arXiv subjects

Pierre Lagarde

Publications and source records attributed to Pierre Lagarde.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2020

Silicene nanoribbons on an insulating thin film

Silicene, a new two-dimensional (2D) material has attracted intense research because of the ubiquitous use of silicon in modern technology. However, producing free-standing silicene has proved to be a huge challenge. Until now, silicene could be synthesized only on metal surfaces where it naturally forms strong interactions with the metal substrate that modify its electronic properties. Here, we report the first experimental evidence of silicene sheet on an insulating NaCl thin film. This work represents a major breakthrough; for the study of the intrinsic properties of silicene, and by extension to other 2D materials that have so far only been grown on metal surfaces.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2020

Iodine molecule modifications with high pressure

Metallization and dissociation are key transformations in diatomic molecules at high densities particularly significant for modeling giant planets. Using X-ray absorption spectroscopy and atomistic modeling, we demonstrate that in halogens, the formation of a \textit{connected} molecular structure takes place at pressures well below metallization. Here we show that the iodine diatomic molecule first elongates of $\sim$0.007 Å~up to a critical pressure of $P_c$ $\backsim$7~GPa developing bonds between molecules. Then its length continuously decreases with pressure up to 15-20~GPa. Universal trends in halogens are shown and allow to predict for chlorine a pressure of 42$\pm$8~GPa for molecular bond-length reversal. Our findings tackle the molecule invariability paradigm in diatomic molecular phases at high pressures and may be generalized to other abundant diatomic molecules in the universe, including hydrogen.

physics.chem-ph↗

arXiv2011

Bandwidth-driven nature of the pressure-induced metal state of LaMnO3

Using X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS), we studied the local structure in LaMnO3 under applied pressure across and well above the insulator to metal (IM) transition. A hysteretic behavior points to the coexistence of two phases within a large pressure range (7 to 25 GPa). The ambient phase with highly Jahn-Teller (JT) distorted MnO6 octahedra is progressively substituted by a new phase with less-distorted JT MnO6 units. The electronic delocalization leading to the IM transition is finger-printed from the pre-edge XAS structure around 30 GPa. We observed that the phase transition takes place without any significant reduction of the JT distortion. This entails band-overlap as the driving mechanism of the IM transition.

cond-mat.str-el↗