TY - JOUR AB - Alignment of OCS, CS2, and I2 molecules embedded in helium nanodroplets is measured as a function of time following rotational excitation by a nonresonant, comparatively weak ps laser pulse. The distinct peaks in the power spectra, obtained by Fourier analysis, are used to determine the rotational, B, and centrifugal distortion, D, constants. For OCS, B and D match the values known from IR spectroscopy. For CS2 and I2, they are the first experimental results reported. The alignment dynamics calculated from the gas-phase rotational Schrödinger equation, using the experimental in-droplet B and D values, agree in detail with the measurement for all three molecules. The rotational spectroscopy technique for molecules in helium droplets introduced here should apply to a range of molecules and complexes. AU - Chatterley, Adam S. AU - Christiansen, Lars AU - Schouder, Constant A. AU - Jørgensen, Anders V. AU - Shepperson, Benjamin AU - Cherepanov, Igor AU - Bighin, Giacomo AU - Zillich, Robert E. AU - Lemeshko, Mikhail AU - Stapelfeldt, Henrik ID - 8170 IS - 1 JF - Physical Review Letters SN - 00319007 TI - Rotational coherence spectroscopy of molecules in Helium nanodroplets: Reconciling the time and the frequency domains VL - 125 ER - TY - JOUR AB - Nature creates electrons with two values of the spin projection quantum number. In certain applications, it is important to filter electrons with one spin projection from the rest. Such filtering is not trivial, since spin-dependent interactions are often weak, and cannot lead to any substantial effect. Here we propose an efficient spin filter based upon scattering from a two-dimensional crystal, which is made of aligned point magnets. The polarization of the outgoing electron flux is controlled by the crystal, and reaches maximum at specific values of the parameters. In our scheme, polarization increase is accompanied by higher reflectivity of the crystal. High transmission is feasible in scattering from a quantum cavity made of two crystals. Our findings can be used for studies of low-energy spin-dependent scattering from two-dimensional ordered structures made of magnetic atoms or aligned chiral molecules. AU - Ghazaryan, Areg AU - Lemeshko, Mikhail AU - Volosniev, Artem ID - 8652 JF - Communications Physics SN - 2399-3650 TI - Filtering spins by scattering from a lattice of point magnets VL - 3 ER - TY - JOUR AB - In the high spin–orbit-coupled Sr2IrO4, the high sensitivity of the ground state to the details of the local lattice structure shows a large potential for the manipulation of the functional properties by inducing local lattice distortions. We use epitaxial strain to modify the Ir–O bond geometry in Sr2IrO4 and perform momentum-dependent resonant inelastic X-ray scattering (RIXS) at the metal and at the ligand sites to unveil the response of the low-energy elementary excitations. We observe that the pseudospin-wave dispersion for tensile-strained Sr2IrO4 films displays large softening along the [h,0] direction, while along the [h,h] direction it shows hardening. This evolution reveals a renormalization of the magnetic interactions caused by a strain-driven cross-over from anisotropic to isotropic interactions between the magnetic moments. Moreover, we detect dispersive electron–hole pair excitations which shift to lower (higher) energies upon compressive (tensile) strain, manifesting a reduction (increase) in the size of the charge gap. This behavior shows an intimate coupling between charge excitations and lattice distortions in Sr2IrO4, originating from the modified hopping elements between the t2g orbitals. Our work highlights the central role played by the lattice degrees of freedom in determining both the pseudospin and charge excitations of Sr2IrO4 and provides valuable information toward the control of the ground state of complex oxides in the presence of high spin–orbit coupling. AU - Paris, Eugenio AU - Tseng, Yi AU - Paerschke, Ekaterina AU - Zhang, Wenliang AU - Upton, Mary H AU - Efimenko, Anna AU - Rolfs, Katharina AU - McNally, Daniel E AU - Maurel, Laura AU - Naamneh, Muntaser AU - Caputo, Marco AU - Strocov, Vladimir N AU - Wang, Zhiming AU - Casa, Diego AU - Schneider, Christof W AU - Pomjakushina, Ekaterina AU - Wohlfeld, Krzysztof AU - Radovic, Milan AU - Schmitt, Thorsten ID - 8699 IS - 40 JF - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America SN - 00278424 TI - Strain engineering of the charge and spin-orbital interactions in Sr2IrO4 VL - 117 ER - TY - JOUR AB - Organic materials are known to feature long spin-diffusion times, originating in a generally small spin–orbit coupling observed in these systems. From that perspective, chiral molecules acting as efficient spin selectors pose a puzzle that attracted a lot of attention in recent years. Here, we revisit the physical origins of chiral-induced spin selectivity (CISS) and propose a simple analytic minimal model to describe it. The model treats a chiral molecule as an anisotropic wire with molecular dipole moments aligned arbitrarily with respect to the wire’s axes and is therefore quite general. Importantly, it shows that the helical structure of the molecule is not necessary to observe CISS and other chiral nonhelical molecules can also be considered as potential candidates for the CISS effect. We also show that the suggested simple model captures the main characteristics of CISS observed in the experiment, without the need for additional constraints employed in the previous studies. The results pave the way for understanding other related physical phenomena where the CISS effect plays an essential role. AU - Ghazaryan, Areg AU - Paltiel, Yossi AU - Lemeshko, Mikhail ID - 7968 IS - 21 JF - The Journal of Physical Chemistry C SN - 1932-7447 TI - Analytic model of chiral-induced spin selectivity VL - 124 ER - TY - JOUR AB - Dipolar (or spatially indirect) excitons (IXs) in semiconductor double quantum well (DQW) subjected to an electric field are neutral species with a dipole moment oriented perpendicular to the DQW plane. Here, we theoretically study interactions between IXs in stacked DQW bilayers, where the dipolar coupling can be either attractive or repulsive depending on the relative positions of the particles. By using microscopic band structure calculations to determine the electronic states forming the excitons, we show that the attractive dipolar interaction between stacked IXs deforms their electronic wave function, thereby increasing the inter-DQW interaction energy and making the IX even more electrically polarizable. Many-particle interaction effects are addressed by considering the coupling between a single IX in one of the DQWs to a cloud of IXs in the other DQW, which is modeled either as a closed-packed lattice or as a continuum IX fluid. We find that the lattice model yields IX interlayer binding energies decreasing with increasing lattice density. This behavior is due to the dominating role of the intra-DQW dipolar repulsion, which prevents more than one exciton from entering the attractive region of the inter-DQW coupling. Finally, both models shows that the single IX distorts the distribution of IXs in the adjacent DQW, thus inducing the formation of an IX dipolar polaron (dipolaron). While the interlayer binding energy reduces with IX density for lattice dipolarons, the continuous polaron model predicts a nonmonotonous dependence on density in semiquantitative agreement with a recent experimental study [cf. Hubert et al., Phys. Rev. X 9, 021026 (2019)]. AU - Hubert, C. AU - Cohen, K. AU - Ghazaryan, Areg AU - Lemeshko, Mikhail AU - Rapaport, R. AU - Santos, P. V. ID - 8588 IS - 4 JF - Physical Review B SN - 2469-9950 TI - Attractive interactions, molecular complexes, and polarons in coupled dipolar exciton fluids VL - 102 ER -