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The spin Hall magnetoresistance (SMR) of epitaxial BiFeO$_3$ thin films is investigated. SMR consistent with ferromagnetic interfacial states for BiFeO$_3$ films fabricated on (001) SrTiO$_3$ (R' BFO) and LaAlO$_3$ (T' BFO) substrates is found, albeit with different temperature dependencies. For T' BFO, the SMR is enhanced at room temperature, and decays with reduced temperatures. By contrast, R' BFO shows a monotonic decrease in SMR response with increasing temperature, mirroring the trend of a weak ferromagnet. Density functional theory shows that this difference originates from the coupling of the applied magnetic field to oxygen octahedral rotation (R') and spin (T') degrees of freedom., Comment: 14 pages incl. 3 figures

In ferroelectrics, complex interactions among various degrees of freedom enable the condensation of topologically protected polarization textures. Known as ferroelectric solitons, these particle-like structures represent a new class of materials with promise for beyond CMOS technologies due to their ultrafine size and sensitivity to external stimuli. Such polarization textures have scarcely been reported in multiferroics. Here, we report a range of soliton topologies in bismuth ferrite strontium titanate superlattices. High-resolution piezoresponse force microscopy and Cs-corrected high-angle annular dark-field scanning transmission electron microscopy reveal a zoo of topologies, and polarization displacement mapping of planar specimens reveals center-convergent and divergent topological defects as small as 3 nm. Phase field simulations verify that some of these topologies can be classed as bimerons, with a topological charge of plus and minus one, and first-principles-based effective Hamiltonian computations show that the co-existence of such structures can lead to non-integer topological charges, a first observation in a BiFeO3-based system. Our results open new opportunities in multiferroic topotronics.

Using first-principles calculation, geometrical stability together with electronic properties of graphdiyne nanosheet (Gdn-NS) is investigated. The structural stability of Gdn-NS is established with the support of phonon band structure and cohesive energy. The main objective of the present study is to check the odor quality of Mangifera indica L. (mangoes) fruits during the various ripening stage with the influence of Gdn-NS material. In addition, the adsorption of various volatiles, namely ethyl butanoate, myrcene, (E,Z,Z)-1,3,4,8-undecatetraene and $\gamma$-octalactone aromas on Gdn-NS is explored with the significant parameters including Bader charge transfer, energy gap, average energy gap changes and adsorption energy. The sensitivity of volatiles emitting from various ripening stages of mango on Gdn-NS were explored with the influence of density of states spectrum. The outcomes of the proposed work help us to check the ripening stage and odor quality of Mangifera indica L. by Gdn-NS material using density functional theory., Comment: 13 pages, 12 figures, 2 tables

Today's datacenter applications are underpinned by datastores that are responsible for providing availability, consistency, and performance. For high availability in the presence of failures, these datastores replicate data across several nodes. This is accomplished with the help of a reliable replication protocol that is responsible for maintaining the replicas strongly-consistent even when faults occur. Strong consistency is preferred to weaker consistency models that cannot guarantee an intuitive behavior for the clients. Furthermore, to accommodate high demand at real-time latencies, datastores must deliver high throughput and low latency. This work introduces Hermes, a broadcast-based reliable replication protocol for in-memory datastores that provides both high throughput and low latency by enabling local reads and fully-concurrent fast writes at all replicas. Hermes couples logical timestamps with cache-coherence-inspired invalidations to guarantee linearizability, avoid write serialization at a centralized ordering point, resolve write conflicts locally at each replica (hence ensuring that writes never abort) and provide fault-tolerance via replayable writes. Our implementation of Hermes over an RDMA-enabled reliable datastore with five replicas shows that Hermes consistently achieves higher throughput than state-of-the-art RDMA-based reliable protocols (ZAB and CRAQ) across all write ratios while also significantly reducing tail latency. At 5% writes, the tail latency of Hermes is 3.6X lower than that of CRAQ and ZAB., Comment: Accepted in ASPLOS 2020

We report the interaction between the silicene nanosheet (Si-NS) and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) released from the pear fruit (Pyrus communis) in ripened and over-ripened stages using density functional theory (DFT) technique. The geometric stability of Si-NS is studied from the phonon band structure. Further, the electronic property of Si-NS is studied from the energy band gap structure, and the energy gap is found to be 0.46 eV, which exhibits semiconductor property. The outcomes infer that the adsorption of volatiles released from the pear fruit on silicene nanosheet is in the following order hexyl acetate $\rightarrow$ butyl acetate $\rightarrow$ butyl butyrate in the ripened stage whereas in the over-ripened stage the adsorption sequence is noticed to be acetic acid $\rightarrow$ ethyl acetate $\rightarrow$ 1-butanol. The adsorption property of pear fruit volatiles on silicene nanosheet is documented with the adsorption energy, average energy gap changes, and Bader charge transfer. Moreover, the adsorption of VOCs on silicene nanosheet is also explored using the energy band structure, electron density along with the adsorption sites and density of states (DOS) spectrum. Besides, the findings reveal that the silicene nanosheet can be used to discriminate the quality of pear fruit., Comment: 13 pages, 20 figures, 1 table

The adsorption behaviour of hazardous gas molecules, namely nitrogen dioxide (NO$_2$) and ammonia (NH$_3$), on phosphorene nanosheet (PNS) was explored by means of ab initio technique. To improve the structural solidity of pristine PNS, we have introduced the passivation of hydrogen and fluorine at the terminated edge. The structural solidity of both hydrogen and fluorine passivated PNS is verified in terms of formation energy. The main objective of this research work is to probe NO$_2$ and NH$_3$ gases using PNS as a base sensing material. The adsorption of various preferential adsorption sites of these gas molecules is studied in accordance with the average HOMO-LUMO gap changes, natural-bond-orbital (NBO) charge transfer, HOMO-LUMO gap, and adsorption energy. Notably, the negative value of adsorption energy is found upon the adsorption of NO$_2$ and NH$_3$ on PNS and it is in the range of $-1.36$ to $-2.45$ eV. The findings of the present research work recommend that the hydrogenated and fluorinated PNS can be effectively used as a chemical sensor against NO$_2$ and NH$_3$ molecules., Comment: 15 pages, 21 figures, 2 tables

The recent discovery of a non-magnetic nematic quantum critical point (QCP) in the iron chalcogenide family FeSe$_{1-x}$S$_{x}$ has raised the prospect of investigating, in isolation, the role of nematicity on the electronic properties of correlated metals. Here we report a detailed study of the normal state transverse magnetoresistance (MR) in FeSe$_{1-x}$S$_{x}$ for a series of S concentrations spanning the nematic QCP. For all temperatures and \textit{x}-values studied, the MR can be decomposed into two distinct components: one that varies quadratically in magnetic field strength $\mu_{0}\textit{H}$ and one that follows precisely the quadrature scaling form recently reported in metals at or close to a QCP and characterized by a \textit{H}-linear MR over an extended field range. The two components evolve systematically with both temperature and S-substitution in a manner that is determined by their proximity to the nematic QCP. This study thus reveals unambiguously the coexistence of two independent charge sectors in a quantum critical system. Moreover, the quantum critical component of the MR is found to be less sensitive to disorder than the quadratic (orbital) MR, suggesting that detection of the latter in previous MR studies of metals near a QCP may have been obscured., Comment: 19 pages (including Supplemental Material), 12 figures

The switching behaviour of stilbene molecular system (SMS) device is investigated with the help of non-equilibrium Green's function (NEGF) approach using first principles calculation. The transmission spectrum of cis-isomers confirmed that more electrons are transferred across the SMS-device using optical excitation by the spin of C$=$C bond by torsion angle $(\theta=180^\circ)$. The current-voltage characteristics show the lower magnitude of current for trans-stilbene and higher magnitude of current for cis-stilbene for an externally applied bias voltage. The outcome of the proposed work suggests that cis and trans-stilbene molecular device can be used as a switch., Comment: 12 pages, 10 figures

The electronic properties of TiO$_2$ nanostructure are explored using density functional theory. The adsorption properties of acetone on TiO$_2$ nanostructure are studied in terms of adsorption energy, average energy gap variation and Mulliken charge transfer. The density of states spectrum and the band structure clearly reveals the adsorption of acetone on TiO$_2$ nanostructures. The variation in the energy gap and changes in the density of charge are observed upon adsorption of acetone on n-type TiO$_2$ base material. The results of DOS spectrum reveal that the transfer of electrons takes place between acetone vapor and TiO$_2$ base material. The findings show that the adsorption property of acetone is more favorable on TiO$_2$ nanostructure. Suitable adsorption sites of acetone on TiO$_2$ nanostructure are identified at atomistic level. From the results, it is confirmed that TiO$_2$ nanostructure can be efficiently utilized as a sensing element for the detection of acetone vapor in a mixed environment., Comment: 13 pages, 14 figures, 3 tables