Séminaire DMONS présenté par Kshirsagar Aseem RAJAN

  1. Light tunable gas adsorption in functionalized metal-organic frameworks: insights from ab initio methods Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) functionalized with azobenzene, a photo-isomerizing molecule, are capable of light stimulated capture and release of CO2. Using ab initio density functional theory (DFT) based atomistic modelling, the microscopic mechanism behind the light tunable gas uptake in azobenzene functionalized MOF-5 is revealed to be the blocking and unblocking of the metal-node, by distinct geometric configurations of azobenzene. A practical environment-consistent Bethe-Salpeter equation (BSE) approach is used for an accurate description of the photo-excitations of the photo switches to propose strategies for achieving high yields of photo switching. Our study also shows that electronic excitations in the prototype MOF-5 give rise to strongly bound states of electron-hole pair, analogous to organic insulators.
  2. Modulation of magnetization in BiFeO3 using circularly polarized light Dynamic and efficient control of the characteristic spin texture of multiferroic BiFeO3 is attractive for emerging quantum devices. Crystal-field d → d excitations localized on Fe atomic sites in BiFeO3 induce a complex interplay among the spin, charge and lattice degrees of freedom, making them relevant for manipulation of the spin texture. Ab initio methods based on the GW approximation and the BSE are used to characterize localized spin-flip excitations within Fe-3d shell. These excitations are strongly bound and appear deep within the electronic gap. Their spin-content and strong localization are protected by the antiferromagnetic ordering. The underlying crystal symmetry gives rise to chiral spin-flip exciton states localized on distinct Fe centers. These chiral excitons couple selectively to light of a particular circular polarization and are confined to a particular Fe magnetic sub-lattice. As a consequence, net spin- magnetization can be achieved using circularly polarized light coupling with exciton of desired chirality, thereby modulating the antiferromagnetic texture and giving rise to transient ferrimagnetism.
  3. Future directions: Understanding charge-lattice-spin coupling using ab initio methods
    In transition-metal oxides, localized excitons can give rise to a complex interplay of spin-charge-lattice degrees of freedom. I intend to motivate and sketch an investigation of the coupling of these excitons with lattice motion and its relevance for optomechanical control.

Pour tout contact : Mébarek ALOUANI : mebarek.alouani@ipcms.unistra.fr

Webinaire DMONS présenté par M. Benjamin Bacq-Labreuil

Benjamin BACQ-LABREUIL (Institut Quantique de l’Université de Sherbrooke – Canada)

Résumé : High-temperature n-layer cuprate superconductors have the remarkable universal feature that the maximum transition temperature Tc is always obtained for the tri-layer compound. It remains unclear how the recent breakthroughs, highlighting the relation of the charge transfer gap (CTG) and the spin exchange J with the pairing density, can be related to this universality. By integrating an exact diagonalization solver to a density functional theory (DFT) plus cluster dynamical mean-field theory (CDMFT) framework, we were able to carry charge self-consistent DFT+CDMFT calculations for n =1-5 multilayer cuprates. Remarkably, the undoped compounds already host a peculiar behavior as a function of n: the CTG first decreases until reaching a minimum at n=3, and then stabilizes. The CTG is smaller in the inner CuO2 planes, and consequently the spin exchange J is larger as compared to the outer planes, which corroborates the experimental evidence of stronger antiferromagnetic spin fluctuations in the inner planes. We trace back the miscroscopic origin of these observations to the existence of interstitial conduction states confined between the CuO2 layers which favor the inner planes. Our work paves the way towards ab initio material-specific predictions of the superconducting order parameter.

Pour tout contact : Mébarek ALOUANI : mebarek.alouani@ipcms.unistra.fr

Liens de connexion le 05 mars 2024  à partir de 14h50 :

https://cnrs.zoom.us/j/94911816568?pwd=c0JoY2EyU1VJOG5SN2NsQXNDRG81Zz09
ID de réunion: 949 1181 6568
Code secret: 0FaFbn

Séminaire DMONS/DSI présenté par Sophie WEBER

Sophie WEBER (ETH-Zurich, Department of Materials, Zurich, Switzerland)

Theoretical arguments [1,2] and experimental measurements [3-6] have definitively shown that antiferromagnets (AFMs) with particular bulk symmetries can possess a nonzero magnetic dipole moment per unit area or “surface magnetization” on certain surface facets. Such surface magnetization underlies intriguing physical phenomena like interfacial magnetic coupling, and can be used as a readout method of antiferromagnetic domains. However, a universal description and understanding of antiferromagnetic surface magnetization is lacking. I first introduce a classification system based on whether the surface magnetization is sensitive or robust to roughness, and on whether the magnetic dipoles at the surface of interest are compensated or uncompensated. I then show that every type of surface magnetization can be identified and understood in terms of bulk magnetic multipoles, which are already established as symmetry indicators for bulk magnetoelectric responses [7]. This intimate correspondence between antiferromagnetic surface magnetization and magnetoelectric responses at both linear and higher orders reveals that selection and control of the antiferromagnetic order parameter via magnetoelectric annealing may be possible in many more materials and surfaces than previously believed. I use density functional calculations to illustrate that nominally compensated (10-10) and (-12-10) surfaces in magnetoelectric Cr2O3 develop a finite magnetization density at the surface, in agreement with our predictions based on both group theory and the ordering of the bulk multipoles. Finally, I present magnetotransport results by collaborators confirming our ab-initio and theoretical predictions of finite magnetization on these surfaces. Our analysis [8,9] provides a comprehensive basis for understanding the surface magnetic properties and their intimate correspondence to bulk magnetoelectric effects in antiferromagnets, and may have important implications for technologically relevant phenomena such as exchange bias coupling.
[1] A. F. Andreev, JETP Lett. 63, 756 (1996)
[2] K. D. Belashchenko, Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 147204 (2010)
[3] X. H et al, Nature Mat. 9, 579 (2010)
[4] N. Wu et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 106, 087202 (2011)
[5] P. Appel et al., Nano Lett. 19, 1682 (2019)
[6] M. S. Wörnle et al., Phys. Rev. B 103, 094426 (2021)
[7] N. A. Spaldin et al., Phys. Rev. B 88, 094429 (2013)
[8] S. F. Weber et al., arXiv:2306.06631 (2023)
[9] O. V. Pylypovskyi, S. F. Weber et al., arXiv 2310.13438 (2023)

Contact : Mébarek ALOUANI : mebarek.alouani@ipcms.unistra.fr

Séminaire DMONS – Axe 1 présenté par Horacio Miguel PASTAWSKI

Horacio Miguel PASTAWSKI (Instituto de Física Enrique Gaviola, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba-CONICET, Academia Nacional de Ciencias-Argentina)

Résumé :

I will describe the qualitative features of our three-decade long experimental and theoretical quest to
identify emergent phenomena within the quantum dynamics of spin and charge excitations. A quantum
phase transition occurs as an analytical discontinuity of a physical observable, as illustrated by the
Anderson metal-insulator transition in disordered systems. We observed a clear phase transition in the
case of two interacting nuclear spins undergoing Rabi oscillations in presence of a spin environment [1],
that, according to the Fermi Golden Rule, results in an imaginary energy in a 2×2 non-Hermitian effective
Hamiltonian [2]. The oscillations became a purely exponential decay when their coupling strength fell
below a critical value. Our first experimental hint that many-body interactions could lead to irreversible
dynamics, appeared when confronting the insurmountable limitations in performing a perfect time-
reversal procedure, even in a fairly well-controlled setting of nuclear spins [3]. After a decade of work,
we experimentally observed [4] a phase transition to an intrinsically irreversible regime in the
thermodynamic limit. However, its analytical proof has initially eluded us [5]. Recently, we observed a
striking universal stability of coherently diffusive one-dimensional systems with respect to decoherence
[6]. This approach gives a new insight to the “poised realm” hypothesis, promoted for biological systems,
stating that the edge of chaos is a favorable condition to charge and excitonic transport. As pointed out
by R. Laughlin, classical chaos can lead to diffusion, and hence, to a form of quantum dynamics extremely
robust against environmental noise.


[1] Environmentally induced quantum dynamical phase transition in a spin swapping operation, G.A. Álvarez, E.P.Danieli,
P.R.Levstein, and H.M. Pastawski,J. Chem. Phys. 124, 1 (2006);
[2] Revisiting the Fermi Golden Rule: Quantum dynamical phase transition as a paradigm shift H. M. Pastawski Physica B 398,
278 (2007);
[3] Attenuation of polarization echoes in NMR: A test for the emergence of Dynamical Irreversibility in Many-Body Quantum
Systems. P.R. Levstein, G. Usaj, H.M. Pastawski, J. Chem. Phys. 108, 2718 (1998);
[4] Perturbation-independent decay of the Loschmidt echo in a many-spin system studied through scaled dipolar dynamics. C.M.
Sánchez, A.K. Chattah, K.X. Wei, L. Buljubasich, P. Cappellaro, and H.M. Pastawski, Phys. Rev. Lett. 124, 030601 (2020);
[5] Loschmidt echo in many-spin systems: a quest for intrinsic decoherence and emergent irreversibility P. R. Zangara and H. M.
Pastawski, Phys. Scr. 92, 033001(2017);
[6] Universal stability of coherently diffusive 1D systems with respect to decoherence. F.S. Lozano-Negro, E. Alvarez Navarro,
N.C. Chávez, F. Mattiotti, F. Borgonovi, H.M. Pastawski, G.L.Celardo, arXiv.2307.05656.

Pour tout contact : Rodolfo JALABERT : rodolfo.jalabert@ipcms.unistra.fr

Séminaire DMONS/DSI – Axe 1 : présenté par Anna Galler

Anna GALLER / Institute of Theoretical and Computational Physics, Graz University of Technology, Austria

Résumé : Optical phenomena in solids are fascinating and of great importance for technological applications. In this talk, I will first present a novel approach to compute the optical response and color of new inorganic pigment materials from first principles. I will show that the brilliant colors of my target materials, certain transition-metal oxides and rare-earth semiconductors, are strongly influenced by the presence of transition-metal and rare-earth electronic states, whose theoretical treatment requires elaborate many-body techniques.
The second part of the seminar will be focused on nonlinear optical phenomena. I will investigate the response of monolayer hexagonal boron nitride, a prototypical 2D semiconductor, to intense ultrafast laser pulses. I will show that the conduction band charge occupation induced by an elliptically polarized laser can be understood in a multi-photon resonant picture, but remarkably, only if using the Floquet light-dressed states instead of the undressed matter states.
[1] Ransmayr, Tomczak and Galler, PRM 6, 105003 (2022)
[2] Galler, Rubio and Neufeld, J. Phys. Chem. Lett. 14, 50, 11298–11304 (2023)

Pour tout contact : Mébarek ALOUANI : mebarek.alouani@ipcms.unistra.fr