The electronic structure of the chiral helimagnet $\mathrm{C}{\mathrm{r}}_{1/3}\mathrm{Nb}{\mathrm{S}}_2$ has been studied with core level and angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES). Intercalated Cr atoms are found to be effective in donating electrons to the $\mathrm{Nb}{\mathrm{S}}_2$ layers but also cause significant modifications of the electronic structure of the host $\mathrm{Nb}{\mathrm{S}}_2$ material. In particular, the data provide evidence that a description of the electronic structure of $\mathrm{C}{\mathrm{r}}_{1/3}\mathrm{Nb}{\mathrm{S}}_2$ on the basis of a simple rigid band picture is untenable. The data also reveal substantial inconsistencies with the predictions of standard density functional theory. The relevance of these results to the attainment of a correct description of the electronic structure of chiral helimagnets, magnetic thin films/multilayers, and transition metal dichalcogenides intercalated with $3d$ magnetic elements is discussed.

A pulsed laser beam from an excimer laser was used to ablate a solid tin target immersed in water in the presence of an external electric field. High fluence resulted in the formation of an overheated melt at the target surface resulting in homogeneous nucleation and phase explosion. The ablation products were studied with transmission electron microscopy. It was found that with no external field the size distribution of particles has peaks at ∼1 and ∼10 nm and that externally applied electric fields resulted in a decrease of particle size. A model based on Rayleigh instability and polarization effects was proposed to explain the observations. This work demonstrates a possible approach for controlling nanoparticle size.

The structural properties of ${\mathrm{LaCu}}_{6-x}{\mathrm{Au}}_x$ are studied using neutron diffraction, x-ray diffraction, and heat capacity measurements. The continuous orthorhombic-monoclinic structural phase transition in ${\mathrm{LaCu}}_6$ is suppressed linearly with Au substitution until a complete suppression of the structural phase transition occurs at the critical composition $x_c=0.3$. Heat capacity measurements at low temperatures indicate residual structural instability at $x_c$. The instability is ferroelastic in nature, with density functional theory calculations showing negligible coupling to electronic states near the Fermi level. The data and calculations presented here are consistent with the zero temperature termination of a continuous structural phase transition suggesting that the ${\mathrm{LaCu}}_{6-x}{\mathrm{Au}}_x$ series hosts an elastic quantum critical point.

We have successfully synthesized niobium monophosphide and tantalum monophosphide crystals by a chemical vapor transport technique. We report resistivity vs. temperature of both materials in the temperature range from 2 K to 300 K. We have also performed electronic structure calculations and present the band structure and density of states of these two compounds. The calculations show that both compounds are semimetals, as their conduction and valence bands overlap near the Fermi energy.