Jiuning Hu

Thermal Conductivity and Thermal Rectification in Graphene Nanoribbons: A Molecular Dynamics Study

We have used molecular dynamics to calculate the thermal conductivity of symmetric and asymmetric graphene nanoribbons (GNRs) of several nanometers in size (up to approximately 4 nm wide and approximately 10 nm long). For symmetric nanoribbons, the calculated thermal conductivity (e.g., approximately 2000 W/m-K at 400 K for a 1.5 nm x 5.7 nm zigzag GNR) is on the similar order of magnitude of the experimentally measured value for graphene. We have investigated the effects of edge chirality and found that nanoribbons with zigzag edges have appreciably larger thermal conductivity than nanoribbons with armchair edges. For asymmetric nanoribbons, we have found significant thermal rectification. Among various triangularly shaped GNRs we investigated, the GNR with armchair bottom edge and a vertex angle of 30 degrees gives the maximal thermal rectification. We also studied the effect of defects and found that vacancies and edge roughness in the nanoribbons can significantly decrease the thermal conductivity. However, substantial thermal rectification is observed even in the presence of edge roughness.

First-order magnetic and structural phase transitions in Fe1+ySexTe1-x

We use bulk magnetic susceptibility, electronic specific heat, and neutron scattering to study structural and magnetic phase transitions in Fe1+ySexTe1-x. Fe1.068Te exhibits a first-order phase transition near 67 K with a tetragonal-to-monoclinic structural transition and simultaneously develops a collinear antiferromagnetic (AF) order responsible for the entropy change across the transition. Systematic studies of the FeSe1-xTex system reveal that the AF structure and lattice distortion in these materials are different from those of FeAs-based pnictides. These results call into question the conclusions of present density-functional calculations, where FeSe1-xTex and FeAs-based pnictides are expected to have similar Fermi surfaces and therefore the same spin-density wave AF order.

Nodeless superconducting gap in AxFe2Se2 (A=K,Cs) revealed by angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy

Pairing symmetry is a fundamental property that characterizes a superconductor. For the iron-based high-temperature superconductors, an s(±)-wave pairing symmetry has received increasing experimental and theoretical support. More specifically, the superconducting order parameter is an isotropic s-wave type around a particular Fermi surface, but it has opposite signs between the hole Fermi surfaces at the zone centre and the electron Fermi surfaces at the zone corners. Here we report the low-energy electronic structure of the newly discovered superconductors, A(x)Fe(2)Se(2) (A=K,Cs) with a superconducting transition temperature (Tc) of about 30 K. We found A(x)Fe(2)Se(2) (A=K,Cs) is the most heavily electron-doped among all iron-based superconductors. Large electron Fermi surfaces are observed around the zone corners, with an almost isotropic superconducting gap of ~10.3 meV, whereas there is no hole Fermi surface near the zone centre, which demonstrates that interband scattering or Fermi surface nesting is not a necessary ingredient for the unconventional superconductivity in iron-based superconductors. Thus, the sign change in the s(±) pairing symmetry driven by the interband scattering as suggested in many weak coupling theories becomes conceptually irrelevant in describing the superconducting state here. A more conventional s-wave pairing is probably a better description.

Tuning the thermal conductivity of graphene nanoribbons by edge passivation and isotope engineering: A molecular dynamics study

Using classical molecular dynamics simulation, we have studied the effect of edge-passivation by hydrogen (H-passivation) and isotope mixture (with random or superlattice distributions) on the thermal conductivity of rectangular graphene nanoribbons (GNRs) (of several nanometers in size). We find that the thermal conductivity is considerably reduced by the edge H-passivation. We also find that the isotope mixing can reduce the thermal conductivities, with the superlattice distribution giving rise to more reduction than the random distribution. These results can be useful in nanoscale engineering of thermal transport and heat management using GNRs.

Observation of topological surface state quantum Hall effect in an intrinsic three-dimensional topological insulator

Experimentalists have observed the predicted half-integer quantum Hall effect using the topological insulator BiSbTeSe2, which exhibits topological surface states at room temperature, with each surface contributing a half quantum of Hall conductance.

Thermal Transport in Graphene Nanostructures: Experiments and Simulations

a Birck Nanotechnology Center, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907 b School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907 c Department of Mechanical Engineering, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011 d School of Physics, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332 e Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Houston, Houston, Texas 77204 f Department of Physics, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907 g School of Mechanical Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907

Phonon Lateral Confinement Enables Thermal Rectification in Asymmetric Single-Material Nanostructures

We show that thermal rectification (TR) in asymmetric graphene nanoribbons (GNRs) is originated from phonon confinement in the lateral dimension, which is a fundamentally new mechanism different from that in macroscopic heterojunctions. Our molecular dynamics simulations reveal that, though TR is significant in nanosized asymmetric GNRs, it diminishes at larger width. By solving the heat diffusion equation, we prove that TR is indeed absent in both the total heat transfer rate and local heat flux for bulk-size asymmetric single materials, regardless of the device geometry or the anisotropy of the thermal conductivity. For a deeper understanding of why lateral confinement is needed, we have performed phonon spectra analysis and shown that phonon lateral confinement can enable three possible mechanisms for TR: phonon spectra overlap, inseparable dependence of thermal conductivity on temperature and space, and phonon edge localization, which are essentially related to each other in a complicated manner. Under such guidance, we demonstrate that other asymmetric nanostructures, such as asymmetric nanowires, thin films, and quantum dots, of a single material are potentially high-performance thermal rectifiers.

Electrical and thermal conductivities of reduced graphene oxide/polystyrene composites

The author reports an experimental study of electrical and thermal transport in reduced graphene oxide (RGO)/polystyrene (PS) composites. The electrical conductivity (σ) of RGO/PS composites with different RGO concentrations at room temperature shows a percolation behavior with the percolation threshold of ∼0.25 vol. %. Their temperature-dependent electrical conductivity follows Efros-Shklovskii variable range hopping conduction in the temperature range of 30–300 K. The thermal conductivity (κ) of composites is enhanced by ∼90% as the concentration is increased from 0 to 10 vol. %. The thermal conductivity of composites approximately linearly increases with increasing temperature from 150 to 300 K. Composites with a higher concentration show a stronger temperature dependence in the thermal conductivity.

Isotropic superconducting gaps with enhanced pairing on electron Fermi surfaces in FeTe0.55Se0.45

We used angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy to reveal directly the momentum distribution of the superconducting gap in FeTe1-xSex, which has the simplest structure of all Fe-based superconductors. We found isotropic superconducting gaps on all Fermi surfaces whose sizes can be fitted by a single gap function derived from a strong coupling approach, promoting local antiferromagnetic exchange interactions as a serious candidate for the pairing origin.

Electronic Identification of the Parental Phases and Mesoscopic Phase Separation of KxFe2-ySe2 Superconductors

F. Chen, 1 M. Xu,1 Q. Q. Ge, 1 Y. Zhang, 1, ∗ Z. R. Ye,1 L. X. Yang,1 Juan Jiang, 1 B. P. Xie,1 R. C. Che, 2 M. Zhang, 3 A. F. Wang, 3 X. H. Chen, 3 D. W. Shen, 4 X. M. Xie,4 M. H. Jiang, 4 J. P. Hu, 5 and D. L. Feng1, † 1State Key Laboratory of Surface Physics, Department of Physics, and Advanced Materials Laboratory, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, People’s Republic of China 2Department of Materials Science, and Advanced Materials Laboratory, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, People’s Republic of China 3Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at Microscale and Department of Physics, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230026, China 4State Key Laboratory of Functional Materials for Informatics, Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 20005 5Department of Physics, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana 47907, USA