20 IMR KINKEN Research Highlights 2009 Future Energy / Environmental Materials By systematic crystal structure refinements of characteristic superconductor, FeSe1-xTex (x= 0.5, 0.625, 0.75, 0.875) and FeSe by the powder neutron diffraction technique, we studied the relationship between crystal structre and superconductivity. In this work, we found the role of Fe-X network (X; calcogens, pnictog...

We report the first case of the successful measurements of a localized spin antiferromagnetic transition in delafossite-type PdCrO2 by angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES). This demonstrates how to circumvent the shortcomings of ARPES for investigation of magnetism involved with localized spins in limited size of two-dimensional crystals or multi-layer thin films that neutron scatt...

Solid-state geometry optimizations and corresponding normal-mode analysis of the widely used energetic material cyclotrimethylenetrinitramine (RDX) were performed using density functional theory with both the generalized gradient approximation (BLYP and BP functionals) and the local density approximation (PWC and VWN functionals). The structural results were found to be in good agreement with e...

MnAs exhibits a first-order phase transition from a ferromagnetic, high-spin metal hexagonal phase to a paramagnetic, lower-spin insulator orthorhombic phase at T(C)=313 K. Here, we report the results of neutron diffraction experiments showing that an external magnetic field, B, stabilizes the hexagonal phase above T(C). The phase transformation is reversible and constitutes the first demonstra...

We present a detailed analysis of the heat capacity of a near-perfect S=1/2 kagome antiferromagnet, zinc paratacamite Zn(x)Cu(4-x)(OH)(6)Cl(2), as a function of stoichiometry x-->1 and for fields of up to 9 T. We obtain the heat capacity intrinsic to the kagome layers by accounting for the weak Cu2+/Zn2+ exchange between the Cu and the Zn sites, which was measured independently for x=1 using ne...

The magnetic properties of Ni-Mo metallic superlattices have been examined by magnetization and polarized-neutron diffraction measurements. The samples are ferromagnetic, with an ordering temperature rapidly increasing with the superlattice period A. The saturation magnetization per nickel atom also increases with A, gradually approaching the value of the pure metal. The proximity of molybdenum...

Using neutron diffraction, 170Yb Mössbauer and muon spin relaxation spectroscopies, we have examined the pyrochlore Yb2Ti2O7, where the Yb3+S' = 1/2 ground state has planar anisotropy. Below approximately 0.24 K, the temperature of the known specific-heat lambda transition, there is no long range magnetic order. We show that the transition corresponds to a first-order change in the fluctuation ...

Despite remarkable progress in developing multifunctional materials, spin-driven ferroelectrics featuring both spontaneous magnetization and electric polarization are still rare. Among such ferromagnetic ferroelectrics are conical spin spiral magnets with a simultaneous reversal of magnetization and electric polarization that is still little understood. Such materials can feature various multif...

Determination of the local configuration of interacting defects in a crystalline, periodic solid is problematic because defects typically do not have a long-range periodicity. Uranium dioxide, the primary fuel for fission reactors, exists in hyperstoichiometric form, UO(2+x). Those excess oxygen atoms occur as interstitial defects, and these defects are not random but rather partially ordered. ...

Most ice polymorphs have order-disorder "pairs" in terms of hydrogen positions, which contributes to the rich variety of ice polymorphs; in fact, three recently discovered polymorphs- ices XIII, XIV, and XV-are ordered counter forms to already identified disordered phases. Despite the considerable effort to understand order-disorder transition in ice crystals, there is an inconsistency among th...