This paper mainly reports stability investigations of rotors supported on fluid film journal bearings possessing multilocational slip-no-slip zones at the bush–film interface. The coupled solution of governing equations (Reynolds equation, energy equation, heat diffusion equation, lubricant rheological relation, and thermal boundary conditions) has been used to find pressure distributions in the lubricating film followed by evaluation of bearing coefficients. These coefficients have been used to determine stability limit speed (SLS) of the system and its robustness for both short (nearly inflexible) and long (flexible) rotors. Numerical simulations show that the pattern of pressure distribution with multiple slip-no-slip zones is similar to that obtained for multilobe bearings, resulting in substantial improvement of rotor–bearing stability irrespective of eccentricity ratio. A reduction in friction force (up to Sommerfeld number 1.8) and an increase in SLS and robustness compared to conventional bearings are observed when used with short rotors. Typically, up to six pairs of slip-no-slip zones improve SLS of the rotor–shaft system and robustness for short rotors, although more pairs deteriorate both. However, for long rotors, where dynamic rotor forces also act, these bearings provide marginal improvement in stability and robustness only for a small range of slip length.

Half-Heusler compounds exhibit a remarkable variety of emergent properties such as heavy-fermion behaviour, unconventional superconductivity and magnetism. Several of these compounds have been predicted to host topologically non-trivial electronic structures. Remarkably, recent theoretical studies have indicated the possibility to induce non-trivial topological surface states in an otherwise trivial half-Heusler system by strain engineering. Here, using magneto-transport measurements and first principles DFT-based simulations, we demonstrate topological surface states on strained [110] oriented thin films of YPdBi grown on (100) MgO. These topological surface states arise in an otherwise trivial semi-metal purely driven by strain. Furthermore, we observe the onset of superconductivity in these strained films highlighting the possibility of engineering a topological superconducting state. Our results demonstrate the critical role played by strain in engineering novel topological states in thin film systems for developing next-generation spintronic devices.

DyPdBi (DPB) is a topological semimetal which belongs to the rare-earth-based half-Heusler alloy family. In this work, we studied the thickness-dependent structural and magneto-transport properties of DPB thin films (20 to 60 nm) grown using pulsed laser deposition. The DPB thin films show (110) oriented growth on MgO(100) single crystal substrates. Longitudinal resistance data indicate metallic surface states dominated carrier transport and the suppression of semiconducting bulk state carriers for films ≤40 nm. We observe the weak antilocalization (WAL) effect and Shubnikov-de Hass (SdH) oscillations in the magneto-transport data. The presence of a single coherent transport channel (α ∼ −0.50) is observed in the Hikami-Larkin-Nagaoka (HLN) fitting of WAL data. The power law temperature dependence of phase coherence length (L Ø ) ∼ T −0.50 indicates the observation of the 2D WAL effect and the presence of topological nontrivial surface states for films ≤40 nm. The 60 nm sample shows semiconducting resistivity behavior at higher temperature (>180 K) and HLN fitting results (α ∼ −0.72, L Ø ∼ T −0.68 ) indicate the presence of partial decoupled top and bottom surface states. The Berry phase ∼π is extracted for thin films ≤40 nm, which further demonstrates the presence of Dirac fermions and nontrivial surface states. Band structure parameters are extracted by fitting SdH data to the standard Lifshitz-Kosevich formula. The sheet carrier concentration and cyclotron effective mass of carriers decrease with increasing thickness (20 nm to 60 nm) from ∼1.35 × 10 12 cm −2 to 0.68 × 10 12 cm −2 and from ∼0.26 m e to 0.12 m e , respectively. Our observations suggest that samples with a thickness ≤40 nm have transport properties dominated by surface states and samples with a thickness ≥60 nm have contributions from both bulk and surface states.

In this Letter, we present experimental observation of surface-dominated transport properties in [110]-oriented strained (∼1.6%) ErPdBi thin films. The resistivity data show typical semi-metallic behavior in the temperature range of 3 K ≤ T ≤ 350 K with a transition from semiconductor- to metal-like behavior below 3 K. The metallic behavior at low temperature disappears entirely in the presence of an external magnetic field >1 T. The weak-antilocalization (WAL) effect is observed in magneto-conductance data in the low magnetic field region and follows the Hikami–Larkin–Nagaoka (HLN) model. HLN fitting estimated single coherent channel, i.e., α ∼ −0.51 at 1.9 K, and the phase coherence length (Lϕ) shows the Lϕ ∼ T−0.52 power law dependence on temperature in the range of 1.9 K–10 K, indicating the observation of 2D WAL. Shubnikov–de Haas (SdH) oscillations are observed in magneto-resistance data below 10 K and are fitted to standard Lifhsitz Kosevich theory. Fitting reveals the effective mass of charge carriers ∼0.15 me and a finite Berry phase of 0.86π ± 0.16. The sheet carrier concentration and mobility of carriers estimated using SdH data are ns ∼ 1.35 × 1012 cm−2 and μs = 1210 cm2 V−1 s−1, respectively, and match well with the data measured using the Hall measurement at 1.9 K to be n ∼ 1.22 × 1012 cm−2, μ = 1035 cm2 V−1 s−1. These findings indicate the non-trivial nature and surface-dominated transport properties of strained (110) ErPdBi thin films at low temperatures.

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