National Institute Of Materials Physics - Romania

Different aspects related to the sol-gel preparation and structural investigation of silico-phosphate glasses (SiO2-P2O5 system) doped with Fe ions are reported. During the preparation process, tetraethoxysilane was used as a precursor for SiO2 and phosphoric acid (H3PO4-HP) for P2O5. Ferric chloride was used as precursor for Fe ions, water as reagent for hydrolysis reaction and ethylic alcohol as solvent. The pH of the sols was modified by adding hydrochloric acid and ammonia. It was observed that a slight increase of the solution temperature (up to 40 degrees C) allows a drastic decrease of the gelation time (from days to hours). The structure of the obtained powders dried in air at room temperature and at 100 degrees C for 10 h and subsequently thermally treated at different temperatures was investigated by Fourier transformed infrared (FTIR) and Raman spectroscopy. Vibration modes specific to Si-O-Et, Si-OH, PO-P, P-O-Si, hydrogen bonds and H2O, as well as combined modes have been observed. The local structure and electron configurations of the doping Fe ions have been investigated by Fe-57 Mossbauer spectroscopy.

Additives to MgB2 can improve the superconducting functional characteristics, such as critical current density (J (c)) and irreversibility field (H (irr)). Recently, we have shown that repagermanium (C6H10Ge2O7) is an effective additive, enhancing both J (c) and H (irr). To look into details of the processes taking place during the reactive sintering, a thermal analysis study (0.167 K s(-1), in Ar) is reported. We used differential scanning calorimetry between 298 and 863 K and simultaneous thermogravimetric-differential thermal analysis between 298 and 1233 K. Samples were mixtures of powders with composition 97 mol% MgB2 and 3 mol% C6H10Ge2O7. Up to 863 K, repagermanium decomposes by multiple steps and forms amorphous phases. A reaction with MgB2 is not observed. Above this temperature, partial decomposition of MgB2 occurs. Crystalline Ge and MgO are detected before formation of Mg2Ge and MgB4, when temperature approaches the melting point of Ge (1211 K). Carbon substitution for boron in the crystal lattice of MgB2 is observed for samples heated above 863 K. The amount of substitutional C does not significantly change with temperature.

The phase shift of the electron's wave function after a tunneling event (i.e. the transmission phase) was at first measured for its fundamental or applicative relevance for quantum circuitry, but later the phase study self-motivated due to a number of unexpected results. One such result was the reduced increment of the phase on some resonances - with only fractions of pi - in the few-electrons "mesoscopic" regime. In this paper we address such a regime for a rectangular quantum dot and compute the total phase increase on the first four resonances by means of accurate configuration-interaction method and a generalized Friedel sum rule as proposed by Rontani (2006) [17]. Our findings confirm that the electronic correlations reduce the on-resonance phase growth which is also found to decrease quasi-linearly with the dot size, the decrease being more pronounced as the number of electrons on the dot is raised. Sudden jumps (of small amplitude) of the phase are found to accompany ground states spin transitions. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The recent progress in the theory of generalised Lambert functions makes possible to solve exactly the Weiss equation of ferromagnetism. However, this solution is quite inconvenient for practical purposes. Precise approximate analytical solutions are obtained, giving the temperature dependence of the spontaneous magnetization, and also the dependence of the magnetization on both temperature and external magnetic field. The experimental relevance of these results, mainly for the determination of the Curie temperature, is discussed.

Samples of Ni57-xNdxFe18Ga25 with x=2 and 4 were prepared in ribbon form by rapid quenching via melt spinning route. The samples were analyzed by X-ray diffraction (XRD), magnetic measurements and Mossbauer spectroscopy, both in the as-quenched form and after thermal annealing at 900 degrees C for 2 min and 400 degrees C for 2 hours. For x=2 the Nd atoms are completely dissolved in the Ni-Fe-Ga matrix, while for x=4 the additional occurrence of the secondary 2:17 phase could be resolved. These findings were supported by the analysis of hyperfine magnetic field distributions obtained from the non-linear least-squares fitting of the Mossbauer spectra.

The elastic and structural properties of thermal barrier coatings of Cr2AlC DC sputtered from elemental targets onto Si(100) substrate at 200 degrees C are studied. The material was subsequently submitted to re-crystallization procedure by annealing the film at 650 degrees C and 700 degrees C in high vacuum and in air for 30 min. As-deposited and annealed films are shown to be homogeneous and dense over large areas. The re-crystallization process was monitored using X-ray diffraction and Raman spectroscopy. As-deposited films have an amorphous-like Cr-C-Al solid solution structure and annealed samples crystallize into single-phase hexagonal Cr2AlC. While XRD analysis and Raman spectroscopy of samples annealed in-air show the presence of 5% Cr2O3, the high vacuum samples annealed at 650 degrees C and 700 degrees C are fully crystallized and comprise only single-phase Cr2AlC hexagonal structure. Oxygen presence in the in-air annealed sample is shown to cause an elongation of the hexagonal unit cell along the c axis which coincides with the direction of stacking of Cr6C octahedral building blocks with alternate Al layers. Whereas the average grain size is shown to increase upon annealing, lattice microstrain, calculated using the integral breadth method, is seen to decrease by almost 70% in the annealed films. Raman spectra of as-deposited films show characteristic MAX-phase bands with broad, overlapping peaks in the region of 120-400 cm(-1) but also peaks in the range of 550-900 cm(-1), attributed to other Raman-active modes of the Cr2AlC structure. After annealing, the Raman peaks corresponding to Cr2AlC single-phase are narrower, more intense and better defined than in the as-deposited case. The occurrence of the disorder-induced D carbon band is observed in the Raman spectrum of the as-deposited film while, after high vacuum annealing, a sharp and relatively intense peak attributed to the carbon G band is observed that suggests that there may be carbon nanoclustering in the coatings upon annealing. This observation is consistent with and comes as a confirmation of previously reported ab initio modelling of possible Cr2AlC off-stoichiometric structures.

Commercial MgB2 powder was loaded into a Fe-tube, by plastic deformation a tape of similar to 0.5 mm in thickness and 6.9 mm in width was obtained. Short pieces were processed by Spark Plasma Sintering (SPS) at 950, 1050 and 1150 degrees C for 3 min. The optimum sintering temperature is 1050 degrees C. From magnetic/electrical measurements, the onset critical temperature and the irreversibility field at 5 K were 38.7 / 38.9 K and 6.2 / 13.5 T, respectively. The pinning-force-related parameters indicate that the dominant flux pinning mechanism is of point pinning type. Contribution of grain boundary pinning is stronger at lower temperatures.

We describe a new concept to encode information in magnetic films that goes beyond the conventional way of digital magnetic recording. In our approach the information is stored via a continuous variable, namely the remanent coupling angle between two magnetic films that are separated by a nonmagnetic spacer layer. Using the technique of nuclear resonant scattering (NRS) [1, 2] we show with good precision, how this coupling angle can be conveniently adjusted with high degree of remanence by shortly applied external magnetic fields. Moreover this effect is explained using a micromagnetic model [3, 4]. Extremely important for future applications of this concept, we demonstrate, that the remanent coupling angles can be read out via magneto-optical or magneto-resistance effects. In principle, this approach allows to design novel memory cells for advance data storage devices, where multiple states per unit cell can be generated and recorded.