Osaka University

Tanaka Kikinzoku Kogyo K.k.

Japan Science and Technology Agency

National Institute of Technology

Hideaki Kasai

Hiroshi Nakanishi

Koichi Matsutani

Minoru Ishida

Yasushi Masahiro

Tomoya Kishi

Takeshi Kaieda

Koji Shimizu

Susan Menez Aspera

Bhume Chantaramolee

A catalyst for an oxygen reduction reaction containing catalyst particles having a shell-core structure containing a PtCo alloy or a PtCoMn alloy as a core, and platinum as a shell layer. A specific plane of a face-centered cubic lattice is formed by a plurality of platinum atoms contained in the shell layer, and a lattice constant of the plane of the face-centered cubic lattice on the catalyst particle surface is 3.70 Å or more and 4.05 Å or less (in a PtCo alloy), or 3.870 Å or more and 4.10 Å or less (in a PtCoMn alloy). A catalyst design method includes a step of calculating, with respect to an orientation plane such as the plane formed by platinum atoms of the shell layer, adsorption energies for an oxygen molecule, an OH group and a water molecule by first-principles calculation based on density functional theory.

Core-shell catalyst for oxygen reduction reaction, and method of designing catalyst

Provided are (i) a catalyst that has a core-shell structure and is highly active in an oxygen reduction reaction, which is a cathode reaction of a fuel cell, and (ii) a reaction acceleration method in which the catalyst is used. A core-shell catalyst for accelerating an oxygen reduction reaction, contains: silver or palladium as a core material; and platinum as a shell material, the core-shell catalyst having, on a surface thereof, a (110) surface of a face centered cubic lattice.

Cathode electrode catalyst of fuel cell, and reaction acceleration method

A control section virtually divides a surface of an adsorbing material into a plurality of regions (cells) in accordance with a computer program. Further, the control section-allocates a normal distribution function to each of the divided cells, and sets a linear combination of the normal distribution functions allocated to all cells to a trial function. Moreover, the control section solves a Schr&#xf6;dinger equation based upon a potential on the surface of the adsorbing material by a numerical variational method, to calculate a wave function. Then, based upon the calculated wave function, the quantum state of the atom or the molecule adsorbed on the surface of the adsorbing material is estimated.

Quantum state estimation method, quantum state estimation device and computer program

A surface-spintronic device operating on a novel principles of operations may be implemented as a spin conducting, a spin switching or a spin memory device. It includes a magnetic atom thin film () layered on a surface of a solid crystal () and a drain and a source electrodes ()and () disposed at two locations on the magnetic atom thin film, respectively, whereby a spin splitting surface electronic state band formed in a system comprising said solid crystal() surface and said magnetic atom thin film () is utilized to obtain a spin polarized current flow. With electrons spin-polarized in a particular direction injected from the source electrode (), controlling the direction of magnetization of the magnetic atom thin film () allows switching on and off the conduction of such injected electrons therethrough. Also, with the use of the magnetization holding function of the magnetic atom thin film (), it is possible to realize a spin memory device that can operate to write information on controlling the direction of magnetization of the magnetic atom thin film () and that can operate to read information on detecting the electrodes ().

Surface-spintronics device

Growing community of inventors

Osaka, Japan

Hideaki Kasai