Research on boron filaments and boron reinforced composites

Boron filaments for use as reinforcing phase in composite materials for aerospace structure

Out-of-plane nesting driven spin spiral in ultrathin Fe/Cu(001) films

Epitaxial ultrathin Fe films on fcc Cu(001) exhibit a spin spiral (SS), in contrast to the ferromagnetism of bulk bcc Fe. We study the in-plane and out-of-plane Fermi surfaces (FSs) of the SS in 8 monolayer Fe/Cu(001) films using energy dependent soft x-ray momentum-resolved photoemission spectroscopy. We show that the SS originates in nested regions confined to out-of-plane FSs, which are drastically modified compared to in-plane FSs. From precise reciprocal space maps in successive zones, we obtain the associated real space compressive strain of 1.5+-0.5% along c-axis. An autocorrelation analysis quantifies the incommensurate ordering vector q=(2pi/a)(0,0,~0.86), favoring a SS and consistent with magneto-optic Kerr effect experiments. The results reveal the importance of in-plane and out-of-plane FS mapping for ultrathin films.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Exchange between deep donors in semiconductors: a quantum defect approach

Exchange interactions among defects in semiconductors are commonly treated within effective-mass theory using a scaled hydrogenic wave-function. However such a wave-function is only applicable to shallow impurities; here we present a simple but robust generalization to treat deep donors, in which we treat the long-range part of the wavefunction using the well established quantum defect theory, and include a model central-cell correction to fix the bound-state eigenvalue at the experimentally observed value. This allows us to compute the effect of binding energy on exchange interactions as a function of donor distance; this is a significant quantity given recent proposals to carry out quantum information processing using deep donors. As expected, exchange interactions are suppressed (or increased), compared to the hydrogenic case, by the greater localization (or delocalization) of the wavefunctions of deep donors (or `super-shallow' donors with binding energy less then the hydrogenic value). The calculated results are compared with a simple scaling of the Heitler-London hydrogenic exchange; the scaled hydrogenic results give the correct order of magnitude but fail to reproduce quantitatively our calculations. We calculate the donor exchange in silicon including inter-valley interference terms for donor pairs along the $\{100\}$ direction, and also show the influence of the donor type on the distribution of nearest-neighbour exchange constants at different concentrations. Our methods can be used to compute the exchange interactions between two donor electrons with arbitrary binding energy.Comment: 11 pages, 10 figures, RevTeX

Time Evolution of Spin Waves

A rigorous derivation of macroscopic spin-wave equations is demonstrated. We introduce a macroscopic mean-field limit and derive the so-called Landau-Lifshitz equations for spin waves. We first discuss the ferromagnetic Heisenberg model at T=0 and finally extend our analysis to general spin hamiltonians for the same class of ferromagnetic ground states.Comment: 4 pages, to appear in PR

Low temperature dynamics of kinks on Ising interfaces

The anisotropic motion of an interface driven by its intrinsic curvature or by an external field is investigated in the context of the kinetic Ising model in both two and three dimensions. We derive in two dimensions (2d) a continuum evolution equation for the density of kinks by a time-dependent and nonlocal mapping to the asymmetric exclusion process. Whereas kinks execute random walks biased by the external field and pile up vertically on the physical 2d lattice, then execute hard-core biased random walks on a transformed 1d lattice. Their density obeys a nonlinear diffusion equation which can be transformed into the standard expression for the interface velocity v = M[(gamma + gamma'')kappa + H]$, where M, gamma + gamma'', and kappa are the interface mobility, stiffness, and curvature, respectively. In 3d, we obtain the velocity of a curved interface near the orientation from an analysis of the self-similar evolution of 2d shrinking terraces. We show that this velocity is consistent with the one predicted from the 3d tensorial generalization of the law for anisotropic curvature-driven motion. In this generalization, both the interface stiffness tensor and the curvature tensor are singular at the orientation. However, their product, which determines the interface velocity, is smooth. In addition, we illustrate how this kink-based kinetic description provides a useful framework for studying more complex situations by modeling the effect of immobile dilute impurities.Comment: 11 pages, 10 figure

Low temperature shape relaxation of 2-d islands by edge diffusion

We present a precise microscopic description of the limiting step for low temperature shape relaxation of two dimensional islands in which activated diffusion of particles along the boundary is the only mechanism of transport allowed. In particular, we are able to explain why the system is driven irreversibly towards equilibrium. Based on this description, we present a scheme for calculating the duration of the limiting step at each stage of the relaxation process. Finally, we calculate numerically the total relaxation time as predicted by our results and compare it with simulations of the relaxation process.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figures, to appear in Phys. Rev.

Self Consistent Expansion for the Molecular Beam Epitaxy Equation

Motivated by a controversy over the correct results derived from the dynamic renormalization group (DRG) analysis of the non linear molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) equation, a self-consistent expansion (SCE) for the non linear MBE theory is considered. The scaling exponents are obtained for spatially correlated noise of the general form $D({\vec r - \vec r',t - t'}) = 2D_0 | {\vec r - \vec r'} |^{2\rho - d} \delta ({t - t'})$. I find a lower critical dimension $d_c (\rho) = 4 + 2\rho$, above, which the linear MBE solution appears. Below the lower critical dimension a r-dependent strong-coupling solution is found. These results help to resolve the controversy over the correct exponents that describe non linear MBE, using a reliable method that proved itself in the past by predicting reasonable results for the Kardar-Parisi-Zhang (KPZ) system, where DRG failed to do so.Comment: 16 page

Collective synchronization in spatially extended systems of coupled oscillators with random frequencies

We study collective behavior of locally coupled limit-cycle oscillators with random intrinsic frequencies, spatially extended over $d$-dimensional hypercubic lattices. Phase synchronization as well as frequency entrainment are explored analytically in the linear (strong-coupling) regime and numerically in the nonlinear (weak-coupling) regime. Our analysis shows that the oscillator phases are always desynchronized up to $d=4$, which implies the lower critical dimension $d_{l}^{P}=4$ for phase synchronization. On the other hand, the oscillators behave collectively in frequency (phase velocity) even in three dimensions ($d=3$), indicating that the lower critical dimension for frequency entrainment is $d_{l}^{F}=2$. Nonlinear effects due to periodic nature of limit-cycle oscillators are found to become significant in the weak-coupling regime: So-called {\em runaway oscillators} destroy the synchronized (ordered) phase and there emerges a fully random (disordered) phase. Critical behavior near the synchronization transition into the fully random phase is unveiled via numerical investigation. Collective behavior of globally-coupled oscillators is also examined and compared with that of locally coupled oscillators.Comment: 18 pages, 18 figure

Surface Deformation Caused by Pressure Changes in the Fluid Core

Pressure load Love numbers are presented for the mantle deformation induced by the variation of the pressure field at the core mantle boundary (CNB). We find that the CMB geostrophic pressure fields, derived from 'frozen-flux' core surface flow estimates at epochs 1965 and 1975, produce a relative radial velocity (RRV) field in the range of 3mm/decade with uplift near the equator and subsidence near the poles. The contribution of this mechanism to the change in the length of day (l.o.d) is small --- about 2.3 x 10(exp -2) ms/decade. The contribution to the time variation of the ellipticity coefficient is more important --- -1.3 x 10(exp -11)/yr