Global hysteresis in ferroelectrics with incommensurate phases

A review of the basic experimental results connected with the formation of long-living metastable states in the incommensurate phases of ferroelectric crystals and related phenomena is given. The interpretation and appropriate physical mechanisms underlying the global hysteresis phenomena associated with these states are considered.     

Fictitious domain methods for two‐phase flow energy balance computations in nuclear components

This paper is dedicated to the numerical simulation of nuclear components (cores and steam generators) by fictitious domain methods. The fictitious domain approach consists in immersing the physical domain under study in a Cartesian domain, called the fictitious domain, and in performing the numerical resolution on this fictitious domain. The calculation times are then efficiently reduced by the use of fast solvers. In counterpart, one has to handle with an immersed boundary, generally non‐aligned with the Cartesian mesh, which can be non‐trivial. The two fictitious domain methods compared here on industrial simulations and developed by Ramière et al. deal with an approximate immersed interface directly derived from the uniform Cartesian mesh. All the usual immersed boundary conditions (Dirichlet, Robin, Neumann), possibly mixed, are handled through a unique formulation of the fictitious problem. This kind of approximation leads to first‐order methods in space that exhibit a good ratio of the precision of the approximate solution over the CPU time, which is very important for industrial simulations. After a brief recall of the fictitious domain method with spread interface (Ramière et al., CMAME 2007) and the fictitious domain method with immersed jumps (Ramière et al., JCP 2008), we will focus on the numerical results provided by these methods applied to the energy balance equation in a steam generator. The advantages and drawbacks of each method will be pointed out. Generally speaking, the two methods confirm their very good efficiency in terms of precision, convergence, and calculation time in an industrial context. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Magnetization switching modes in nanopillar spin valve under the external field

The current-induced magnetic switching is studied in Co/Cu/Co nanopillar with an in-plane magnetization traversed under the perpendicular-to-plane external field.Magnetization switching is found to take place when the current density exceeds a threshold.By analyzing precessional trajectories,evolutions of domain walls and magnetization switching times under the perpendicular magnetic field,there are two different magnetization switching modes:nucleation and domain wall motion reversal;uniform magnetization ...     

Robust multilevel methods for quadratic finite element anisotropic elliptic problems

This paper discusses a class of multilevel preconditioners based on approximate block factorization for conforming finite element methods employing quadratic trial and test functions. The main focus is on diffusion problems governed by a scalar elliptic partial differential equation with a strongly anisotropic coefficient tensor. The proposed method provides a high robustness with respect to non‐grid‐aligned anisotropy, which is achieved by the interaction of the following components: (i) an additive Schur complement approximation to construct the coarse‐grid operator; (ii) a global block (Jacobi or Gauss–Seidel) smoother complementing the coarse‐grid correction based on (i); and (iii) utilization of an augmented coarse grid, which enhances the efficiency of the interplay between (i) and (ii). The performed analysis indicates the high robustness of the resulting two‐level method. Moreover, numerical tests with a nonlinear algebraic multilevel iteration method demonstrate that the presented two‐level method can be applied successfully in the recursive construction of uniform multilevel preconditioners of optimal or nearly optimal order of computational complexity. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

High Tc superconductors with different Cu2+/Cu3+ ratios in the Y–Ba–Cu–O system

Studies on different phases in the Y-Ba-Cu-O system have revealed that T_C around 90 K is obtainable with different Cu /Cu ratios provided the correct oxygen proportion is maintained.     

Directional Self‐Assembly of Fluorinated Star Block Polymer Thin Films Using Mixed Solvent Vapor Annealing

We demonstrate the directional alignment of perpendicular‐lamellae domains in fluorinated three‐armed star block polymer (BP) thin films using solvent vapor annealing with shear stress. The control of orientation and alignment was accomplished without any substrate surface modification. Additionally, three‐armed star poly(methyl methacrylate‐block‐styrene) [PMMA‐PS] and poly(octafluoropentyl methacrylate‐block‐styrene) were compared to their linear analogues to examine the impact of fluorine content and star architecture on self‐assembled BP feature sizes and interdomain density profiles. X‐ray reflectometry results indicated that the star BP molecular architecture increased the effective polymer segregation strength and could possibly facilitate reduced polymer domain spacings, which are useful in next‐generation nanolithographic applications. © 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Polym. Sci., Part B: Polym. Phys. 2019 , 57, 1663–1672