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.

Light-absorbing soluble organic aerosol in Los Angeles and Atlanta: A contrast in secondary organic aerosol

Abstract: [1] Light absorption spectra and carbon mass of fine particle water-soluble components were measured during the summer of 2010 in the Los Angeles (LA) basin, California, and Atlanta, Georgia. Fresh LA secondary organic carbon had a consistent brown color and a bulk absorption per soluble carbon mass at 365 nm that was 4 to 6 times higher than freshly-formed Atlanta soluble organic carbon. Radiocarbon measurements of filter samples show that LA secondary organic aerosol (SOA) was mainly from fossil carbon and chemical analysis of aqueous filter extracts identified nitro-aromatics as one component of LA brown SOA. Interpreting soluble brown carbon as a property of freshly-formed anthropogenic SOA, the difference in absorption per carbon mass between these two cities suggests most fresh secondary water-soluble organic carbon formed within Atlanta is not from an anthropogenic process similar to LA. Contrasting emissions of biogenic volatile organic compounds may account for these differences.

Emergent quantum confinement at topological insulator surfaces

Abstract: Bismuth-chalchogenides are model examples of three-dimensional topological insulators. Their ideal bulk-truncated surface hosts a single spin-helical surface state, which is the simplest possible surface electronic structure allowed by their non-trivial Z2 topology. However, real surfaces of such compounds, even if kept in ultra-high vacuum, rapidly develop a much more complex electronic structure whose origin and properties have proved controversial. Here we demonstrate that a conceptually simple model, implementing a semiconductor-like band bending in a parameter-free tight-binding supercell calculation, can quantitatively explain the entire measured hierarchy of electronic states. In combination with circular dichroism in angle-resolved photoemission experiments, we further uncover a rich three-dimensional spin texture of this surface electronic system, resulting from the non-trivial topology of the bulk band structure. Moreover, our study sheds new light on the surface-bulk connectivity in topological insulators, and reveals how this is modified by quantum confinement.