We report the growth of superconducting Sr2RuO4 thin films by molecular-beam epitaxy on (110) NdGaO3 substrates with transition temperatures of up to 1.8 K. We calculate and experimentally validate a thermodynamic growth window for the adsorption-controlled growth of superconducting Sr2RuO4 epitaxial thin films. The growth window for achieving superconducting Sr2RuO4 thin films is narrow in growth temperature, oxidant pressure, and ruthenium-to-strontium flux ratio. © 2018 Author(s).

Surface plasmons at a metal/dielectric interface resonate with incident light, generating an evanescent field at the interface, which is highly sensitive to the change in refractive index of the medium. These characteristics are utilized as the basis for surface plasmon resonance-based sensors with Kretschmann configuration, providing label-free and real-time monitoring of binding interaction between probe and target moieties.

Strong electronic correlations, emerging from the parent Mott insulator phase, are key to copper-based high-temperature superconductivity. By contrast, the parent phase of an iron-based high-temperature superconductor is never a correlated insulator. However, this distinction may be deceptive because Fe has five actived d orbitals while Cu has only one. In theory, such orbital multiplicity can generate a Hund’s metal state, in which alignment of the Fe spins suppresses inter-orbital fluctuations, producing orbitally selective strong correlations.

Fundamental biological processes require concurrent sharing of DNA by numerous motor proteins and complexes. Thus, collision, congestion, and roadblocks are inescapable on these busy “molecular highways.†The consequences of these traffic problems are diverse, resulting in complex cellular mechanisms to resolve threats to genome stability and ensure cellular viability. Here, we review the different types of events and the diverse consequences that an RNA polymerase may encounter during transcription.

Unusual behavior in quantum materials commonly arises from their effective low-dimensional physics, reflecting the underlying anisotropy in the spin and charge degrees of freedom. Here we introduce the magnetotropic coefficient k = ∂2F/∂θ2, the second derivative of the free energy F with respect to the magnetic field orientation θ in the crystal. We show that the magnetotropic coefficient can be quantitatively determined from a shift in the resonant frequency of a commercially available atomic force microscopy cantilever under magnetic field.

Since the discovery of the large spin Hall effect in certain heavy metals, there has been continuous interest in utilizing this spin-orbit torque (SOT) effect in constructing a non-volatile memory that can be switched by an electric current. The key to future application of this type of memory is achieving both a short write time and a low write current, which will lower the energy cost compared to existing and other emerging memory technologies.

We report very efficient spin-current generation by the spin Hall effect in the alloy Au0.25Pt0.75, which, as determined by two different direct spin-orbit torque measurements, exhibits a giant internal spin Hall ratio of ≥0.58 (antidamping spin-orbit torque efficiency of approximately 0.35 in bilayers with Co), a relatively low resistivity of approximately 83 μΩ cm, an exceptionally large spin Hall conductivity of ≥7.0×105Ω-1m-1, and a spin diffusion length of 1.7 nm.

Natural organisms use a combination of contracting muscles and inextensible fibers to transform into controllable shapes, camouflage into their surrounding environment, and catch prey. Replicating these capabilities with engineered materials is challenging because of the difficulty inmanufacturing and controlling soft material actuators with embedded fibers.

Niobium-3 Tin (Nb3Sn) is a very promising alternative material for SRF accelerator cavities. The material can achieve higher quality factors, higher temperature operation and potentially higher accelerating gradients (Eacc ˜ 96 MV/m) compared to conventional niobium. This material is formed by vaporizing Sn in a high temperature vacuum furnace and letting the Sn absorb into a Nb substrate to form a 2-3 µm Nb3Sn layer. Current Nb3Sn cavities produced at Cornell achieve Q ˜ 2 · 1010 at 4.2 K and Eacc = 17 MV/m.

In recent years, the success of serial femtosecond crystallography and the paucity of beamtime at X-ray free-electron lasers have motivated the development of serial microcrystallography experiments at storage-ring synchrotron sources. However, especially at storage-ring sources, if a crystal is too small it will have suffered significant radiation damage before diffracting a sufficient number of X-rays into Bragg peaks for peak-indexing software to determine the crystal orientation. As a consequence, the data frames of small crystals often cannot be indexed and are discarded.