EDITORS' SUGGESTION
Altermagnets are unconventional type of magnetic materials with intriguing properties. CrSb is particularly important because of its high ordering temperature and large spin-splitting energy. Here, the authors measured the magnetotransport properties of CrSb. Employing focused-ion-beam machining, they prepared micro-sized lamellar samples to measure all independent Hall tensor components. The Hall resistivity was highly non-linear at low temperatures, but an anomalous Hall effect was ruled out by symmetry-based considerations. Instead, the magnetotransport properties are well explained by a multicarrier effect. Notably, the analysis revealed the presence of carriers with the highest mobility reported for altermagnets so far.
Takahiro Urata, Wataru Hattori, and Hiroshi Ikuta
Phys. Rev. Materials 8, 084412 (2024)
EDITORS' SUGGESTION
To explore new magnetic topological insulators, the authors grew high quality single crystals of (GeMn)BiTe (GeMn225) (x ≤ 0.47, 0.11 ≤ δ ≤ 0.20) by flux and chemical vapor transport methods. Elemental analysis and diffraction data reveal Ge/Bi site mixing and Ge vacancies, with Mn atoms occupying the inner two layers. The x=0.47 sample exhibits bilayer A-type antiferromagnetism with the easy axis along the c-axis below 10.8 K. Compared to MnBiTe, it shows enhanced effective interlayer AFM exchange and much reduced uniaxial anisotropy. This study highlights the potential of these materials for investigating emergent phenomena, including the layer Hall and quantum metric nonlinear Hall effects.
Tiema Qian et al.
Phys. Rev. Materials 8, 084203 (2024)
EDITORS' SUGGESTION
There is motivation to develop materials with photovoltaic performance comparable to halide perovskites but without the drawbacks of instability and toxicity. Chalcogenide perovskites are interesting because they have a tunable direct band gap and are very stable, but their optoelectronic properties are not yet well understood. This study of Raman and photoluminescence spectroscopy of BaZrS and CsPbBr single-crystal samples reveals differences in their vibrational properties and explores how these differences affect nonradiative recombination rates. The results suggest that the usefulness of chalcogenide perovskites for photovoltaics will hinge on continued progress in defect control.
Kevin Ye et al.
Phys. Rev. Materials 8, 085402 (2024)
EDITORS' SUGGESTION
Although intrinsic magnetic topological insulator heterostructures are thought to be an ideal system to examine the interplay of topology and magnetism, unintended disorder can alter their property. In this study, the authors combine atom-resolved characterization as well as theoretical calculation and investigate the structural and magnetic properties of heterostructures formed by MnBiSe and BiSe. They clarify the magnetic coupling between Mn atoms placed at different sites and furthermore, detect a clear magnetic signal in the nonmagnetic element Se, providing direct evidence of its magnetic interaction with Mn. This study highlights the need to examine the magnetism of each atom carefully in these systems.
R. Fukushima et al.
Phys. Rev. Materials 8, 084202 (2024)
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LETTER
Oxide molecular beam epitaxy is a powerful synthesis technique capable of creating complex layered structures with elements in high oxidation states. The authros start with the SrCrO Ruddlesden-Popper series. This system contains the magnetic Cr cation which gives rise to electronic correlations that vary as a function of structural dimensionality: SrCrO and SrCrO possess enhanced spin and orbital ordering temperatures compared to the SrCrO end member. In this work, they synthesize films for to , uncovering a metal to insulator transition. They seek the physical origins of the concomitant spin and orbital orderings – both experimentally with x-ray absorption spectroscopy measurements, and theoretically with density functional theory calculations. Their results unveil the basis of these exotic ground states, including additional structural distortions that play a key role in the system and enable the metal-insulator transitions.
Spencer Doyle et al.
Phys. Rev. Materials 8, L071602 (2024)
EDITORS' SUGGESTION
When two different polymers are blended, they form phase-separated emulsions with weak interfaces. These recycled materials are inferior to the original plastics, posing a fundamental challenge for recycling mixed plastic waste streams. An emerging solution to this problem is the addition of a multiblock copolymer compatibilizer to “stitch together” the interface. Using coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulations, Collanton and Dorfman examined how interfacial toughness is impacted by the number of blocks in the compatibilizer and the copolymer loading, connecting the microstructural features of the interface to its failure mechanism.
Ryan P. Collanton and Kevin D. Dorfman
Phys. Rev. Materials 8, 075604 (2024)
EDITORS' SUGGESTION
In this study, the authors take advantage of the emergence time-resolved mechanical spectroscopy to investigate the formation and aging of enzymatic milk gels, made of soft natural colloids. By coupling rheometric measurements with structural characterizations, they reveal two sequential steps in the aging process. First, the open particulate network rapidly matures into a compact network, increasing gel elasticity and evolving the viscoelastic spectrum. Second, the microstructure “freezes” at a critical time, after which aging proceeds through contact-driven mechanisms. This two-step aging process is crucial for industrial cheese processing and contrasts with the aging of hard particle colloidal gels, where the overall network structure remains constant throughout aging.
Julien Bauland, Gouranga Manna, Thibaut Divoux, and Thomas Gibaud
Phys. Rev. Materials 8, L072601 (2024)
EDITORS' SUGGESTION
Hydrogen embrittlement severely impacts structural materials such as iron and its alloys. This study aims to understand hydrogen-enhanced decohesion in ferritic steel grain boundaries (GBs). Density functional theory calculations are carried out to investigate the influence of H on the decohesion of the 5(310)[001] and 3(112)[1-10] symmetrical tilt GBs in body-centered cubic (bcc) Fe and Fe+ systems, where = C, Cr, V, or Mn. The findings indicate that higher local concentrations of hydrogen significantly reduce GB cohesive strength, especially at the 5 GB. However, at finite stress, the 3 GB becomes more favorable for hydrogen segregation, suggesting hydrogen redistribution due to stresses in the microstructure can enhance hydrogen resistance.
Abril Azócar Guzmán and Rebecca Janisch
Phys. Rev. Materials 8, 073601 (2024)
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EDITORS' SUGGESTION
Low or quasi reduced-dimensional crystal structures are associated with enhanced electronic correlations and emergent quantum behavior. Despite wide interest, identification of new material examples remains restricted by the lack of chemical rules for predicting the structure of extended solids. The authors present the antagonistic pairs approach to discover intermetallic compounds with reduced dimensional structural motifs. By using a pair of strongly immiscible atoms (an antagonistic pair) with a mutually compatible third element, they show that ternary compounds can be formed in which the compatible third element separates the immiscible elements into distinct crystallographic substructures. Quasi-low dimensional structural units, such as sheets, chains, or clusters are the consequence of the immiscible atoms trying to avoid close contact in the solid state. As an example, the authors outline the discovery of LaCo ( = Pb, Bi, Sb), a family of intermetallic compounds in which the La separates the highly immiscible Co-Pb or Co-Bi atoms into a quasi-layered structure. They anticipate that their approach is a generalizable design principle for discovering new materials and new structure types containing low-dimensional substructures.
Tyler J. Slade et al.
Phys. Rev. Materials 8, 064401 (2024)