Tandem solar cells based on hybrid organic−inorganic metal halide perovskites have reached efficiencies up to 28%, but major concerns for long-term stability and the presence of Pb have raised interest in searching for fully earth-abundant, intrinsic chemically stable, and nontoxic alternatives. With a direct band gap around 1.8 eV and stability in air up to at least 500 °C, BaZrS 3 is a promising candidate. This work presents the first approach of synthesizing a thin film of such compound by sputtering at ambient temperature with a subsequent rapid thermal process. Despite the short fabrication time, the width of the XRD diffraction peaks and the energy and distribution of the photoluminescence response show comparable crystalline quality to that from bulk synthesis methods. Good crystallization required around 900 °C. Such a high temperature could be incompatible with fabrication of tandem solar cells.

An in-depth analysis of Zn/Al-doped nickel ferrites grown by reactive magnetron sputtering is relevant due to their promising characteristics for applications in spintronics. The material is insulating and ferromagnetic at room temperature with an additional low magnetic damping. By studying the complex interplay between strain and cation distribution their impact on the magnetic properties, i.e., anisotropy, damping, and g-factor is unravelled. In particular, a strong influence of the lattice site occupation of Ni 2+ Td and cation coordination of Fe 2+ Oh on the intrinsic damping is found. Furthermore, the critical role of the incorporation of Zn 2+ and Al 3+ is evidenced by comparison to a sample of altered composition. Specifically, the dopant Zn 2+ is evidenced as a tuning factor for Ni 2+ Td and therefore unquenched orbital moment directly controlling the g-factor. A strain-independent reduction of the magnetic anisotropy and damping by adapting the cation distribution is demonstrated.

It has been recently demonstrated that yttrium oxyhydride (YHO) films can exhibit reversible photochromic properties when exposed to illumination at ambient conditions. This switchable optical property enables their utilization in many technological applications, such as smart windows, sensors, goggles, medical devices, etc. However, how the composition of the films affects their optical properties is not fully clear and therefore demands a straightforward investigation. In this work, the composition of YHO films manufactured by reactive magnetron sputtering under different conditions is deduced in a ternary diagram from Timeof-Flight Elastic Recoil Detection Analysis (ToF-ERDA). The results suggest that stable compounds are formed with a specific chemical formula-YH 2-δ O δ. In addition, optical and electrical properties of the films are investigated, and a correlation with their compositions is established. The corresponding photochromic response is found in a specific oxygen concentration range (0.45 < δ < 1.5) with maximum and minimum of magnitude on the lower and higher border, respectively.

PACS 89.65.-s -Social and economic systems PACS 89.75.Da -Systems obeying scaling laws PACS 89.75.-k -Complex systemsAbstract. -Nowadays there is an increasing interest of physicists in finding regularities related to social phenomena. This interest is clearly motivated by applications that a statistical mechanical description of the human behavior may have in our society. By using this framework, we address this work to cover an open question related to elections: the choice of elections candidates (candidature process). Our analysis reveals that, apart from the social motivations, this system displays features of traditional out-of-equilibrium physical phenomena such as scale-free statistics and universality. Basically, we found a non-linear (power law) mean correspondence between the number of candidates and the size of the electorate (number of voters), and also that this choice has a multiplicative underlying process (lognormal behavior). The universality of our findings is supported by data from 16 elections from 5 countries. In addition, we show that aspects of network scale-free can be connected to this universal behavior.

The electronic stopping cross sections (SCS) of Ta and Gd for slow protons have been investigated experimentally. The data are compared to the results for Pt and Au, to learn how electronic stopping in transition and rare earth metals correlates with features of the electronic band structures. The extraordinarily high SCS observed for protons in Ta and Gd cannot be understood in terms of a free electron gas model, but are related to the high densities of both occupied and unoccupied electronic states in these metals.