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In this study, we report the length dependence of thermal conductivity (k) of zinc-blende Zinc-Selenide (ZnSe) and Zinc Telluride (ZnTe) for length scales between 10 nm and 10000 nm using first-principles computations based on density-functional theory. k value of ZnSe is computed to decrease significantly from 11.3 W/mK to 1.75 W/mK as the length scale is diminished from 10 nm to 10 nm. k value of ZnTe is also observed to decrease from 10 W/mK to 1.2 W/mK for the same decrease in length. We also measure the k of bulk ZnSe and ZnTe using Frequency Domain Thermoreflectance (FDTR) technique and observed a good agreement between FDTR measurements and first principles calculations for the bulk ZnSe and ZnTe. Understanding of thermal conductivity reduction at nanometer length scales provides an avenue to incorporate nanostructured ZnSe and ZnTe for thermoelectric applications., Comment: 19 pages, 13 figures

The interfacial Dyzaloshinskii-Moria interaction (DMI) helps to stabilize chiral domain walls and magnetic skyrmions, which will facilitate new magnetic memories and spintronics logic devices. The study of interfacial DMI in perpendicularly magnetized structurally asymmetric heavy metal (HM) / ferromagnetic (FM) multilayer systems is of high importance due to the formation of chiral magnetic textures in the presence of DMI. Here, we report the impact of the cobalt oxidation at the cobalt -aluminum oxide interface in Pt/Co/AlOx trilayer structure on the DMI by varying the post-growth annealing time and Aluminum thickness. For quantifying DMI, we employed magneto-optical imaging of asymmetric domain wall expansion, hysteresis loop shift, and spin-wave spectroscopy techniques. We further correlated the Cobalt oxidation with low-temperature Hall effect measurements and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. Our results emphasize the characterization of magnetic films for MRAM technologies semiconductor temperature process window, where magnetic interaction will be critical for device performance., Comment: approximately 17 pages, and exactly 8 figures (with subfigures)

We investigate the effect of strain and film thickness on the orbital and magnetic properties of LaSrCrO$_3$ (LSCO)/LaSrMnO$_3$ (LSMO) heterostructures using bulk magnetometry, soft X-ray magnetic spectroscopy, first-principles density functional theory, high-resolution electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction. We observe an anti-parallel ordering of the magnetic moments between the ferromagnetic LSMO layers and the LSCO spacers leading to a strain-independent ferromagnetic ground state of the LSCO/LSMO heterostructures for LSMO layers as thin as 2 unit cells. As the LSMO thickness is increased, a net ferromagnetic state is maintained, however, the average magnetic moment per Mn is found to be dependent on the magnitude of the substrate-induced strain. The differences in the magnetic responses are related to preferential occupation of the Mn $x^2-y^2$ (in-plane) d-orbitals for tensile strain and $3z^2-r^2$ (out-of-plane) orbitals under compressive strain leading to competing ferromagnetic and anti-ferromagnetic exchange interactions within the LSMO layers. These results underscore the relative contributions of orbital, structural and spin degree of freedom and their tunability in atomically-thin crystalline complex oxide layers.

We demonstrate an unexpectedly strong surface-plasmonic absorption at the interface of silver and high-index dielectrics based on electron and photon spectroscopy. The measured bandwidth and intensity of absorption deviate significantly from the classical theory. Our density-functional calculation well predicts the occurrence of this phenomenon. It reveals that due to the low metal-to-dielectric work function at such interfaces, conduction electrons can display a drastic quantum spillover, causing the interfacial electron-hole pair production to dominate the decay of surface plasmons. This finding can be of fundamental importance in understanding and designing quantum nano-plasmonic devices that utilize noble metals and high-index dielectrics., Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures