Three-dimensional tomography of the beryllium fermi surface: surface charge redistribution

Nonlocal electron correlations in an itinerant ferromagnet

Our understanding of the properties of ferromagnetic materials, widely used in spintronic devices, is fundamentally based on their electronic band structure. However, even for the most simple elemental ferromagnets, electron correlations are prevalent, requiring descriptions of their electronic structure beyond the simple picture of independent quasi-particles. Here, we give evidence that in itinerant ferromagnets like cobalt these electron correlations are of nonlocal origin, manifested in a complex self-energy Σσ(E,k) that disperses as function of spin σ, energy E, and momentum vector k. Together with one-step photoemission calculations, our experiments allow us to quantify the dispersive behaviour of the complex self-energy over the whole Brillouin zone. At the same time we observe regions of anomalously large "waterfall"-like band renormalization, previously only attributed to strong electron correlations in high-TC superconductors, making itinerant ferromagnets a paradigmatic test case for the interplay between band structure, magnetism, and many-body correlations.

Premelting hcp to bcc Transition in Beryllium

Beryllium (Be) is an important material with wide applications ranging from aerospace components to x-ray equipment. Yet a precise understanding of its phase diagram remains elusive. We have investigated the phase stability of Be using a recently developed hybrid free energy computation method that accounts for anharmonic effects by invoking phonon quasiparticles. We find that the hcp → bcc transition occurs near the melting curve at 0<P<11  GPa with a positive Clapeyron slope of 41±4  K/GPa, which is more consistent with recent experimental measurements. This work also demonstrates the validity of this theoretical framework based on the phonon quasiparticle to study the structural stability and phase transitions in strongly anharmonic materials.