Two-dimensional (2D) materials offer novel physics and potential use in multiple applications. However, many of the layered materials are very sensitive to the local environment and ambient conditions. Black phosphorus (BP) represents an extreme example of sensitivity to moisture and oxygen, which can lead to catastrophic degradation on a time scale of only minutes. Recent studies have shown that encapsulation with hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) protects BP from structural and chemical degradation, while improving its electrical properties making hBN the most commonly used material for encapsulation. In this talk I will examine the influence of hBN encapsulation on the structural and vibrational properties of BP using density functional theory (DFT). I will show that encapsulation strains the BP layer, which has significant impact on the vibrational properties. Both non-encapsulated and encapsulated BP layers, exhibit anomalous evolution of phonon frequencies, which show a redshift with increasing number of layers. The presented theoretical predictions are in good agreement with the results of Raman spectroscopy performed on h-BN encapsulated BP layers.
Zapraszamy do sali 2.22, ul. Pasteura 5 o godzinie 15:15
Alaeksander Ramaniuk (IFT UW)
Gain and loss are omnipotent in the physical, chemical and biological systems. Their effects can in a convenient way be modelled by effective non-Hermitian Hamiltonians. Imaginary contributions to the potential introduce source and drain terms for the probability amplitude. A special class of non-Hermitian Hamiltonians are those which possess a parity-time symmetry. In spite of their non-Hermiticity these Hamiltonians allow for real energy eigenvalues, i.e. the existence of stationary states in the presence of balanced gain and loss. This effect has been identified theoretically in a large number of quantum systems. Its existence has also been proved experimentally in coupled optical wave guides. In my talk I will provide concise review of these systems including the aspect of physics of energy conversion in nanostructures. Effects described above have very broad context. The dynamics can be very interesting and worth studying even if the parity-time symmetry is not conserved. The list of systems that belong to this class include whispering gallery modes in the micro-resonators, coupled wave-guides, unidirectional reflectionless metamaterial at optical frequencies, polariton condensates and may, many others. In my talk I consider a nanostructure of two coupled ring waveguides with constant linear gain and nonlinear absorption - the system that can be implemented in various settings including polariton condensates, optical waveguides or atomic Bose-Einstein condensates. It was found that, depending on the parameters, this simple configuration allows for observing several complex nonlinear phenomena, which include spontaneous symmetry breaking, modulational instability leading to generation of stable circular flows with various vorticities, stable inhomogeneous states with interesting structure of currents flowing between rings, as well as dynamical regimes having signatures of chaotic behavior.
Zapraszamy do sali 2.22, ul. Pasteura 5 o godzinie 15:15
dr Emil J. Zak (Department of Chemistry, Queen's University, Kingston, ON, Canada)
High-accuracy spectra of small molecules (2-9 atoms) are used as reference in characterizationof atmospheres of Exoplanets as well as in monitoring concentrations of greenhouse gasses in theEarth's atmosphere. Spectra acquired from experiment often suer from insucient accuracy intransition intensities for the remote sensing purposes. I am going to present a number of theoreticalmethods used to calculate rotational-vibrational and rotational-vibrational-electronic energy levels,wavefunctions and transition intensities for molecules important for astrophysics and atmosphericscience.In variational calculations of rotational-vibrational-electronic energy levels of polyatomicmolecules the total wavefunction is typically represented as linear combination of basis functions.The size of the multidimensional direct-product basis as well as the size of the grid needed to com-pute integrals accurately grows exponentially with the number of atoms. As a result, the memoryrequirements in variational calculations become prohibitive for molecules with more than 4-5 atoms- this is often referred to as the curse of dimensionality.I am going to discuss new developments in the eld, including a method which circumvents theproblem of exponential scaling of the basis set size with the number of atoms. This is achievedthrough a collocation approach which uses a non-direct product basis set and non-direct productgrids. In collocation, the Schroedinger equation is solved at a set of points, which avoids theneed for accurate multidimensional quadratures. In other words, unlike in variational calculations,collocation allows to solve the Schroedinger equation without calculating a single integral.
Zapraszamy do sali 2.22, ul. Pasteura 5 o godzinie 15:15
dr Marcin Gronowski (IFT UW)
Molecules in innterstallar space
Matter in our Galaxy evolves from extremely diluted gas, through molecular clouds, and star-forming regions to stars and their planetary systems. The pre-stellar phase is characterized by a mixture of gas and dust in low density (104 atoms/cm3) and temperature (10-30 K) conditions. Observing atoms and molecules in molecular clouds provides a unique glimpse into an extreme environment whose conditions are difficult to match even in sophisticated laboratories. In course of this lecture, we show a connection between the microscopic processes studied in laboratories on Earth and our understanding of phenomena in different space environments.The bulk of interstellar molecules have been detected by observation of microwave emission from rotationally excited molecules.Theoretical predictions of spectroscopic parameters such as rotational constants and vibrational frequencies by quantum calculations play an important role in guiding spectroscopic and astronomical studies of molecules, as we demonstrate using a few different examples.The main question is: how are these molecules formed? Here, we present the possible cold-chemistry routes leading to selected sulfur-containing molecules of astrophysical significance by modeling of the relevant reaction network using quantum chemical calculations.