Itinerant magnetism and superconductivity in exotic 2D metals for next-generation quantum devices

Phys.org   October 23, 2023 Metallic ferromagnets with strongly interacting electrons often exhibit remarkable electronic phases such as ferromagnetic superconductivity, complex spin textures, and nontrivial topology. A team of researchers in the US (UC Berkeley, Los Alamos National Laboratory) conducted a series of experiments with a new type of layered 2D metal, finding connections in electronic behavior that might potentially be useful for fabricating complex superconducting quantum processors. They discussed the synthesis of a layered magnetic metal NiTa4Se8 (or Ni1/4TaSe2) with a Curie temperature of 58 Kelvin. Magnetization data and density functional theory calculations indicated that the nickel atoms host uniaxial […]

New family of ferroelectric materials raises possibilities for improved information and energy storage

Phys.org  August 31, 2021 Researchers at Pennsylvania State University used magnesium-substituted zinc oxide thin films to make tiny capacitors. They could set their polarization orientation so that their surface charge is either plus or minus. The setting is nonvolatile. This type of storage requires no additional energy. The magnesium-substituted zinc oxide thin films can be deposited at much lower temperatures than other ferroelectric materials. Substrate temperature can be lowered to ambient conditions, and when doing so, capacitor stacks show only minor sacrifices to crystal orientation and nearly identical remanent polarization values; however, coercive fields drop below 2 MV/cm. This ability could […]