Growth of large single crystals of Rare Earth Hexaborides

Single crystal growth of several rare earth hexaborides has been carried out by the floating zone technique. A high power Xenon arc lamp image furnace was used for the crystal growth. Large high quality crystals of LaB$_{6}$, CeB$_{6}$, PrB$_{6}$ and NdB$_{6}$, about 1 cc in volume have been obtained. Crystals of all these compounds have also been grown using enriched $^{11}$B isotope for use in neutron scattering experiments.Comment: 3 pages, 3 figures, in press (J. Crystal Growth

Pricing-to-Market (PTM) and the International Monetary Policy Transmission: The "New Open-Economy Macroeconomics" Approach

Empirical analyses of firms' Price-setting behavior show that while the exchange rate pass-through of Japanese firms is low (many Japanese firms adopt pricing-to-market [PTM]), the export prices charged by U.S. firms nearly perfectly reflect foreign exchange rate fluctuations. This paper analyzes how the difference in domestic and foreign firms' price-setting behavior affects the domestic and international transmission of monetary policy by using a model that explicitly incorporates differences in the price-setting behavior of domestic and foreign firms. This model is constructed by adopting the framework of the "hew open-economy macroeconomics" that has been the subject of numerous research papers an recent years. The findings demonstrate that the effects of domestic and foreign monetary policies differ greatly when domestic and foreign firms adopt different price-setting behaviors. This indicates that central banks have to give sufficient attention to firms' price-setting behavior for the implementation of monetary policies. Additionally, model simulations based on Japan and U.S. data show that the external effect of Japanese monetary policy is negligible compared with that of U. S. monetary policy due to the PTM-price-setting behavior of Japanese firms.

Do Currency Regimes Matter in the 21st Century? An Overview

This paper selectively reviews the recent literature on currency regimes in Europe, the Americas, and East Asia. We argue that, given the global interdependence among today's economies, currency regimes should always be evaluated in relation to monetary policy, fiscal policy, structural policies, and the working of financial markets. Thus, currency regimes do matter and are a relevant concern for policymakers.

Evolution of the spin Hall effect in Pt nanowires: Size and temperature effects

We have studied the evolution of the Spin Hall Effect in the regime where the material size responsible for the spin accumulation is either smaller or larger than the spin diffusion length. Lateral spin valve structures with Pt insertions were successfully used to measure the spin absorption efficiency as well as the spin accumulation in Pt induced through the spin Hall effect. Under a constant applied current the results show a decrease of the spin accumulation signal is more pronounced as the Pt thickness exceeds the spin diffusion length. This implies that the spin accumulation originates from bulk scattering inside the Pt wire and the spin diffusion length limits the SHE. We have also analyzed the temperature variation of the spin hall conductivity to identify the dominant scattering mechanism.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure