We consider the thermal insulation property of homogeneous anisotropically heat-conducting bodies, i.e. those whose thermal tensor (matrix) A is constant throughout the body but not generally a constant times the identity. This anisotropy is a common feature of nanocomposite materials. We propose using the principal Dirichlet eigenvalue λ of the associated elliptic differential operator −∇ · A∇...

Correlated electron materials can undergo a variety of phase transitions, including superconductivity, the metal-insulator transition and colossal magnetoresistance. Moreover, multiple physical phases or domains with dimensions of nanometres to micrometres can coexist in these materials at temperatures where a pure phase is expected. Making use of the properties of correlated electron materials...

In the conducted investigations, aluminium dross, i.e. solid waste formed in the production and recycling of aluminium, was used as one of the basic raw materials to obtain a material characterised by insulating and exothermic properties, applied to heat riser heads in the process of iron or steel casting. The product was obtained by filtrating the slurry. In the raw mix, aluminium dross played...

We present a preliminary report on the theoretical and experimental study of transport models in highly insulating materials. The report is developed in four sections; first we give background on the nature of the problems in space craft charging, the contributions and connections made by the Utah State material physics group. Second we discuss the density of states to explore the connections b...

The electric and magnetic properties of matter are of great interest for materials science and their use in electronic applications. Large dielectric and magnetoelectric responses of materials at room temperature are a great advantage for electromagnetic device applications. Here we present a study of FeCo-MgF nanogranular films exhibiting giant dielectric and magnetoelectric responses at room ...

Kondo insulators are a particularly simple type of heavy electron material, where a filled band of heavy quasiparticles gives rise to a narrow band insulator. Starting with the Anderson lattice Hamiltonian, we develop a topological classification of emergent band structures for Kondo insulators and show that these materials may host three-dimensional topological insulating phases. We propose a ...

The electrical properties of solution-processed composite thin films consisting of functionalized graphene sheets (FGS) as the filler and polystyrene (PS) as the host material are described. We demonstrate that transistors from graphene-based composite thin films exhibit ambipolar field effect characteristics, suggesting transport via percolation among FGS in the insulating PS matrix. Device ch...