Sarmistha Das

Boundary Lubricated Tribology of an Aluminum-Silicon Alloy Sliding Against Steel

We have slid steel pins on aluminium-silicon alloy discs in the boundary lubrication regime in the presence of one drop of oil. We have explored the effect of base oil and additivated engine oil on friction and wear and analyzed the data in terms of the formation of a mechanically mixed layer at the interface and the corrosive action of additive addition.

Cation disorder and epitaxial strain modulated Drude-Smith type terahertz conductivity and Hall-carrier switching in Ca1-x Ce x RuO3 thin films.

The CaRuO3 is a non-Fermi liquid pseudo-cubic perovskite with a magnetic ground state on the verge of phase transition and it lies in the vicinity of the quantum critical point. To understand the sensitivity of its ground state, the effects of subtle aliovalent chemical disorder on the static and high frequency dynamic conductivity in the coherently strained structures were explored. The Ce-doped Ca1-x Ce x RuO3 (0  ⩽  x  ⩽  0.1) thin films were deposited on LaAlO3 (1 0 0) and SrTiO3 (1 0 0) substrates and studies for low-energy terahertz (THz) carrier dynamics, dc transport and Hall effect. These compositions exhibited a very effective and unusual Hall-carrier switching in both compressive and tensile strain induced epitaxial thin films. The dc resistivity depicts a switching from a non-Fermi liquid to a Fermi liquid behavior without any magnetic phase transition. A discernible and gradual crossover from Drude to Drude-Smith THz dynamic optical conductivity was observed while traversing from pure to 10% Ce-doped CaRuO3 films. Overall, a nearly Fermi liquid behavior, effective carrier switching and unusual features in THz conductivity, were all novel features realized for the first time in physically and/or chemically modified CaRuO3. These new phases highlight the novel subtleties and versatility of the systems lying near the quantum critical point.

Low energy excitations and Drude-Smith carrier dynamics in Sm0.5Sr0.5MnO3

We have performed terahertz time-domain spectroscopic measurements on half-doped charge-ordered manganite Sm0.5Sr0.5MnO3 in the temperature range of 5-300 K to explore the possibilities of the charge density wave (CDW) ground state and understand the low energy charge carrier dynamics. While a resonance absorption peak at 0.275 meV suggests formation of a CDW condensate, the increase in background conductivity due to uncondensed carriers obey the Drude-Smith model of carrier dynamics. This study confirms that CDW is a generic feature of charge-ordered manganites.