New! Sign up for our free email newsletter.
Science News
from research organizations

Physicists characterize electronic, magnetic structure in transition metal oxides

Date:
December 18, 2014
Source:
University of Arkansas, Fayetteville
Summary:
Scientists have characterized the electronic and magnetic structure in artificially synthesized materials called transition metal oxides.
Share:
FULL STORY

An international team of scientists, led by physicists at the University of Arkansas, has characterized the electronic and magnetic structure in artificially synthesized materials called transition metal oxides.

The findings advance the fundamental understanding of transition metal oxides, which are commonly used for their myriad applications in electronics.

The team published its findings on Dec. 17in Nature Communications, an online journal published by the journal Nature, in a paper titled "Competition between heavy fermion and Kondo interaction in isoelectronic A-site-ordered perovskites."

"Our study provides insight into what makes this group of very structurally similar materials behave in such disparate ways," said Derek Meyers, a doctoral student in physics at the University of Arkansas. "Most of the research on oxides in the last 20 years has focused on common transition metal oxides featuring iron, copper and cobalt. In this paper we analyzed more rare transition metal oxides containing rhodium and iridium. We are bridging the gap, allowing what we know about the abundant transition metal oxides to be translated to the less-studied variants."

The team found that changing the transition metal ions from cobalt to rhodium to iridium, in otherwise identical chemical compounds, resulted in the emergence of a Kondo effect, a key concept in condensed matter physics in understanding the behavior of metallic systems with strongly interacting electrons.

"We found the microscopic mechanism which causes significant changes to the electronic and magnetic behaviors as you move down different rows on the periodic table," Meyers said.

Meyers, a Doctoral Academy Fellow at the U of A, was the lead researcher under the supervision of Jak Chakhalian, a professor of physics at the university and director of the Laboratory for Artificial Quantum Materials. Meyers and Srimanta Middey, a postdoctoral research associate at the university, analyzed the data.

Chakhalian's lab acquired the transition metal oxides from the Texas Materials Institute at the University of Texas in Austin, in close collaboration with materials scientists John Goodenough; J.G. Cheng, who is also with the Chinese Academy of Sciences; and J.S. Zhou.

The research team also included Benjamin Gray, a former physics doctoral student at the U of A; Yanwei Cao, a postdoctoral research associate in the Laboratory for Artificial Quantum Materials; theorists Swarnakamal Mukherjee and Tanusri Saha Dasgupta of the S. N. Bose National Centre for Basic Sciences in Calcutta, India; and John W. Freeland, Daniel Haskel and Yongseong Choi of the Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National Laboratory near Chicago.


Story Source:

Materials provided by University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.


Journal Reference:

  1. D. Meyers, S. Middey, J.-G. Cheng, Swarnakamal Mukherjee, B. A. Gray, Yanwei Cao, J.-S. Zhou, J.B. Goodenough, Yongseong Choi, D. Haskel, J. W. Freeland, T. Saha-Dasgupta, J. Chakhalian. Competition between heavy fermion and Kondo interaction in isoelectronic A-site-ordered perovskites. Nature Communications, 2014; 5: 5818 DOI: 10.1038/ncomms6818

Cite This Page:

University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. "Physicists characterize electronic, magnetic structure in transition metal oxides." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 18 December 2014. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/12/141218154511.htm>.
University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. (2014, December 18). Physicists characterize electronic, magnetic structure in transition metal oxides. ScienceDaily. Retrieved March 28, 2024 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/12/141218154511.htm
University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. "Physicists characterize electronic, magnetic structure in transition metal oxides." ScienceDaily. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/12/141218154511.htm (accessed March 28, 2024).

Explore More

from ScienceDaily

RELATED STORIES