In stark contrast to ordinary metals, in materials in which electrons strongly interact with each other or with phonons, electron transport is thought to resemble the flow of viscous fluids. Despite their differences, it is predicted that transport in both conventional and correlated materials is fundamentally limited by the uncertainty principle applied to energy dissipation. Here we report the observation of experimental signatures of hydrodynamic electron flow in the Weyl semimetal tungsten diphosphide. Using thermal and magneto-electric transport experiments, we find indications of the transition from a conventional metallic state at higher temperatures to a hydrodynamic electron fluid below 20 K. The hydrodynamic regime is characterized by a viscosity-induced dependence of the electrical resistivity on the sample width and by a strong violation of the Wiedemann–Franz law. Following the uncertainty principle, both electrical and thermal transport are bound by the quantum indeterminacy, independent of the underlying transport regime.

The thermoelectric (TE) figure of merit ZT of topological insulator Bi₂Te₃, Sb₂Te₃, and Bi₂Se₃ thin film quantum wells is calculated for thicknesses below 10 nm, for which hybridization of the surface states as well as quantum confinement in the bulk are individually predicted to enhance ZT. Here, the question is addressed what ZT can be expected from coexisting surface and bulk states in such quantum wells. It is demonstrated that the parallel contributing bulk and surface channels tend to cancel each other out. This is because the surface-to-volume ratios of the thin films prevent the domination of transport through a single channel and because the individual bulk and surface ZTs are optimized at different Fermi levels.

${\text{SiO}}_2$ is the most widely used dielectric material but its growth or deposition involves high thermal budgets or suffers from shadowing effects. The low-temperature method presented here $\left(150°\text{C}\right)$ for the preparation of ${\text{SiO}}_2$ by thermal atomic layer deposition (ALD) provides perfect uniformity and surface coverage even into nanoscale pores, which may well suit recent demands in nanoelectronics and nanotechnology. The ALD reaction based on 3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane, water, and ozone provides outstanding ${\text{SiO}}_2$ quality and is free of catalysts or corrosive by-products. A variety of optical, structural, and electrical properties are investigated by means of infrared spectroscopy, UV-Vis spectroscopy, secondary ion mass spectrometry, capacitance-voltage and current-voltage measurements, electron spin resonance, Rutherford backscattering, elastic recoil detection analysis, atomic force microscopy, and variable angle spectroscopic ellipsometry. Many features, such as the optical constants (n, k) and optical transmission and surface roughness (1.5 Å), are found to be similar to thermal oxide quality. Rapid thermal annealing (RTA) at $1000°\text{C}$ is demonstrated to significantly improve certain properties, in particular by reducing the etch rate in hydrofluoric acid, oxide charges, and interface defects. Besides a small amount of OH groups and a few atomic per mille of nitrogen in the oxide remaining from the growth and curable by RTA no impurities could be traced. Altogether, the data point to a first reliable low temperature ALD-growth process for silicon dioxide.

Nickel-rich NiFe nanowires with well-controlled diameters and compositions are fabricated in various porous alumina templates by using a pulsed electrochemical deposition technique. The average pore diameter of the templates is tuned either by coating the pore walls with thin silica layers using an atomic layer deposition (ALD) technique or by applying a chemical pore widening process. The composition of the alloy is controlled by varying the frequency of the deposition pulse. The coercivity of the nanowire array is influenced by its texture and the amount of iron content in the alloy. The effective field and the saturation magnetization are found to be reinforced with the decrease in Ni content. A distinct enhancement of the axial coercivity and squareness of permalloy, Ni₈₀Fe₂₀, nanowire array are obtained by decreasing the average nanowire diameter. The processes of magnetization reversal in Ni₈₀Fe₂₀ nanowire array are investigated. The temperature dependence of Ni₈₀Fe₂₀ nanowires coercivity is interpreted in accordance with magnetization fluctuation over a single energy barrier.

We report on the experimental and theoretical investigation of the magnetization reversal in magnetic nanotubes that have been synthesized by a combination of glancing angle and atomic layer deposition. Using superconducting quantum interference device magnetometry the angular dependence of the coercive fields is determined and reveals a nonmonotonic behavior. Analytical calculations predict the crossover between two magnetization reversal modes, namely, the movement of different types of domain boundaries (vortex wall and transverse wall). This transition, already known in the geometrical dependences of the magnetization reversal in various nanotubes, is found within one type of tube in the angular dependence and is experimentally confirmed in this work.