Influence of the ferromagnetic layer on the pair breaking and low alternating current field magnetic response in superconductor/ferromagnet bilayer

We investigate the influence of the ferromagnetic layer on the magnetic and transport properties of YBa2Cu3O7-delta in YBa2Cu3O7-delta (YBCO)/La0.7Sr0.3MnO3 (LSMO) bilayers. The temperature dependent dc magnetization study reveals the presence of magnetic anisotropy in YBCO/LSMO bilayer as compared to the pure YBCO layer. The ac susceptibility study on YBCO/LSMO bilayers reveals stronger pinning and the temperature dependent critical current is found to be less prone to temperature. Besides, the current (I) dependent electrical transport studies on YBCO/LSMO exhibit a significant reduction in the superconducting T-c with increase in I and it follows I-2/3 dependence in accord with the pair breaking effect. The higher reduction of superconducting T-c in YBCO/LSMO is believed to be due to the enhanced pair-breaking induced by the spin polarized carriers being injected into the superconductor. (C) 2011 American Institute of Physics. doi: 10.1063/1.3560029]

Alternating current conduction and impedance spectroscopy analysis on pulsed excimer laser ablated (Pb, La)TiO3 thin films

Lanthanum doped lead titanate (PLT) thin films were identified as the most potential candidates for the pyroelectric and memory applications. PLT thin films were deposited on Pt coated Si by excimer laser ablation technique. The polarization behavior of PLT thin films has been studied over a temperature range of 300 K to 550 K. A universal power law relation was brought into picture to explain the frequency dependence of ac conductivity. At higher frequency region ac conductivity of PLT thin films become temperature independent. The temperature dependence of ac conductivity and the relaxation time is analyzed in detail. The activation energy obtained from the ac conductivity was attributed to the shallow trap controlled space charge conduction in the bulk of the sample. The impedance analysis for PLT thin films were also performed to get insight of the microscopic parameters, like grain, grain boundary, and film-electrode interface etc. The imaginary component of impedance Z" exhibited different peak maxima at different temperatures. Different types of mechanisms were analyzed in detail to explain the dielectric relaxation behavior in the PLT thin films.

Determination of the reactivity ratios for the oxidative copolymerizations of indene with methyl, ethyl and butyl acrylates

Full Paper: The copolyperoxides of various compositions of indene with methyl acrylate, ethyl acrylate and butyl acrylate have been synthesized by the free-radical-initiated oxidative copolymerization. The compositions of copolyperoxide obtained from H-1 and C-13 NMR spectra have been used to determine the reactivity ratios of the monomers. The copolyperoxides contain a greater proportion of the indene units in random placement. The NMR studies have shown irregularities in the copolyperoxide chain due to the cleavage reactions of the propagating peroxide radical. The thermal analysis by differential scanning calorimetry suggests alternating peroxide units in the copolyperoxide chain. From the activation energy for the thermal degradation, it was inferred that degradation occurs via the dissociation of the peroxide (O-O) bonds of the copolyperoxide chain. The flexibility of the polyperoxides in terms of glass transition temperature (T-g) has also been examined.

High-pressure kinetics of oxidative copolymerization of styrene with alpha-methyl styrene

This is the first report on the study carried out on high-pressure free-radical initiated oxidated copolymerization of styrene (STY) with alpha-methylstyrene (AMS) at various temperatures (45-65degreesC) at constant pressure (100 psi) and then at various pressures (50-300 psi) keeping the temperature (50degreesC) constant. The compositions of the copolyperoxides obtained from the H-1 NMT spectra were utilized to determine the reactivity ratios of the monomers. The reactivity ratios indicate that STY forms an ideal copolyperoxide with AMS and the copolyperoxide is richer in AMS. The effect of temperature and oxygen pressure in the reactivity ratios of the monomers was studied. The rates of copolymerization (R-p) were used to determine the overall activation energies (E-a) and activation volume (DeltaV(#)) of copolymerization. The unusually higher values of the DeltaV(#) may be due to the pressurizing fluid oxygen which itself is a reactant in the copolymerization, the side reactions, and the chain-transfer reactions occuring during copolymerizations.

Reactivity ratios for the oxidative copolymerizations of indene with methyl methacrylate and methacrylonitrile

The copolyperoxides of indene with methyl methacrylate and methacrylonitrile have been synthesized by the free-radical-initiated oxidative copolymerization of indene and the monomers. The compositions of copolyperoxides, obtained from H-1 and C-13 NMR spectra, have been utilized to determine the reactivity ratios. The reactivity ratios indicate that the copolyperoxides contain a large proportion of the indene units in random placement. Thermal degradation studies of the copolyperoxides by differential scanning calorimetry and electron-impact mass spectroscopy support alternating peroxide units in the copolyperoxide chain. The energy of activation for thermal degradation suggests that the degradation is controlled by the dissociation of the peroxide (-O-O-) bonds in the copolyperoxide chain. The flexibility of copolyperoxide in terms of glass transition temperature (T-g) has also been examined. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Analytical Study of Low-Field Diffusive Transport in Highly Asymmetric Bilayer Graphene Nanoribbon

We present a simplified theory of carrier backscattering coefficient in a twofold degenerate asymmetric bilayer graphene nanoribbon (BGN) under the application of a low static electric field. We show that for a highly asymmetric BGN(Delta = gamma), the density of states in the lower subband increases more that of the upper, in which Delta and gamma are the gap and the interlayer coupling constant, respectively. We also demonstrate that under the acoustic phonon scattering regime, the formation of two distinct sets of energy subbands signatures a quantized transmission coefficient as a function of ribbon width and provides an extremely low carrier reflection coefficient for a better Landauer conductance even at room temperature. The well-known result for the ballistic condition has been obtained as a special case of the present analysis under certain limiting conditions which forms an indirect validation of our theoretical formalism.

Asymmetric Warps in Disk Galaxies: Dependence on Dark Matter Halo

Recent observations have shown that most of the warps in the disk galaxies are asymmetric. However there exists no generic mechanism to generate these asymmetries in warps. We have shown that a rich variety of possible asymmetries in the z-distribution of the spiral galaxies can naturally arise due to a dynamical wave interference between the first two bending modes i.e. bowl-shaped mode(m=0) and S-shaped warping mode(m = 1) in the galactic disk embedded in a dark matter halo. We show that the asymmetric warps are more pronounced when the dark matter content within the optical disk is lower as in early-type galaxies.

An asymmetric cascaded H-Bridge inverters for generating 12-sided polygonal space vector diagrams for Motor drives

A new topology of asymmetric cascaded H-Bridge inverter is presented in this paper It consists of two cascaded H-bridge cells per phase. They are fed from isolated dc sources having a dc bus ratio of 1:0.366. Out of many space vectors possible from this circuit, only those are chosen that lie on 12-sided polygons. Thus, the overall space vector diagram produced by this circuit consists of multiple numbers of 12-sided polygons. With a proper PWM timing calculations based on these selected space vectors, it is possible to eliminate all the 6n +/- 1, (n = odd) harmonics from the phase voltage under all operating conditions. The switching frequency of individual H-Bridge cells is also substantially low. Extensive experimental results have been presented in this paper to validate the proposed concept.

Asymmetric Cooperation Among Relays with Linear Precoding

Fixed and mobile relays are used, among other applications, in the downlink of cellular communications systems. Cooperation between relays can greatly increase their benefits in terms of extended coverage, increased reliability, and improved spectral efficiency. In this paper, we introduce the fundamental notion of asymmetric cooperation. For this, we consider a two-phase transmission protocol where, in the first phase, the base station (BS) sends several available messages to the relays over wireless links. But, depending on the channel state and the duration of the BS transmission, not all relays decode all messages. In a second phase, the relays, which may now have asymmetric message knowledge, use cooperative linear precoding for the transmission to the mobile stations. We show that for many channel configurations, asymmetric cooperation, although (slighlty) sub-optimum for the second phase, is optimum from a total-throughput point of view, as it requires less time and energy in the first phase. We give analytical formulations for the optimum operating parameters and the achievable throughput, and show that under typical circumstances, 20-30% throughput enhancement can be achieved over conventional systems.

Electrochemical copolymerization of thiophene derivatives; a precursor to photovoltaic devices

This work presents an electrochemical technique for the polymerization and copolymerization of thiophene derivatives like 7,9-dithiophene-2yl-8H-cyclopenta[a]acenaphthalene-8-one and 3-hexylthiophene. The structural characterization of chemically synthesized monomers and electro-chemically synthesized polymers was carried out by nuclear magnetic resonance and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. Thermal characterizations indicate that copolymer has increased thermal stability than that of homopolymer. Morphological studies of the polymerized films carried out by scanning electron microscopy shows network structure of copolymer. Optical properties of the homopolymers and copolymer were studied by UV-visible spectrometer and it was observed that band gap of copolymer is less than the homopolymers. HOMO and LUMO levels, band gap values of the respective polymers were also calculated from the cyclic voltammetry technique with various scan rates. By the peak current obtained from various scan rates shows that all polymerization reactions are diffusion controlled process. Charge transfer resistances of polymers were determined using Nyquist plots. Conductivity of synthesized polymers shows higher conductivity for copolymer than homopolymers. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Alternating current conduction behavior of excimer laser ablated SrBi2Nb2O9 thin films

Bi-layered Aurivillius compounds prove to be efficient candidates of nonvolatile memories. SrBi2Nb2O9 thin films were deposited by excimer laser ablation at low substrate temperature (400 °C) followed by an ex situ annealing at 750 °C. The polarization hysteresis behavior was confirmed by variation of polarization with the external applied electric field and also verified with capacitance versus voltage characteristics. The measured values of spontaneous and remnant polarizations were, respectively, 9 and 6 μC/cm2 with a coercive field of 90 kV/cm. The measured dielectric constant and dissipation factors at 100 kHz were 220 and 0.02, respectively. The frequency analysis of dielectric and ac conduction properties showed a distribution of relaxation times due to the presence of multiple grain boundaries in the films. The values of activation energies from the dissipation factor and grain interior resistance were found to be 0.9 and 1.3 eV, respectively. The deviation in these values was attributed to the energetic conditions of the grain boundaries and bulk grains. The macroscopic relaxation phenomenon is controlled by the higher resistive component in a film, such as grain boundaries at lower temperatures, which was highlighted in the present article in close relation to interior grain relaxation and conduction properties.

Prebreakdown current measurements in vacuum gaps stressed by alternating voltages

A method has been suggested for the measurement of prebreakdown currents under a.c. conditions. Measurements were made using hemispherical stainless steel electrodes and currents from 10~3 A down to 10~7 A have been measured.

Structural and dielectric behavior of pulsed laser ablated Sr(0.6)Ca(0.4)TiO(3) thin film and asymmetric multilayer of SrTiO(3) and CaTiO(3)

Homogeneous thin films of Sr(0.6)Ca(0.4)TiO(3) (SCT40) and asymmetric multilayer of SrTiO(3) (STO) and CaTiO(3) (CTO) were fabricated on Pt/Ti/SiO(2)/Si substrates by using pulsed laser deposition technique. The electrical behavior of films was observed within a temperature range of 153 K-373 K. A feeble dielectric peak of SCT40 thin film at 273 K is justified as paraelectric to antiferroelectric phase transition. Moreover, the Curie-Weiss temperature, determined from the epsilon'(T) data above the transition temperature is found to be negative. Using Landau theory, the negative Curie-Weiss temperature is interpreted in terms of an antiferroelectric transition. The asymmetric multilayer exhibits a broad dielectric peak at 273 K. and is attributed to interdiffusion at several interfaces of multilayer. The average dielectric constants for homogeneous Sr(0.6)Ca(0.4)TiO(3) films (similar to 650) and asymmetric multilayered films (similar to 350) at room temperature are recognized as a consequence of grain size effect. Small frequency dispersion in the real part of the dielectric constants and relatively low dielectric losses for both cases ensure high quality of the films applicable for next generation integrated devices. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Evidence for a thermally reversing window in bulk Ge–Te–Si glasses revealed by alternating differential scanning calorimetry

Experiments on Ge15Te85− x Si x glasses (2 ≤ x ≤ 12) using alternating differential scanning calorimetry (ADSC) indicate that these glasses exhibit one glass transition and two crystallization reactions upon heating. The glass transition temperature has been found to increase almost linearly with silicon content, in the entire composition tie-line. The first crystallization temperature (T c1) exhibits an increase with silicon content for x < 5; T c1 remains almost a constant in the composition range 5 < x ≤ 10 and it increases comparatively more sharply with silicon content thereafter. The specific heat change (ΔC p) is found to decrease with an increase in silicon content, exhibiting a minimum at x = 5 (average coordination number, r = 2.4); a continuous increase is seen in ΔC p with silicon concentration above x = 5. The effects seen in the variation with composition of T c1 and ΔC p at x = 5, are the specific signatures of the mean-field stiffness threshold at r = 2.4. Furthermore, a broad trough is seen in the enthalpy change (ΔH NR), which is indicative of a thermally reversing window in Ge15Te85− x Si x glasses in the composition range 2 ≤ x ≤ 6 (2.34 ≤ r ≤ 2.42).