Paul Scherrer Institute

About: Paul Scherrer Institute is a facility organization based out in Villigen, Switzerland. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Neutron & Large Hadron Collider. The organization has 9248 authors who have published 23984 publications receiving 890129 citations. The organization is also known as: PSI.

Discovery of Lorentz-violating type II Weyl fermions in LaAlGe

Abstract: In quantum field theory, Weyl fermions are relativistic particles that travel at the speed of light and strictly obey the celebrated Lorentz symmetry. Their low-energy condensed matter analogs are Weyl semimetals, which are conductors whose electronic excitations mimic the Weyl fermion equation of motion. Although the traditional (type I) emergent Weyl fermions observed in TaAs still approximately respect Lorentz symmetry, recently, the so-called type II Weyl semimetal has been proposed, where the emergent Weyl quasiparticles break the Lorentz symmetry so strongly that they cannot be smoothly connected to Lorentz symmetric Weyl particles. Despite some evidence of nontrivial surface states, the direct observation of the type II bulk Weyl fermions remains elusive. We present the direct observation of the type II Weyl fermions in crystalline solid lanthanum aluminum germanide (LaAlGe) based on our photoemission data alone, without reliance on band structure calculations. Moreover, our systematic data agree with the theoretical calculations, providing further support on our experimental results.

Electrochemical Insertion of Magnesium in Metal Oxides and Sulfides from Aprotic Electrolytes

Abstract: The electrochemistry of , , , , and has been studied in several organic solvents containing in view of their application as positive electrodes in rechargeable magnesium batteries. Only showed promising coulombic capacity and reversibility. Mg2+ insertion into this oxide depends on the ratio between the amounts of and Mg2+ as well as on the absolute amount of in the electrolyte. Water molecules preferentially solvating Mg2+ions appear to facilitate the insertion process. The highest coulombic capacities of up to 170 Ah/kg were reached in acetonitrile solutions containing .

Photoenhanced uptake of NO2 on mineral dust: Laboratory experiments and model simulations

Abstract: [1] Mineral dust contains material such as TiO2 that is well known to have photocatalytic activity. In this laboratory study, mixed TiO2-SiO2, Saharan dust and Arizona Test Dust were exposed to NO2 in a coated wall flow tube reactor. While uptake in the dark was negligible, photoenhanced uptake of NO2 was observed on all samples. For the mixed TiO2-SiO2, the uptake coefficients increased with increasing TiO2 mass fraction, with BET uptake coefficients ranging from 0.12 to 1.9 × 10−6. HONO was observed from all samples, with varying yields, e.g., 80% for Saharan dust. Three-dimensional modeling indicates that photochemistry of dust may reduce the NO2 level up to 37% and ozone up to 5% during a dust event in the free troposphere.

A stable low-temperature H2-production catalyst by crowding Pt on α-MoC.

Abstract: The water–gas shift (WGS) reaction is an industrially important source of pure hydrogen (H2) at the expense of carbon monoxide and water1,2. This reaction is of interest for fuel-cell applications, but requires WGS catalysts that are durable and highly active at low temperatures3. Here we demonstrate that the structure (Pt1–Ptn)/α-MoC, where isolated platinum atoms (Pt1) and subnanometre platinum clusters (Ptn) are stabilized on α-molybdenum carbide (α-MoC), catalyses the WGS reaction even at 313 kelvin, with a hydrogen-production pathway involving direct carbon monoxide dissociation identified. We find that it is critical to crowd the α-MoC surface with Pt1 and Ptn species, which prevents oxidation of the support that would cause catalyst deactivation, as seen with gold/α-MoC (ref. 4), and gives our system high stability and a high metal-normalized turnover number of 4,300,000 moles of hydrogen per mole of platinum. We anticipate that the strategy demonstrated here will be pivotal for the design of highly active and stable catalysts for effective activation of important molecules such as water and carbon monoxide for energy production. A stable, low-temperature water–gas shift catalyst is achieved by crowding platinum atoms and clusters on α-molybdenum carbide; the crowding protects the support from oxidation that would cause catalyst deactivation.