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The ground state of a one-dimensional spin-1/2 uniform antiferromagnetic Heisenberg chain (AfHc) is a Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid which is quantum-critical with respect to applied magnetic fields upto a saturation field Hs beyond which it transforms to a fully polarised state. Wilson ratio has been predicted to be a good indicator for demarcating these phases [Phys. Rev. B 96, 220401 (2017)]. From detailed temperature and magnetic field dependent magnetisation, magnetic susceptibility and specific heat measurements in a metalorganic complex and comparisons with field theory and quantum transfer matrix method calculations, the complex was found to be a very good realisation of a spin-1/2 AfHc. Wilson ratio obtained from experimentally obtained magnetic susceptibility and magnetic contribution of specific heat values was used to map the magnetic phase diagram of the uniform spin-1/2 AfHc over large regions of phase space demarcating Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid, saturation field quantum critical, and fully polarised states. Luttinger parameter and spinon velocity were found to match very well with the values predicted from conformal field theory., Comment: Accepted for publication in PNAS Nexus

Although there is no complete theory of high temperature superconductivity, the importance of CuO$_2$ planes in cuprate superconductors is confirmed from both theory and experiments. Strong Coulomb repulsion between electrons on the CuO$_2$ plane makes the resultant electron system highly correlated and a difficult problem to solve since exact solutions of many-body Hamiltonian in two dimensions do not exist. If however, superconductivity can arise in structures having chains rather than planes and having a high critical temperature, then the high temperature superconductivity problem could become more tractable since exact solutions in one dimension do exist. In this paper, we report the observation of bulk superconductivity in single crystals of a cuprate Sr$_x$Ca$_{1-x}$CuO$_2$ at very high critical temperature, T$_c$, of $\sim$ 90 K whose structure reveals the presence of infinite double chains of Cu-O-Cu-O instead of CuO$_2$ planes, thus, ensuring quasi-one dimensional superconductivity. Bulk superconducting behaviour was observed in \textit{dc} magnetisation, \textit{ac} susceptibility as well as resistance measurements. The observation of bulk superconductivity in Sr$_x$Ca$_{1-x}$CuO$_2$ having chains of Cu-O-Cu-O rather than planes of CuO$_2$ at a high T$_c$ of 90 K is expected to profoundly impact our understanding of high temperature superconductivity., Comment: 15 pages, 4 figures

In this paper, we used a theoretical measure known as distance between the states, $\mathcal{E}(\rho_e)$, to determine the bipartite entanglement of a one dimensional magnetic dimer system. The calculation was compared with the well-known entanglement measure, concurrence, and found to be the same. $\mathcal{E}(\rho_e)$ was, then, expressed in terms of two thermodynamic quantities, namely, magnetic susceptibility and specific heat. Experimental verification of temperature variation of the bipartite entanglement measure in terms of magnetic susceptibility and specific heat was done on single crystals of copper acetate-an excellent one dimensional dimer system. The results showed the existence of bipartite entanglement till temperatures as high as room temperature! Large sized single crystals of copper acetate were grown by a new evaporation technique and characterised by TGA, IR and Raman spectroscopy measurements.Density functional theory calculations were done to calculate the delocalisation index which showed much lower values of $\delta(Cu,Cu)$ than other bonds, implying that the probability of direct Cu-Cu exchange in copper acetate is very small.

This work reports the synthesis, structure and magnetic properties of the single crystal of a facile spin 1/2 one dimensional Heisenberg antiferromagnet bis(4-aminopyridinium) bis(oxalato)cuprate(II) dihydrate, (C 5 H 7 N 2 ) 2 [Cu(C 2 O 4 ) 2 ].2H 2 O. Single crystals of large sizes of the title compound were obtained using the technique of liquid-liquid diffusion or layer diffusion with 100 % yield. Single crystal X-ray diffraction measurements revealed a very good quality of the grown single crystals with small value of goodness of fit R obtained at 1.058. The structure comprises corner-sharing CuO 6 octahedra resulting in Cu-Cu chains in the a-direction that are very well isolated in the b and c directions. Density functional theory (DFT) with three different basis sets (B3LYP/6-311++G(d,p); B3LYP/LanL2DZ and B3LYP/6-311++G(d,p), B3LYP/LanL2DZ) generated the optimized geometry of a monomeric unit as well as its vibrational spectra. The vibrational frequency corresponding to the CuO 6 octahedron was found in the experimentally obtained IR spectrum that matched very well with the theoretically obtained IR spectra incorporating the mixed basis. Temperature dependent dc magnetic susceptibility revealed a low temperature peak suggesting the presence of low dimensional magnetism in the system. Bonner-Fisher fit confirmed the one dimensional nature of the magnetic interaction with an exchange coupling constant of 1.23 K. Magnetisation measurements along with Quantum Monte Carlo simulations confirm this metal-organic crystal to be a very good spin-1/2 Heisenberg antiferromagnet with a low saturation field H s of 1.75 T., Comment: 27 pages,7 figures

Low concentration hydrogen gas detection is of paramount importance both in space applications as well as medical applications. It is also critically important for safe handling of hydrogen below the explosive limit. Here, we report a novel hybrid Pd metal-polymer chemiresistive sensor that can sense 0.5% hydrogen ($H_2$) gas in ambient conditions of temperature and pressure with the highest reported sensitivity($\sim$30%) obtained earlier by a physical deposition technique, making it an extremely good sensor for real life low concentration hydrogen gas detection. The sensor is easy to fabricate and is also extremely cost-effective for commercial applications. The obtained hybrid chemiresistive sensor comprises palladium (Pd) nanocrystals bound by oxygen and nitrogen atoms of a stabilizer Polyvinylepyrollidone (PVP), grown on top of a selfassembled monolayer. The exceptional rise time-constant is proposed to arise from hydrogen loading at the (111) surface of the palladium nanocrystal which is a very fast process and subsequent fast diffusion of the H atoms from the surface into the bulk. An effort to increase the number of available sites by UV-ozone cleaning, resulted in a degradation of the sensing device due to the poisoning of the available sites by oxygen.

We have used Rietveld refinement technique to determine the extent of intergrowth of Bi$_{2}$Sr$_{2}$CuO$_{6+x}$ phase and co-crystallization of competing phases in a high temperature superconductor Bi$_{2}$Sr$_{2}$CaCu$_{2}$O$_{8+x}$ (Bi-2212). The refinement was done on powder diffractograms obtained on powders of Bi-2212 made by grinding single crystals of Bi-2212 grown using two different self-flux techniques, namely pressure technique (PT) and regrowth technique(RG). JANA and FullPROF programs were used for refinement, both of which gave consistent results. Bi and Sr atom's positions were refined in the average structure of centrosymmetric space group $Bbmb$. To incorporate for Bi atoms modulation and modulation vector, refinement was done in centrosymmetric space group N$^{Bbmb}_{1\bar{1}1}$(Bbmb(0$\gamma$1)). It was found that the b* component of the modulation vector decreased with a decrease in the superconducting transition temperature in PT sample compared to the RG sample, suggesting a better alignment of the CuO$_2$ planes with respect to Bi-O planes in PT sample. All the samples were also found to exhibit strong preferred orientation effect. Values of March-Dollase parameters corresponding to the preferred orientation function were obtained. We also calculated Brindley absorption contrast factors \textit{t}$_{\phi}$ and the effect of micro-absorption on the quantity of phases present in each sample. A Rietveld refinement incorporating all the factors resulted in exceptional values of goodness of fit parameters for all the samples with the lowest value of 2.08 found for the PT sample ground for 2 minutes. Additionally, the powders corresponding to the PT crystals were found to have no co-crystallising phase and $\sim$ 94$\%$ Bi-2212 phase, suggesting that crystals grown by pressure technique are of extremely good quality, much better than those grown by RG flux technique.

This work reports a systematic study of the evolution of charge transport mechanism in granular ultra-thin films of palladium of thickness varying between 6nm and 2nm. While the films with thickness > 4nm exhibit metallic behaviour, that at 3nm thickness undergoes a metal-insulator transition at 19.5K. In contrast, the 2nm thick film remained insulating at all temperatures. with transport following Mott's variable range hopping. At room temperature, while the thicker film exhibit resistance decrease on H$_2$ exposure. the insulating film showed an anomalous initial resistance increase before switching to a subsequent decrease. The nanostructure dependent transport and the ensuing H$_2$ response is modeled on a percolation model, which also explores the relevance of film thickness as a macroscopic control parameter to engineer the desired system response in granular metal films.

Quantum entanglement is a quantum mechanical phenomenon where the quantum state of a many-body system with many degrees of freedom cannot be described independently of the state of each body with a given degree of freedom, no matter how far apart in space each body is. Entanglement is not only considered a resource in quantum information but also believed to affect complex condensed matter systems. Detecting and quantifying multi-particle entanglement in a many-body system is thus of fundamental significance for both quantum information science and condensed matter physics. Here, we detect and quantify multipartite entanglement in a spin 1/2 Heisenberg antiferromagnetic chain in a bulk solid. Multipartite entanglement was detected using quantum Fisher information which was obtained using dynamic susceptibility measured via inelastic neutron scattering. The scaling behaviour of quantum Fisher information was found to identify the spin 1/2 Heisenberg antiferromagnetic chain to belong to a class of strongly entangled quantum phase transitions with divergent multipartite entanglement.

The presence of a quantum critical point (QCP) can significantly affect the thermodynamic properties of a material at finite temperatures T. This is reflected, e.g., in the entropy landscape S(T, r) in the vicinity of a QCP, yielding particularly strong variations for varying the tuning parameter r such as pressure or magnetic field B. Here we report on the determination of the critical enhancement of $ \delta S / \delta B$ near a B-induced QCP via absolute measurements of the magnetocaloric effect (MCE), $(\delta T / \delta B)_S$, and demonstrate that the accumulation of entropy around the QCP can be used for efficient low-temperature magnetic cooling. Our proof of principle is based on measurements and theoretical calculations of the MCE and the cooling performance for a Cu$^{2+}$-containing coordination polymer, which is a very good realization of a spin-1/2 antiferromagnetic Heisenberg chain - one of the simplest quantum-critical systems., Comment: 21 pages, 4 figures

Explorations of the order-disorder transformation in vortex matter in single crystals of tetragonal structured (c/a $\sim$3) borocarbide superconductors, $YNi_2B_2C$ and $LuNi_2B_2C$, reveal that vortex arrays experience different effective pinning in different crystallographic directions. We surmise that correlation exists between the large anisotropy in effective pinning/disorder and the differences in the (local) symmetry transition from rhombohedral to (quasi) square vortex lattice(VL). For field along high symmetry directions, like, c-axis and ab-basal plane, the VL symmetry is close to square and the ordered state spans a large field interval. When the field is turned away from the c-axis towards ab-plane, at intermediate angles, the region of ordered state shrinks, in response to enhancement in effective pinning. At such intermediate angles the symmetry of the VL would be far from ideal triangular or square., Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures (Accepted in Euro Phys. Letts.)

We present magnetization measurements in single crystals of the tetragonal $YNi_2B_2C$ compound, which exhibit the phenomenon of peak effect as well as the second magnetization peak anomaly for H $>$ 0.5T (H $||$ c). At the lower field (50mT $<$ H $<$ 200mT), we have observed the presence of flux jumps, which seem to relate to a structural change in the local symmetry of the flux line lattice (a first order re-orientation transition across a local field in some parts of the sample, in the range of 100mT to 150mT). These flux jumps are also observed in a single crystal of $LuNi_2B_2C$ for H $||$ c in the field region from 2 mT to 25 mT, which are compatible with the occurrence of a re-orientation transition at a lower field in a cleaner crystal of this compound, as compared to those of $YNi_2B_2C$. Vortex phase diagrams drawn for H $||$ c in $LuNi_2B_2C$ and $YNi_2B_2C$ show that the ordered elastic glass phase spans a larger part of (H, T) space in the former as compared to latter, thereby, reaffirming the difference in the relative purity of the two samples., Comment: 11 pages, 14 figures

We present a study of the anisotropy in the superconducting energy gap in a single crystal of YNi2B2C (Tc~14.6K) using directional point contact spectroscopy. The superconducting energy gap at 2.7K, when measured for I||c, is 4.5 times larger than that for I||a. The energy gaps in the two directions also have different temperature dependences. Our results support a scenario with s+g like symmetry., Comment: Ps file with figures