Off-diagonal magnetoimpedance in field-annealed Co-based amorphous ribbons

The off-diagonal magnetoimpedance in field-annealed CoFeSiB amorphous ribbons was measured in the low-frequency range using a pick-up coil wound around the sample. The asymmetric two-peak behavior of the field dependence of the off-diagonal impedance was observed. The asymmetry is attributed to the formation of a hard magnetic crystalline phase at the ribbon surface. The experimental results are interpreted in terms of the surface impedance tensor. It is assumed that the ribbon consists of an inner amorphous region and surface crystalline layers. The coupling between the crystalline and amorphous phases is described through an effective bias field. A qualitative agreement between the calculated dependences and experimental data is demonstrated. The results obtained may be useful for development of weak magnetic-field sensors.Comment: 19 pages, 6 figure

Nano granular metallic Fe - oxygen deficient TiO2−δ_{2-\delta} composite films: A room temperature, highly carrier polarized magnetic semiconductor

Nano granular metallic iron (Fe) and titanium dioxide (TiO$_{2-\delta}$) were co-deposited on (100) lanthanum aluminate (LaAlO$_3$) substrates in a low oxygen chamber pressure using a pulsed laser ablation deposition (PLD) technique. The co-deposition of Fe and TiO$_2$ resulted in $\approx$ 10 nm metallic Fe spherical grains suspended within a TiO$_{2-\delta}$ matrix. The films show ferromagnetic behavior with a saturation magnetization of 3100 Gauss at room temperature. Our estimate of the saturation magnetization based on the size and distribution of the Fe spheres agreed well with the measured value. The film composite structure was characterized as p-type magnetic semiconductor at 300 K with a carrier density of the order of $10^{22} /{\rm cm^3}$. The hole carriers were excited at the interface between the nano granular Fe and TiO$_{2-\delta}$ matrix similar to holes excited in the metal/n-type semiconductor interface commonly observed in Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor (MOS) devices. From the large anomalous Hall effect directly observed in these films it follows that the holes at the interface were strongly spin polarized. Structure and magneto transport properties suggested that these PLD films have potential nano spintronics applications.Comment: 6 pages in Latex including 8 figure

Magnetoelectric Effects on Composite Nano Granular Fe/TiO2−δFe/TiO_{2-\delta} Films

Employing a new experimental technique to measure magnetoelectric response functions, we have measured the magnetoelectric effect in composite films of nano granular metallic iron in anatase titanium dioxide at temperatures below 50 K. A magnetoelectric resistance is defined as the ratio of a transverse voltage to bias current as a function of the magnetic field. In contrast to the anomalous Hall resistance measured above 50 K, the magnetoelectic resistance below 50 K is significantly larger and exhibits an even symmetry with respect to magnetic field reversal $H\to -H$. The measurement technique required attached electrodes in the plane of the film composite in order to measure voltage as a function of bias current and external magnetic field. To our knowledge, the composite films are unique in terms of showing magnetoelectric effects at low temperatures, $<$ 50 K, and anomalous Hall effects at high temperatures, $>$ 50 K.Comment: ReVTeX, 2 figures, 3 page

Long GRBs from binary stars: runaway, Wolf-Rayet progenitors

The collapsar model for long gamma-ray bursts requires a rapidly rotating Wolf-Rayet star as progenitor. We test the idea of producing rapidly rotating Wolf-Rayet stars in massive close binaries through mass accretion and consecutive quasi-chemically homogeneous evolution; the latter had previously been shown to provide collapsars below a certain metallicity threshold for single stars. The binary channel presented here may provide a means for massive stars to obtain the high rotation rates required to evolve quasi-chemically homogeneous and fulfill the collapsar scenario. Moreover, it suggests that a possibly large fraction of long gamma-ray bursts occurs in runaway stars.Comment: To appear in the proceedings of the conference "Unsolved problems in stellar physics" - Cambridge, July 200

Single-pass high-gain tapered free-electron laser with transverse diffraction in the postsaturation regime

It has been well known that the resonant interaction of an ultrarelativistic electron beam and the radiation field in the single-pass high-gain free electron laser (FEL) amplifier leads to the optical gain guiding. The transverse Laplacian term of the slowly varying wave equation in the linear regime can be approximated as a constant detuning parameter, i.e., vertical bar del(2)(perpendicular to)vertical bar k(R)/z(R) where k(R) is the resonant wave number and z(R) is the Rayleigh range of the laser. In the post-saturation regime, the radiation power begins to oscillate about an equilibrium for the untapered case while continues to grow by undulator tapering. Moreover, in this regime the gain guiding decreases and the simple constant detune is no longer valid. In this paper we study the single-pass high-gain FEL performance in the post-saturation regime with inclusion of diffraction effect and undulator tapering. Our analysis relies upon two constants of motion, one from the energy conservation and the other from the adiabatic invariant of the action variable. By constructing a two-dimensional axisymmetric wave equation and the coupled one-dimensional electron dynamical equations, the performance of a tapered FEL in the postsaturation regime can be analyzed, including the fundamental mode profile, the power efficiency and the scaled energy spread. We begin the analytical investigation with two different axisymmetric electron beam profiles, the uniform and bounded parabolic ones. It is found that the tapered FEL power efficiency can be smaller but close to the taper ratio provided the resonant phase remains constant and the beam-wave is properly matched. Such a tapered efficiency is nearly independent of transverse electron beam size before significant electron detrapping occurs. This is essentially different from the untapered case, where the power extraction efficiency is around the essential FEL gain bandwidth (or rho, the Pierce or FEL parameter) and depends on the beam size. It is also found that the power enhancement due to undulator tapering is attributed more by the field increase outside the transverse electron beam than that inside the transverse electron beam. Several scaling properties on the taper ratio and the transverse electron beam size are also discussed in this paper.11Ysciescopu

Impurities, Quantum Interference and Quantum Phase Transitions in s-wave superconductors

We study the effects of quantum interference in impurity structures consisting of two or three magnetic impurities that are located on the surface of an s-wave superconductor. By using a self-consistent Bogoliubov-de Gennes formalism, we show that quantum interference leads to characteristic signatures not only in the local density of states (LDOS), but also in the spatial form of the superconducting order parameter. We demonstrate that the signatures of quantum interference in the LDOS are qualitatively, and to a large extent quantitatively unaffected by the suppression of the superconducting order parameter near impurities, which illustrates the robustness of quantum interference phenomena. Moreover, we show that by changing the interimpurity distance, or the impurities' scattering strength, the s-wave superconductor can be tuned through a series of first order quantum phase transitions in which the spin polarization of its ground state changes. In contrast to the single impurity case, this transition is not necessarily accompanied by a $\pi$-phase shift of the order parameter, and can in certain cases even lead to its enhancement. Our results demonstrate that the superconductor's LDOS, its spin state, and the spatial form of the superconducting order parameter are determined by a subtle interplay between the relative positions of the impurities and their scattering strength

Effective Potential for Uniform Magnetic Fields through Pauli Interaction

We have calculated the explicit form of the real and imaginary parts of the effective potential for uniform magnetic fields which interact with spin-1/2 fermions through the Pauli interaction. It is found that the non-vanishing imaginary part develops for a magnetic field stronger than a critical field, whose strength is the ratio of the fermion mass to its magnetic moment. This implies the instability of the uniform magnetic field beyond the critical field strength to produce fermion pairs with the production rate density $w(x)=\frac{m^{4}}{24\pi}(\frac{|\mu B|}{m}-1)^{3}(\frac{|\mu B|}{m}+3)$ in the presence of Pauli interaction.Comment: 9 pages with 1 figur