TcSUH
Special Seminar
High Energy Atomic Beam Nanolithography
Date: Friday December 06, 2002
Time: 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm
Location: Houston Science Center – Building 593 — Room 102
Overview
Ion beam proximity (IBP) lithography is “stencil printing†where helium ions are the “paint†and the stencils are thin silicon membranes with etched open windows. Diffraction, penumbral blur, and ion scattering in the resist are all consistent with 1 nm printing. However, the scattering of the lithography ions by electrostatic charge in the mask and substrate limit the practical resolution to the 50-100 nm regime. This seminar describes the discovery of a remarkable source of energetic helium atoms that eliminates this last obstacle to sub-10 nm printing. Applications to nanomagnetics and nanoelectronics will be discussed.
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Special Seminar
Ferroelectric and Ferromagnetic Micro-Crystalline and Nanocrystalline Glass Ceramics
by: Dr. Yao Xi
Date: Friday September 28, 2001
Time: 11:00 am – 12:00 pm
Location: Houston Science Center – Building 593 — Room 102
Overview
Microcrystalline and nanocrystalline glass ceramics are those materials bearing the major characteristics of both glass and ceramic. In the development of high performance ceramic materials, structural, compositional and chemical purifications are the most important concerns of ceramic scientists and engineers. However, in many cases, even the purist single crystalline materials can no longer satisfy the very complicated and comprehensive requirements on the properties and processes of ceramic materials from modern technology. It is time for us to look for help from novel multiphase ceramic materials.
Sol-gel process is introduced to prepare ferroelectric and ferromagnetic microcrystalline and nanocrystalline glass powders. Various ferroelectric and ferromagnetic crystallites in the size of nanometers and micrometers can be in-situ precipitated from amorphous glass matrices. Then, conventional ceramic processing is used to sinter such microcrystalline glass powders into ceramics. The processing, structure, property and application of PT, BT and KTP based ferroelectric glass ceramics, spinel Ni-Zn ferrite and magnetoplumbite Ba ferrite ferromagnetic glass ceramics will be discussed in this presentation.
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Special Seminar
Chemical Physics of Strongly Correlated Electron Systems
by: Prof. Frank Steglich
Date: Tuesday June 12, 2001
Time: 11:00 am – 12:00 pm
Location: Houston Science Center – Building 593 — Room 102
Overview
In a number of lanthanide- and actinide-based intermetallic compounds unconventional metallic, superconducting and magnetic states have been observed. These originate in a strong local Coulomb repulsion between the 4f/5f electrons and a weak hybridization of these atomic and the conduction-electron wavefunctions.
I shall discuss (1) the antiferromagnetically ordered heavy-fermion superconductor UPd2Al3 for which recent tunneling and inelastic-neutron-scattering experiments strongly support a magnetic-exciton-mediated pairing mechanism [1], (2) several compounds of the RET2X2 family showing pronounced “non-Fermi-liquid” effects [2-4] which cannot be fully explained by the existing spinfluctuation theories, and (3) the charge-ordered state of Yb4As3 characterized by an extremely low charge-carrier concentration and antiferromagnetic effective S = 1/2 chains. In a transverse magnetic field, the latter give rise to the opening of a spin gap which has the same origin as the pronounced soliton excitations that show up in several physical properties [5, 6]. Finally, I address a recent collaboration between chemists and physicists in our institute devoted to finding new small-gap semiconductors.
References: 1. N. K. Sato et al., Nature 410, 340 (2001); 2. P. Gegenwart et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 81, 1501 (1998); 3. P. Gegenwart et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 82, 1293 (1999); 4. O. Trovarelli et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 85, 626 (2000); 5. M. K?ppen et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 82, 4548 (1999); 6. F. Steglich et al., Acta Phys. Pol. A 97, 91 (2000).
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Special Seminar
Metal-Metal Bonded Supramolecular Chemistry Assembly, Symmetry, and Molecular Architecture on the Rational Design of Advanced Materials Based on Nanoscale-sized Molecules
by: Dr. Chun Lin
Date: Thursday May 17, 2001
Time: 11:00 am – 12:00 pm
Location: Houston Science Center – Building 593 — Room 102
Overview
This work pioneered the concept of introducing metal-metal bonds into supramolecular chemistry. This cutting-edge project is focused on the design and self-assembly of nanomolecules mediated by pairs of bonded dimetal units. Coupling of such units in pairs can form one-, two-, and three-dimensional materials containing metal-metal bonds wherein cooperative interaction among the dimetal centers may give rise to tunable physical properties in the bulk material.
Metal-metal bonded cationic complexes of the type [M2(DAniF)4-n(MeCN)8-2n]m+, where M = Mo or Rh and DAniF is an N,N'-di-p-anisylformamidinate anion, have been used as precursors for subunit pieces and then linked by various equatorial and axial bridging groups such as polycarboxylate anions, polypyridyls and polynitriles. Characterization of the products by single-crystal X-ray diffraction, CV, DPV, NMR and other spectroscopic techniques have revealed the presence of discrete tetranuclear (chains or loops), hexanuclear (triangles), octanuclear (squares), dodecanuclear (cages) species, and one-, two-, three-dimensional molecular nanotubes. These compounds display a rich electrochemical behavior which is affected by the nature of the linkers.
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Special Seminar
Phase Transitions in Vortex Matter
by: Dr. George Crabtree
Date: Wednesday May 09, 2001
Time: 10:30 am – 11:30 am
Location: Houston Science Center – Building 593 — Room 102
Overview
Magnetic fields penetrate superconductors in the form of vortices, tubes containing one quantum of flux surrounded by circulating supercurrents. Each vortex interacts with its neighbors through the Lorentz force and with the defects in the superconductor through pinning. When placed in a thermal bath, the vortex array forms a rich variety of condensed phases, including lattices, liquids, and glasses. The complexity of these condensed phases and the transitions among them rival those of ordinary atomic matter, hence the name “vortex matter.” An introduction to vortices in superconductors will be followed by a survey of the physics of their condensed phases and how we probe them experimentally.
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