ICFO – The Institute of Photonic Sciences

About: ICFO – The Institute of Photonic Sciences is a facility organization based out in Barcelona, Spain. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Quantum & Quantum entanglement. The organization has 872 authors who have published 1965 publications receiving 56273 citations.

Supergiant Barocaloric Effects in Acetoxy Silicone Rubber over a Wide Temperature Range: Great Potential for Solid-state Cooling

Abstract: Solid-state cooling based on caloric effects is considered a viable alternative to replace the conventional vapor-compression refrigeration systems. Regarding barocaloric materials, recent results show that elastomers are promising candidates for cooling applications around room-temperature. In the present paper, we report supergiant barocaloric effects observed in acetoxy silicone rubber—a very popular, low-cost and environmentally friendly elastomer. Huge values of adiabatic temperature change and reversible isothermal entropy change were obtained upon moderate applied pressures and relatively low strains. These huge barocaloric changes are associated both to the polymer chain rearrangements induced by confined compression and to the first-order structural transition. The results are comparable to the best barocaloric materials reported so far, opening encouraging prospects for the application of elastomers in near future solid-state cooling devices.

Two interacting ultracold molecules in a one-dimensional harmonic trap

Abstract: Properties of two interacting ultracold polar molecules trapped in a one-dimensional harmonic potential are studied with the quantum rigid-rotor model. The interplay of the molecular rotational structure, anisotropic dipolar interactions, spin-rotation coupling, electric and magnetic fields, and the harmonic trapping potential are examined in detail.

Gross-Neveu-Wilson model and correlated symmetry-protected topological phases

Abstract: We show that a Wilson-type discretization of the Gross-Neveu model, a fermionic N-flavor quantum field theory displaying asymptotic freedom and chiral symmetry breaking, can serve as a playground to explore correlated symmetry-protected phases of matter using techniques borrowed from high-energy physics A large- N study, both in the Hamiltonian and Euclidean formalisms, yields a phase diagram with trivial, topological, and symmetry-broken phases separated by critical lines that meet at a tri-critical point We benchmark these predictions using tools from condensed matter and quantum information science, which show that the large-N method captures the essence of the phase diagram even at N = 1 Moreover, we describe a cold-atom scheme for the quantum simulation of this lattice model, which would allow to explore the single-flavor phase diagram

Two-Dimensional Impulsively Stimulated Resonant Raman Spectroscopy of Molecular Excited States

Abstract: C. S. acknowledges financial support by the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851. G. Bat. acknowledges the “Avvio Alla Ricerca 2018” grant by Sapienza Universita di Roma. T. W. acknowledges the Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowship (PIEF-GA-2013-623651) within the 7th European Community Framework Programme. S. M. gratefully acknowledges the support of the National Science Foundation Grant No. CHE-1663822.

Current Transport Through Lead–Borosilicate Interfacial Glass Layers at the Screen–Printed Silver-Silicon Front Contact

Abstract: During the firing of screen-printed silver contacts in industrial crystalline silicon solar cells, an interfacial glass layer is formed between the silver bulk contact and the silicon substrate. By means of numerical modeling, we investigate conduction mechanisms across the interfacial glass layer, which consists of lead–borosilicate glass enclosing silver colloids. As there is a considerable lack of parameters for the interfacial glass layer, we revisit properties of similar materials such as as-grown crystalline and polycrystalline lead monoxide. We revise characteristics of applications that use similar glasses, such as photodetectors, thick-film transistors, and surface passivation. We propose that current transport via the interfacial glass is similar to the one in thick-film resistors based on ruthenium-doped lead–borosilicate glass. Device simulations are performed using direct tunneling, trap-assisted tunneling, and a conducting insulator model for current transport across the interfacial glass layer. The tunneling mechanisms are only effective for thin interfacial glass layers up to 2 nm. A combination of direct tunneling and the conducting insulator modeling is well suited to model interfacial glass layers between 0.5 and 1000 nm. Applications to specific contact resistance measurements show that the resistivity of the interfacial glass is in the range of thick-film resistors of similar lead monoxide content.