for the tensile strain origin of the COO transition.

The magnetic properties, magnetic entropy change, and hysteresis loss in LaFe11.7(Si1−xCux)1.3 compounds were investigated. It was found that the compounds retain the cubic NaZn13 structure when the substitution of Cu reaches 20%. With increasing Cu content from x=0 to 0.2, the Curie temperature TC increases from 185 to 200 K, while lattice parameter decreases from 11.475 to 11.468 due to the smaller atomic radius of Cu than Si. Metamagnetic behavior becomes weaker and magnetic entropy change |ΔS| drops with raising Cu content. However, |ΔS| still remains a large value, ∼20 J/kg K, when x reaches 0.2. An attractive feature is that both thermal and magnetic hysteresis can be remarkably reduced by introducing Cu. The maximum hysteresis loss at TC drops from 74.1 to 0 J /kg when the substitution of Cu for Si increases from 0% to 20%.

Magnetic properties and magnetic entropy change ΔS have been investigated in Heusler alloys Ni51Mn49−xInx (x=15.6, 16.0, and 16.2). By tuning Ni, Mn, and In contents around composition Ni50Mn34In16, large ΔS with small thermal hysteresis near room temperature can be achieved. Martensitic temperature Tm shifts from 308 K to 253 K with x varying from 15.6 to 16.2. The thermal hysteresis around Tm is small

We develop a three-dimensional flux line lattice (FLL) model with magnetic interactions between intraplane and interplane vortices to simulate the dynamic behavior of the flux flow in a disordered point-pinned system. A double-peak structure is found in the differential resistivity as a function of the driving current, corresponding to the two-step depinning behavior of the vortex motion. In between the two peaks there exists a new re-entrant pinning phase. The calculated results are summarized as a phase diagram of the interplane coupling strength of pancake vortices vs. the applied driving current. A huge peak effect and current-induced re-entrant pinning behavior appear in a narrow regime, where an unusual intrinsic pinning mechanism due to interlayer interactions dominates the peak effect. The phase diagram obtained is favorable for understanding the two-step depinning and re-entrant behavior observed recently experimentally.