Switching of both local ferroelectric and magnetic domains in multiferroic Bi0.9La0.1FeO3 thin film by mechanical force

Cross-coupling of ordering parameters in multiferroic materials by multiple external stimuli other than electric field and magnetic field is highly desirable from both practical application and fundamental study points of view. Recently, mechanical force has attracted great attention in switching of ferroic ordering parameters via electro-elastic coupling in ferroelectric materials. In this work, mechanical force induced polarization and magnetization switching were investigated in a polycrystalline multiferroic Bi0.9La0.1FeO3 thin film using a scanning probe microscopy system. The piezoresponse force microscopy and magnetic force microscopy responses suggest that both the ferroelectric domains and the magnetic domains in Bi0.9La0.1FeO3 film could be switched by mechanical force as well as electric field. High strain gradient created by mechanical force is demonstrated as able to induce ferroelastic switching and thus induce both ferroelectric dipole and magnetic spin flipping in our thin film, as a consequence of electro-elastic coupling and magneto-electric coupling. The demonstration of mechanical force control of both the ferroelectric and the magnetic domains at room temperature provides a new freedom for manipulation of multiferroics and could result in devices with novel functionalities

Effects of Urban Sprawl on Obesity

In this paper, we examine the effect of changes in population density—urban sprawl—between 1970 and 2000 on BMI and obesity of residents in metropolitan areas in the US. We address the possible endogeneity of population density by using a two-step instrumental variables approach. We exploit the plausibly exogenous variation in population density caused by the expansion of the U.S. Interstate Highway System, which largely followed the original 1947 plan for the Interstate Highway System. We find a negative association between population density and obesity and estimates are robust across a wide range of specifications. Estimates indicate that if the average metropolitan area had not experienced the decline in the proportion of population living in dense areas over the last 30 years, the rate of obesity would have been reduced by approximately 13%.

Potential advantage of multiple alkali metal doped KNbO3 single crystals

Potassium niobate crystal KNbO3 (KN) is a well-known crystal for lead free piezoelectric or nonlinear optical applications. The KN crystal has been studied in both single crystal form and in thin film form which has resulted in many review articles being published. In order to exceed the KN crystal, it is important to study KN phase forming and doping effects on the K site. This article summarizes the authors\u27 study towards a multiple alkali metal doped KN crystal and related single crystals briefly from the viewpoint of crystal growth

Ultrafast spin polarization in a multiferroic manganite BiFe0.5Mn0.5O3 thin film

In this work, we present observations of ultrafast carrier dynamics and spin polarization in a multiferroic manganite BiFe0.5Mn0.5O3 film excited by linearly and circularly polarized femtosecond pulses, respectively. The d-band charge transfer transition is reasonably assigned to Γ3 → Γ5. The transient reflectivity decay on a time scale as fast as only 0.3 ps is consistent with the picture of ultrafast electron-phonon coupling. The ultrafast switching of polarization ellipticity (\u3c 150 fs) originates from a transient coherent spin polarization by optical orientation. The ultrafast spin polarization switching is assigned to the Raman coherence process

Superior intrinsic thermoelectric performance with zT of 1.8 in single-crystal and melt-quenched highly dense Cu2-xSe bulks

Practical applications of the high temperature thermoelectric materials developed so far are partially obstructed by the costly and complicated fabrication process. In this work, we put forward two additional important properties for thermoelectric materials, high crystal symmetry and congruent melting. We propose that the recently discovered thermoelectric material Cu2-xSe, with figure of merit, zT, over 1.5 at T of ~ 1000 K, should meet these requirements, based on our analysis of its crystal structure and the Cu-Se binary phase diagram. We found that its excellent thermoelectric performance is intrinsic, and less dependent on grain size, while highly dense samples can be easily fabricated by a melt-quenching approach. Our results reveal that the melt-quenched samples and single crystals exhibit almost the same superior thermoelectric performance, with zT as high as 1.7-1.8 at T of ~973 K. Our findings not only provide a cheap and fast fabrication method for highly dense Cu2-xSe bulks with superior thermoelectric performance, paving the way for possible commercialization of Cu2-xSe as an outstanding component in practical thermoelectric modules, but also provide guidance in searching for new classes of thermoelectric systems with high crystal symmetry or further improving the cost performance of other existing congruent-melting thermoelectric materials

Secure Comparison Under Ideal/Real Simulation Paradigm

Secure comparison problem, also known as Yao's Millionaires' problem, was introduced by Andrew Yao in 1982. It is a fundamental problem in secure multi-party computation. In this problem, two millionaires are interested in determining the richer one between them without revealing their actual wealth. Yao's millionaires' problem is a classic and fundamental problem in cryptography. The design of secure and efficient solutions to this problem provides effective building blocks for secure multi-party computation. However, only a few of the solutions in the literature have succeeded in resisting attacks of malicious adversaries, and none of these solutions has been proven secure in malicious model under ideal/real simulation paradigm. In this paper, we propose two secure solutions to Yao's millionaires' problem in the malicious model. One solution has full simulation security, and the other solution achieves one-sided simulation security. Both protocols are only based on symmetric cryptography. Experimental results indicate that our protocols can securely solve Yao's millionaires' problem with high efficiency and scalability. Furthermore, our solutions show better performance than the state-of-the-art solutions in terms of complexity and security. Specifically, our solutions only require $O(|U|)$ symmetric operations at most to achieve simulation-based security against malicious adversaries, where $U$ denotes the universal set and $|U|$ denotes the size of $U$

Devils in the Clouds: An Evolutionary Study of Telnet Bot Loaders

One of the innovations brought by Mirai and its derived malware is the adoption of self-contained loaders for infecting IoT devices and recruiting them in botnets. Functionally decoupled from other botnet components and not embedded in the payload, loaders cannot be analysed using conventional approaches that rely on honeypots for capturing samples. Different approaches are necessary for studying the loaders evolution and defining a genealogy. To address the insufficient knowledge about loaders' lineage in existing studies, in this paper, we propose a semantic-aware method to measure, categorize, and compare different loader servers, with the goal of highlighting their evolution, independent from the payload evolution. Leveraging behavior-based metrics, we cluster the discovered loaders and define eight families to determine the genealogy and draw a homology map. Our study shows that the source code of Mirai is evolving and spawning new botnets with new capabilities, both on the client side and the server side. In turn, shedding light on the infection loaders can help the cybersecurity community to improve detection and prevention tools.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures, ICC 2023. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2206.0038