Multiferroicity in plastically deformed SrTiO3.

Quantum materials have a fascinating tendency to manifest novel and unexpected electronic states upon proper manipulation. Ideally, such manipulation should induce strong and irreversible changes and lead to new relevant length scales. Plastic deformation introduces large numbers of dislocations into a material, which can organize into extended structures and give rise to qualitatively new physics as a result of the huge localized strains. However, this approach is largely unexplored in the context of quantum materials, which are traditionally grown to be as pristine and clean as possible. Here we show that plastic deformation induces robust magnetism in the quantum paraelectric SrTiO3, a property that is completely absent in the pristine material. We combine scanning magnetic measurements and near-field optical microscopy to find that the magnetic order is localized along dislocation walls and coexists with ferroelectric order along the walls. The magnetic signals can be switched on and off via external stress and altered by external electric fields, which demonstrates that plastically deformed SrTiO3 is a quantum multiferroic. These results establish plastic deformation as a versatile knob for the manipulation of the electronic properties of quantum materials.

Colossal Magnetoresistance without Mixed Valence in a Layered Phosphide Crystal.

Materials with strong magnetoresistive responses are the backbone of spintronic technology, magnetic sensors, and hard drives. Among them, manganese oxides with a mixed valence and a cubic perovskite structure stand out due to their colossal magnetoresistance (CMR). A double exchange interaction underlies the CMR in manganates, whereby charge transport is enhanced when the spins on neighboring Mn3+ and Mn4+ ions are parallel. Prior efforts to find different materials or mechanisms for CMR resulted in a much smaller effect. Here an enormous CMR at low temperatures in EuCd2 P2 without manganese, oxygen, mixed valence, or cubic perovskite structure is shown. EuCd2 P2 has a layered trigonal lattice and exhibits antiferromagnetic ordering at 11 K. The magnitude of CMR (104 %) in as-grown crystals of EuCd2 P2 rivals the magnitude in optimized thin films of manganates. The magnetization, transport, and synchrotron X-ray data suggest that strong magnetic fluctuations are responsible for this phenomenon. The realization of CMR at low temperatures without heterovalency leads to a new regime for materials and technologies related to antiferromagnetic spintronics.

An apparatus for rapid and nondestructive comparison of masks and respirators.

The SARS-CoV-2 global pandemic has produced widespread shortages of certified air-filtering personal protection equipment and an acute need for rapid evaluation of breathability and filtration efficiency of proposed alternative solutions. Here, we describe experimental efforts to nondestructively quantify three vital characteristics of mask approaches: breathability, material filtration effectiveness, and sensitivity to fit. We focus on protection against aqueous aerosols >0.3 µm using off-the-shelf particle, flow, and pressure sensors, permitting rapid comparative evaluation of these three properties. We present and discuss both the pressure drop and the particle penetration as a function of flow to permit comparison of relative protection for a set of proposed filter and mask designs. The design considerations of the testing apparatus can be reproduced by university laboratories and medical facilities and used for rapid local quality control of respirator masks that are of uncertified origin, monitoring the long-term effects of various disinfection schemes and evaluating improvised products not designed or marketed for filtration.

Isolation solution for extreme environmental vibrations for quantum-enabling cryogenic setups installed on raised frames.

Cryogenic quantum sensing techniques are developing alongside the ever-increasing requirements for noiseless experimental environments. For instance, several groups have isolated internal system vibrations from cold heads in closed-cycle dilution refrigerators. However, these solutions often do not account for external vibrations, necessitating novel strategies to isolate the entire cryogenic systems from their environments in a particular set of raised cryostats. Here, we introduce a dual-stage external active vibration-isolation solution in conjunction with a closed-cycle dilution refrigerator that isolates it from the environment. This dual stage includes two sets of active attenuators and a customized steel tower for supporting experimental probes at heights of 3 m from the floor. Both stages achieve 20-40 dB of attenuation with the active systems engaged, corresponding to levels of vibration in the VC-G range (a standardized Vibration Criterion appropriate for extremely quiet research spaces) on the cryostat's room temperature baseplate and the steel tower. Our unique vibration isolation solution therefore expands the applications of modern cryogenic equipment beyond exclusively quiet specialty buildings, rendering such equipment suitable for interdisciplinary, open-floor research centers.

Electron pairing in the pseudogap state revealed by shot noise in copper oxide junctions.

In the quest to understand high-temperature superconductivity in copper oxides, debate has been focused on the pseudogap-a partial energy gap that opens over portions of the Fermi surface in the 'normal' state above the bulk critical temperature1. The pseudogap has been attributed to precursor superconductivity, to the existence of preformed pairs and to competing orders such as charge-density waves1-4. A direct determination of the charge of carriers as a function of temperature and bias could help resolve among these alternatives. Here we report measurements of the shot noise of tunnelling current in high-quality La2-xSrxCuO4/La2CuO4/La2-xSrxCuO4 (LSCO/LCO/LSCO) heterostructures fabricated using atomic layer-by-layer molecular beam epitaxy at several doping levels. The data delineate three distinct regions in the bias voltage-temperature space. Well outside the superconducting gap region, the shot noise agrees quantitatively with independent tunnelling of individual charge carriers. Deep within the superconducting gap, shot noise is greatly enhanced, reminiscent of multiple Andreev reflections5-7. Above the critical temperature and extending to biases much larger than the superconducting gap, there is a broad region in which the noise substantially exceeds theoretical expectations for single-charge tunnelling, indicating pairing of charge carriers. These pairs are detectable deep into the pseudogap region of temperature and bias. The presence of these pairs constrains current models of the pseudogap and broken symmetry states, while phase fluctuations limit the domain of superconductivity.

Nonsinusoidal current-phase relationship in Josephson junctions from the 3D topological insulator HgTe.

We use superconducting quantum interference device microscopy to characterize the current-phase relation (CPR) of Josephson junctions from the three-dimensional topological insulator HgTe (3D HgTe). We find clear skewness in the CPRs of HgTe junctions ranging in length from 200 to 600 nm. The skewness indicates that the Josephson current is predominantly carried by Andreev bound states with high transmittance, and the fact that the skewness persists in junctions that are longer than the mean free path suggests that the effect may be related to the helical nature of the Andreev bound states in the surface of HgTe. These experimental results suggest that the topological properties of the normal state can be inherited by the induced superconducting state, and that 3D HgTe is a promising material for realizing the many exciting proposals that require a topological superconductor.

Direct measurement of current-phase relations in superconductor/topological insulator/superconductor junctions.

Proximity to a superconductor is predicted to induce exotic quantum phases in topological insulators. Here, scanning superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) microscopy reveals that aluminum superconducting rings with topologically insulating Bi2Se3 junctions exhibit a conventional, nearly sinusoidal 2π-periodic current-phase relations. Pearl vortices occur in longer junctions, indicating suppressed superconductivity in aluminum, probably due to a proximity effect. Our observations establish scanning SQUID as a general tool for characterizing proximity effects and for measuring current-phase relations in new materials systems.

Large oscillations of the magnetoresistance in nanopatterned high-temperature superconducting films.

Measurements on nanoscale structures constructed from high-temperature superconductors are expected to shed light on the origin of superconductivity in these materials. To date, loops made from these compounds have had sizes of the order of hundreds of nanometres(8-11). Here, we report the results of measurements on loops of La(1.84)Sr(0.16)CuO(4), a high-temperature superconductor that loses its resistance to electric currents when cooled below approximately 38 K, with dimensions down to tens of nanometres. We observe oscillations in the resistance of the loops as a function of the magnetic flux through the loops. The oscillations have a period of h/2e, and their amplitude is much larger than the amplitude of the resistance oscillations expected from the Little-Parks effect. Moreover, unlike Little-Parks oscillations, which are caused by periodic changes in the superconducting transition temperature, the oscillations we observe are caused by periodic changes in the interaction between thermally excited moving vortices and the oscillating persistent current induced in the loops. However, despite the enhanced amplitude of these oscillations, we have not detected oscillations with a period of h/e, as recently predicted for nanoscale loops of superconductors with d-wave symmetry, or with a period of h/4e, as predicted for superconductors that exhibit stripes.