Spectrum-generating Symmetries for BPS Solitons

We show that there exist nonlinearly realised duality symmetries that are independent of the standard supergravity global symmetries, and which provide active spectrum-generating symmetries for the fundamental BPS solitons. The additional ingredient, in any spacetime dimension, is a single scaling transformation that allows one to map between BPS solitons with different masses. Without the inclusion of this additional transformation, which is a symmetry of the classical equations of motion, but not the action, it is not possible to find a spectrum-generating symmetry. The necessity of including this scaling transformation highlights the vulnerability of duality multiplets to quantum anomalies. We argue that fundamental BPS solitons may be immune to this threat.Comment: References added. Latex, 29 page

Dilatonic p-brane solitons

We find new 4-brane and 5-brane solitons in massive gauged $D=6$, $N=2$ and $D=7$, $N=1$ supergravities. In each case, the solutions preserve half of the original supersymmetry. These solutions make use of the metric and dilaton fields only. We also present more general dilatonic $(D-2)$-branes in $D$ dimensions.Comment: 9 pages, Latex, no figure

Annealing-induced Fe oxide nanostructures on GaAs

We report the evolution of Fe oxide nanostructures on GaAs(100) upon pre- and post-growth annealing conditions. GaAs nanoscale pyramids were formed on the GaAs surface due to wet etching and thermal annealing. An 8.0-nm epitaxial Fe film was grown, oxidized, and annealed using a gradient temperature method. During the process the nanostripes were formed, and the evolution has been demonstrated using transmission and reflection high energy electron diffraction, and scanning electron microscopy. These nanostripes; exhibited uniaxial magnetic anisotropy. The formation of these nanostructures is attributed to surface anisotropy, which in addition could explain the observed uniaxial magnetic anisotropy

Vertical field-effect transistors in III-V semiconductors

Vertical metal-semiconductor field-effect transistors in GaAs/GaAlAs and vertical metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors (MOSFET's) in InP/GaInPAs materials have been fabricated. These structures make possible short channel devices with gate lengths defined by epitaxy rather than by submicron photolithography processes. Devices with transconductances as high as 280 mS/mm in GaAs and 60 mS/mm (with 100-nm gate oxide) for the InP/GaInPAs MOSFET's were observed

Phase slip phenomena in superconductors: from ordered to chaotic dynamics

We consider flux penetration to a 2D superconducting cylinder. We show that in the low field limit the kinetics is deterministic. In the strong field limit the dynamics becomes stochastic. Surprisingly the inhomogeneity in the cylinder reduces the level of stochasticity because of the predominance of Kelvin-Helmholtz vortices.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures (main text) and 1 page, 1 figure (supplementary material

Magneto-electric effect in NdCrTiO5

We have measured the dielectric constant and the pyroelectric current of orthorhombic (space group $Pbam$) NdCrTiO$_5$ polycrystalline samples. The dielectric constant and the pyroelectric current show features associated with ferroelectric transitions at the antiferromagnetic transition temperature ($T_{\text{N}}$ = 21 K). The effect of magnetic fields is to enhance the features almost linearly up to the maximum measured field (7 T) with a spontaneous polarization value of $\sim 3.5 \mu$C/m$^2$. Two possible scenarios, the linear magnetoelectric effect and multiferroicity (antiferromagnetism + ferroelectricity), are discussed as possible explanations for the observations.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figure