We measured valence band offsets in Ta2O5–WO3, Ta2O5–Nb2O5 and WO3–Nb2O5 heterostructure couples by in situ x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, immediately following the bi-layer growth in ultra-high vacuum. Conduction band offsets were estimated using the measured valence band offsets in conjunction with the literature values for the respective band gaps. The offsets between Ta2O5 and WO3 and be...

The introduction of impurity atoms into semiconducting materials is the primary method for controlling the properties of the semiconductor, such as band gap or electrical conductivity. This practice is routinely performed with bulk semiconductors and, more recently, has been extended to nanoscale semiconductors as well. In particular, II–VI and III–V semiconductors that have been doped with tra...

Further increase in energy density of lithium batteries is needed for zero emission vehicles. However, energy density is restricted by unavoidable theoretical limits for positive electrodes used in commercial applications. One possibility towards energy densities exceeding these limits is to utilize anion (oxide ion) redox, instead of classical transition metal redox. Nevertheless, origin of ac...

Experimental and theoretical studies on the compositional dependence of stability and compressibility in lithiated cubic titania are presented. The crystalline-to-amorphous phase transition pressure increases monotonically with Li concentration (from ∼17.5  GPa for delithiated to no phase transition for fully lithiated cubic titania up to 60 GPa). The associated enhancement in structural stabil...

One emergent property of ferroelectric nanoparticles is the sized-induced structural distortion to a high-symmetry paraelectric phase at small particle sizes. Finite length scale effects can thus be advantageously employed to elucidate ferroelectric transition mechanisms. In this work, we combine infrared spectroscopy with group theory and lattice dynamics calculations to reveal the displacive ...

The interaction between itinerant and Mott localized electronic states in strongly correlated materials is studied within dynamical mean field theory in combination with the numerical renormalization group method. A novel nonmagnetic zero temperature quantum phase transition is found in the bad-metallic orbital-selective Mott phase of the two-band Hubbard model, for values of the Hund's exchang...

Sufeng Wei Key Laboratory of Advanced Structural Materials, Changchun University of Technology, Changchun 130012, People’s Republic of China Yan Liu Key Laboratory of Bionic Engineering (Ministry of Education), Jilin University, Changchun 130022, People’s Republic of China Jianshe Lian and Qing Jiang Key Laboratory of Automobile Materials, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Jilin ...

Density functional plus dynamical mean field calculations are used to show that in transition metal oxides, rotational and tilting (GdFeO(3)-type) distortions of the ideal cubic perovskite structure produce a multiplicity of low-energy optical transitions which affect the conductivity down to frequencies of the order of 1 or 2 mV (terahertz regime), mimicking non-Fermi-liquid effects even in sy...

Magnetic fluctuations in transition metal oxides are a subject of intensive research because of the key role they are expected to play in the transition from the Mott insulator to the unconventional metallic phase of these materials, and also as drivers of superconductivity. Despite much effort, a clear link between magnetic fluctuations and the insulator-to-metal transition has not yet been es...