National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology

About: National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology is a government organization based out in Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Catalysis & Thin film. The organization has 22114 authors who have published 65856 publications receiving 1669827 citations. The organization is also known as: Sangyō Gijutsu Sōgō Kenkyū-sho.

Interplay of electron–lattice interactions and superconductivity in Bi 2 Sr 2 CaCu 2 O 8+δ

Abstract: Formation of electron pairs is essential to superconductivity. For conventional superconductors, tunnelling spectroscopy has established that pairing is mediated by bosonic modes (phonons); a peak in the second derivative of tunnel current d2I/dV2 corresponds to each phonon mode1,2,3. For high-transition-temperature (high-Tc) superconductivity, however, no boson mediating electron pairing has been identified. One explanation could be that electron pair formation4 and related electron–boson interactions are heterogeneous at the atomic scale and therefore challenging to characterize. However, with the latest advances in d2I/dV2 spectroscopy using scanning tunnelling microscopy, it has become possible to study bosonic modes directly at the atomic scale5. Here we report d2I/dV2 imaging6,7,8 studies of the high-Tc superconductor Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+δ. We find intense disorder of electron–boson interaction energies at the nanometre scale, along with the expected modulations in d2I/dV2 (refs 9, 10). Changing the density of holes has minimal effects on both the average mode energies and the modulations, indicating that the bosonic modes are unrelated to electronic or magnetic structure. Instead, the modes appear to be local lattice vibrations, as substitution of 18O for 16O throughout the material reduces the average mode energy by approximately 6 per cent—the expected effect of this isotope substitution on lattice vibration frequencies5. Significantly, the mode energies are always spatially anticorrelated with the superconducting pairing-gap energies, suggesting an interplay between these lattice vibration modes and the superconductivity.

Medieval forewarning of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami in Thailand

Abstract: Nothing known from written history gave reason to expect the Indian Ocean tsunami that took nearly a quarter million lives on 26 December 2004. That tsunami entered geological history by laying down centimetres of sand on the coastal plains that it overran. Jankaew et al. have now found such sedimentary records of earlier tsunamis preserved in the dark soils of marshy swales at Phra Thong, a barrier island in western Thailand. The cover shows an example from a pit dug there in 2007: the topmost light-coloured layer represents the 2004 tsunami, while a similar layer below records a tsunami in the fourteenth or fifteenth century AD. The ruler divisions are 10 cm long. In a separate study in Aceh, Indonesia, Monecke et al. found the 2004 sand sheet preceded by the deposits of three tsunamis from the past 1,200 years. One of these earlier deposits may match the medieval one found in Thailand. The combined findings suggest that the 2004 tsunami is neither the first nor the last of its kind. Recent centuries provide no precedent for the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, either on the coasts it devastated or within its source area. The tsunami claimed nearly all of its victims on shores that had gone 200 years or more without a tsunami disaster1. The associated earthquake of magnitude 9.2 defied a Sumatra–Andaman catalogue that contains no nineteenth-century or twentieth-century earthquake larger than magnitude 7.9 (ref. 2). The tsunami and the earthquake together resulted from a fault rupture 1,500 km long that expended centuries’ worth of plate convergence2,3,4,5. Here, using sedimentary evidence for tsunamis6, we identify probable precedents for the 2004 tsunami at a grassy beach-ridge plain 125 km north of Phuket. The 2004 tsunami, running 2 km across this plain, coated the ridges and intervening swales with a sheet of sand commonly 5–20 cm thick. The peaty soils of two marshy swales preserve the remains of several earlier sand sheets less than 2,800 years old. If responsible for the youngest of these pre-2004 sand sheets, the most recent full-size predecessor to the 2004 tsunami occurred about 550–700 years ago.

Materials Design for Rechargeable Metal-Air Batteries

Abstract: Summary In consideration of the growing problems regarding environment and energy, the development of clean and renewable electrochemical energy-storage devices has attracted much attention. Metal-air batteries with ultra-high energy density, including but not limited to Zn-air and Li-air batteries, have shown great potential for future large-scale applications. In this Review, fundamentals on the electrode reactions of metal-air batteries are firstly introduced. Current issues on achieving applicable discharge properties and rechargeability are then presented. In the following sections, the material design strategies of the air electrode, metal electrode, electrolyte, and separator to overcome these issues are summarized. The most widely investigated Zn-air and Li-air batteries are overviewed in detail, while other types of metal-air batteries including Al-air, Mg-air, and Na-air batteries are briefly discussed. Finally, summary and perspectives on the future development of metal-air batteries toward practical applications are provided.

A magnetic heterostructure of topological insulators as a candidate for an axion insulator

Abstract: An engineered topological insulator-based heterostructure is reported to show transport properties consistent with the realization of an axion insulator.

Systematic conversion of single walled carbon nanotubes into n-type thermoelectric materials by molecular dopants.

Abstract: Systematic Conversion of Single Walled Carbon Nanotubes into n-type Thermoelectric Materials by Molecular Dopants