Orbital-Hybridization-Driven Charge Density Wave Transition in CsV3 Sb5 Kagome Superconductor.

Owing to its inherent non-trivial geometry, the unique structural motif of the recently discovered kagome topological superconductor AV3 Sb5 (A = K, Rb, Cs) is an ideal host of diverse topologically non-trivial phenomena, including giant anomalous Hall conductivity, topological charge order, charge density wave (CDW), and unconventional superconductivity. Despite possessing a normal-state CDW order in the form of topological chiral charge order and diverse superconducting gaps structures, it remains unclear how fundamental atomic-level properties and many-body effects including Fermi surface nesting, electron-phonon coupling, and orbital hybridization contribute to these symmetry-breaking phenomena. Here, the direct participation of the V3d-Sb5p orbital hybridization in mediating the CDW phase transition in CsV3 Sb5 is reported. The combination of temperature-dependent X-ray absorption and first-principles studies clearly indicates the inverse Star-of-David structure as the preferred reconstruction in the low-temperature CDW phase. The results highlight the critical role that Sb orbitals play and establish orbital hybridization as the direct mediator of the CDW states and structural transition dynamics in kagome unconventional superconductors. This is a significant step toward the fundamental understanding and control of the emerging correlated phases from the kagome lattice through the orbital interactions and provides promising approaches to novel regimes in unconventional orders and topology.

Epitaxial growth of BaHfO3 buffer layer and its structure degeneration analysed by Raman spectrum.

BaHfO3 (BHO) has been proposed as a new cap layer material for YBa2Cu3O7-δ (YBCO) coated conductors. Highly c-axis oriented BHO cap layer has been deposited on ion-beam assisted deposition-MgO buffered Hastelloy tapes by direct-current-magnetron sputtering method. The epi-growth of BHO films combined with its properties is investigated in details. The degenerated cubic crystal structure of BHO film is confirmed by Raman spectrum analysis. XRD θ-2θ scan, φ-scan and ω-scan reveal an excellent c-axis alignment with good in-plane and out-of-plane textures for BHO cap layers. SEM and AFM investigations show BHO cap layer a dense and crack-free morphology. Subsequently pure c-axis orientation YBCO film was epitaxial grown on such BHO cap layer successfully, shown BaHfO3 a potential cap layer material for coated conductors.

Selective and effective adsorption of methyl blue by barium phosphate nano-flake.

We report the synthesis of barium phosphate (BP) nano-flake and its adsorption behavior to methyl blue (MB) in aqueous solution. The as-obtained BP nano-flake revealed pure rhombohedral crystal structure. The adsorption capacity of MB onto BP reached 1500 mg g(-1). The adsorption equilibrium results fitted well with the Freundlich isotherm model. The adsorption process took less than 30 min to reach equilibrium. The adsorption kinetics was elucidated by the pseudo-second-order kinetic equation. It followed 2-stage and 3-stage intra-particle diffusion models for the low and high concentration of dye solutions, respectively. The adsorption of MB using the BP nano-flake was highly selective, compared with the adsorption of other dyes. The interactions between MB and BP were mainly the ionic interaction and hydrogen bonds, which were confirmed by the X-ray photoelectron spectroscopic results and the density functional theory calculations. The BP nano-flake revealed less than 5% decrease in adsorption amount when it was recycled and reused five times. The present work shows that the BP nano-flake is promising for practical applications in MB removal from aqueous solutions.