Vortex Matter and its Phase Transitions

The mixed state of type II superconductors has magnetic flux penetrating the sample in the form of vortices, with each vortex carrying an identical quantum of flux. These vortices generally form a triangular lattice under weak mutually repulsive forces; the lattice spacing can be easily varied over many orders of magnitude by varying the external magnetic field. The elastic moduli of this lattice are small and this soft vortex matter can undergo phase transitions like normal matter, but with thermal fluctuations and underlying defects playing an important role. We discuss experimental studies on vortex matter phase transitions, with some emphasis on DC magnetisation measurements investigating the nature of the phase transition.Comment: 11 pages and 4 figure

The impact of random doping effects on CMOS SRAM cell

The SRAM has a very constrained cell area and is consequently sensitive to the intrinsic parameter fluctuations ubiquitous in decananometer scale MOSFETs. Using a statistical circuit simulation methodology, which can fully collate intrinsic parameter fluctuation information into compact model sets, the impact of random device doping on 6-T SRAM static noise margins, and read and write characteristics are investigated in detail for well-scaled 35 nm physical gate length devices. We conclude that intrinsic parameter fluctuations will become a major limitation to further conventional MOSFET SRAM scaling

Comments on the Aharonov-Casher effect

We study the basic requirements for neutron confinement in the framework of some 3-D Aharonov-Casher configurations.Comment: To appear in Physica Scripta (2001