Giant isotropic negative thermal expansion in Y-doped samarium monosulfides by intra-atomic charge transfer.

Stimulated by strong demand for thermal expansion control from advanced modern industries, various giant negative thermal expansion (NTE) materials have been developed during the last decade. Nevertheless, most such materials exhibit anisotropic thermal expansion in the crystal lattice. Therefore, strains and cracks induced during repeated thermal cycling degrade their performance as thermal-expansion compensators. Here we achieved giant isotropic NTE with volume change exceeding 3%, up to 4.1%, via control of the electronic configuration in Sm atoms of SmS, (4 f)6 or (4 f)5(5d)1, by partial replacement of Sm with Y. Contrary to NTE originating from cooperative phenomena such as magnetism, the present NTE attributable to the intra-atomic phenomenon avoids the size effect of NTE and therefore provides us with fine-grained thermal-expansion compensators, which are strongly desired to control thermal expansion of microregions such as underfill of a three-dimensional integrated circuit. Volume control of lanthanide monosulfides via tuning of the 4 f electronic configuration presents avenues for novel mechanical functions of a material, such as a volume-change driven actuator by an electrical field, which has a different drive principle from those of conventional strain-driven actuators such as piezostrictive or magnetostrictive materials.

Near-field spectroscopic investigation of dual-band heavy fermion metamaterials.

Broadband tunability is a central theme in contemporary nanophotonics and metamaterials research. Combining metamaterials with phase change media offers a promising approach to achieve such tunability, which requires a comprehensive investigation of the electromagnetic responses of novel materials at subwavelength scales. In this work, we demonstrate an innovative way to tailor band-selective electromagnetic responses at the surface of a heavy fermion compound, samarium sulfide (SmS). By utilizing the intrinsic, pressure sensitive, and multi-band electron responses of SmS, we create a proof-of-principle heavy fermion metamaterial, which is fabricated and characterized using scanning near-field microscopes with <50 nm spatial resolution. The optical responses at the infrared and visible frequency ranges can be selectively and separately tuned via modifying the occupation of the 4f and 5d band electrons. The unique pressure, doping, and temperature tunability demonstrated represents a paradigm shift for nanoscale metamaterial and metasurface design.

Spiral-spin-driven ferroelectricity in a multiferroic delafossite AgFeO2.

We have performed dielectric measurements and neutron diffraction experiments on the delafossite AgFeO2. A ferroelectric polarization P is approximately equal to 300 µC/m2 was observed in a powder sample, below 9 K. The neutron diffraction experiment demonstrated successive magnetostructural phase transitions at T(N1)=15 K and T(N2)=9 K. The magnetic structure for 9 K≤T≤15 K is a spin-density wave with a temperature dependent incommensurate modulation k=(-1, q, 1/2), q is approximately equal to 0.384. Below 9 K, the magnetic structure turns into elliptical cycloid with the incommensurate propagation vector k=(-1/2,q,1/2), q is approximately equal to 0.2026 Based on the deduced magnetic point-group symmetry m1' of the low-temperature polar phase, we conclude that the ferroelectric polarization in AgFeO2 is perpendicular to the monoclinic b axis and is driven by the inverse Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya effect with two orthogonal components p1 is proportional to r(ij)×(S(i)×S(j)) and p2 is proportional to S(i)×S(j).