Small Business & Entrepreneurship in Ohio: Promoting Prosperity by Growing from Within

Small businesses and entrepreneurs have long been recognized for the important role they play in our economy. As recently as the first quarter of 2015, small businesses with fewer than 50 employees accounted for more than a quarter of total employment in Ohio, while nearly one in ten jobs were in businesses five years old and younger. Yet, even more important than the total job numbers, small businesses and entrepreneurs play a critical role in the dynamic evolution of the economy through job creation and job destruction. Simply, small business and new business development is a lot like a lottery; while many won’t be successful, if there are enough small business start-ups, the greater the chance that one will be successful and create scores of jobs and wealth. Even if many small start-ups fail, a key advantage is that a greater intensity of start-ups builds up a culture that celebrates entrepreneurship and better informs government as to how to create a climate to foster their success

School Choice in Ohio: Moving from Theory to Practice

Over the last twenty years, the education landscape in Ohio has dramatically changed as school choice policies have opened up public funding to private schools and charter schools, increasing school options for parents and students. In recent years, the utilization of Ohio’s school choice programs has rapidly grown, with more than 350,000 Ohio students participating in a school choice program in 2014. As these programs have grown, the amount of public funds involved in school choice program has also grown, well exceeding $1.5 billion in 2014. This rise has shifted the public discourse around school choice from theory to practice, with a greater focus on whether school choice policies are delivering on their promises of better student outcomes and great efficiency in the delivery of education

Taking Measure of Ohio's Opioid Crisis

Opioid addiction, abuse, and overdose deaths have become the most pressing public health issue facing Ohio. Ohio leads the country in drug overdose deaths per capita, a rate that continues to rise, overwhelming families, communities, and local governments across the state. In this policy brief, we aim to contribute to the understanding of this unfolding crisis and highlight insights that can inform policymaking

Thickness dependence of unidirectional spin-Hall magnetoresistance in metallic bilayers

A nonlinear magnetoresistance - called unidirectional spin-Hall magnetoresistance - is recently experimentally discovered in metallic bilayers consisting of a heavy metal and a ferromagnetic metal. To study the fundamental mechanism of the USMR, both ferromagnetic and heavy metallic layer thickness dependence of the USMR are presented in a Pt/Co/AlOx trilayer at room temperature. To avoid ambiguities, second harmonic Hall measurements are used for separating spin-Hall and thermal contributions to the non-linear magnetoresistance. The experimental results are fitted by using a drift-diffusion theory, with parameters extracted from an analysis of longitudinal resistivity of the Co layer within the framework of the Fuchs-Sondheimer model. A good agreement with the theory is found, demonstrating that the USMR is governed by both the spin-Hall effect in the heavy metallic layer and the metallic diffusion process in the ferromagnetic layer

Stabilizing chiral spin-structures via an alternating Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction

The stabilization of chiral magnetic spin-structures in thin films is often attributed to the interfacial Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction (DMI). Very recently, however, it has been reported that the chirality induced by the DMI can be affected by dipolar interactions. These dipolar fields tend to form N\'eel caps, which entails the formation of a clockwise chirality at the top of the film and a counterclockwise chirality at the bottom. Here, we show that engineering an alternating DMI that changes sign across the film thickness, together with the tendency to form N\'eel caps, leads to an enhanced stability of chiral spin-structures. Micromagnetic simulations for skyrmions demonstrate that this can increase the effective DMI in a prototypical [Pt/Co/Ir] multilayer system by at least \SI{0.6}{mJ.m^{-2}}. These gains are comparable to what has been achieved using additive DMI, but more flexible as we are not limited to a select set of material combinations. We also present experimental results: by measuring equilibrium domain widths we quantify the effective DMI in [Pt/Co/Ir] multilayer systems typically used for skyrmion stabilization. Upon introducing an alternating DMI we demonstrate changes in the effective DMI that agree with our simulations. Our results provide a route towards enhancing the stability of chiral spin-structures that does not rely on enlarging the chiral interactions.Comment: Includes supplementar

Stabilizing chiral spin structures via an alternating Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction

The stabilization of chiral magnetic spin structures in thin films is often attributed to the interfacial Dzyaloshinskii–Moriya interaction (DMI). Very recently, however, it has been reported that the chirality induced by the DMI can be affected by dipolar interactions. These dipolar fields tend to form Néel caps, which entails the formation of a clockwise chirality at the top of the film and a counterclockwise chirality at the bottom. Here we show that engineering an alternating DMI that changes signs across the film thickness, together with the tendency to form Néel caps, leads to an enhanced stability of chiral spin-structures. Micromagnetic simulations for skyrmions demonstrate that this can increase the effective DMI in a prototypical [Pt/Co/Ir] multilayer system by at least 0.6 mJ m − 2 . These gains are comparable to what has been achieved using additive DMI, but more flexible as we are not limited to a select set of material combinations. We also present experimental results: By measuring equilibrium domain widths, we quantify the effective DMI in [Pt/Co/Ir] multilayer systems typically used for skyrmion stabilization. Upon introducing an alternating DMI, we demonstrate changes in the effective DMI that agree with our simulations. Our results provide a route toward enhancing the stability of chiral spin structures that does not rely on enlarging the chiral interactions