In this article, we report detailed theoretical investigations of topological phases in a new non-centrosymmetric half Heusler compound LiAuBi upto a pressure of 30 GPa. It is found that the compound forms into a dynamically stable face centered cubic (FCC) lattice structure of space group F ¯43m (216) at ambient pressure. The compound is topologically non-trivial at ambient pressure, but undergoes a quantum phase transition to trivial topological phase at 23.4 GPa. However, the detailed investigations show a structural phase transition from FCC lattice (space group 216) to a honeycomb lattice (space group 194) at 13 GPa, which is also associated with a non-trivial to trivial topological phase transition. Further investigations show that the compound also carries appreciable thermoelectric properties at ambient pressure. The figure of merit (ZT) increases from 0.21 at room temperature to a maximum value of 0.22 at 500K. The theoretical findings show its potential for practical applications in spintronics as well as thermoelectricity, therefore LiAuBi needs to be synthesized and investigated experimentally for its applications.
Following the rapid development of the electronics industry and technology, it is expected that future electronic devices will operate based on functional units at the level of electrically active molecules or even atoms. One pathway to observe and characterize such fundamental operation is to focus on identifying isolated or coupled dopants in nanoscale silicon transistors, the building blocks of present electronics. Here, we review some of the recent progress in the research along this direction, with a focus on devices fabricated with simple and CMOScompatible-processing technology. We present results from a scanning probe method (Kelvin probe force microscopy) which show direct observation of dopant-induced potential modulations. We also discuss tunneling transport behavior based on the analysis of low-temperature I-V characteristics for devices representative for different regimes of doping concentration, i.e., different inter-dopant coupling strengths. This overview outlines the present status of the field, opening also directions toward practical implementation of dopant-atom devices.
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