Physics Commons^™

Atomic-Level Mechanisms Of Fast Relaxation In Metallic Glasses, Leo W. Zella

Doctoral Dissertations

Glasses are ubiquitous in daily life and have unique properties which are a consequence of the underlying disordered structure. By understanding the fundamental processes that govern these properties, we can modify glasses for desired applications. Key to understanding the structure-dynamics relationship in glasses is the variety of relaxation processes that exist below the glass transition temperature. Though these relaxations are well characterized with macroscopic experimental techniques, the microscopic nature of these relaxations is difficult to elucidate with experimental tools due to the requirements of timescale and spatial resolution. There remain many questions regarding the microscopic nature of relaxation in glass …

Chirality, Symmetry-Breaking, And Chemical Substitution In Multiferroics, Kiman Park

Doctoral Dissertations

Multiferroic materials attract significant attention due to their potential utility in a broad range of device applications. The inclusion of heavy metal centers in these materials enhances their magnetoelectric properties, yielding fascinating physical phenomena such as the Dzyaloshinskii–Moriya interaction, nonreciprocal directional dichroism, enhancement of spin-phonon coupling, and spin-orbit-entangled ground states. This dissertation provides a comprehensive survey of magnetoelectric multiferroics containing heavy metal centers and explores spectroscopic techniques under extreme conditions. A microscopic examination of phase transitions, symmetry-breaking, and structure-property relationships enhances the fundamental understanding of coupling mechanisms.

In A2Mo3O8 (A = Fe, Zn, Ni, and Mn), we use optical spectroscopy …

Exploring Skyrmions Dynamics And Structure Using Neutron Scattering, W-L-Namila Chandula Liyanage

Doctoral Dissertations

Magnetic skyrmions are topologically protected chiral spin textures with great potential for next-generation consumer technologies. These magnetic structures can be described as spins continuously wrapping into a closed coplanar loop, featuring a core and fencing perimeter with opposite out-of-plane orientations. While conventional depictions of magnetic skyrmions use a two-dimensional projection, recent research underscores the importance of their three-dimensional structure in determining their topology and stability. Magnetic skyrmions typically emerge just below the curie temperature of a magnetic material, creating what is known as a skyrmion pocket. In most materials the stability pocket is at low temperatures and finite fields, however …

Pressure - Temperature Phase Diagram Of Crsite3, J L. Musfeldt, David Mandrus, Zhenxian Liu

Chemistry Publications and Other Works

van der Waals solids are well known to host remarkable phase diagrams with competing phases, unusual energy transfer processes, and elusive states of matter. Among this class of materials, chalcogenides have emerged as the most flexible and relevant platforms for unraveling charge-structure-function relationships. In order to explore the properties of complex chalcogenides under external stimuli, we measured the far infrared spectroscopic response of CrSiTe3 under extreme pressure-temperature conditions. Analysis of the 368 cm−1 Si-Te stretching mode and the manner in which it is screened by the closure of the indirect gap reveals that the insulator-metal transition takes place immediately after …