Perpendicular exchange bias and its control by magnetic,stress and electric fields

Perpendicular exchange bias (PEB) involving perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA) in both the antiferromagnetic (AF) pinning and the ferromagnetic (FM) sensor layer is expected to become important in future perpendicular recording and sensing devices. Further, because of the reduced spin dimensionality, PEB promises to be easier understandable than the conventional planar exchange bias (EB). In addition to its first realization using the Ising-type AF compounds FeF2 and FeCl2 we have tested control strategies of EB being alternative to the conventional magnetic and thermal ones. Indeed, specific symmetry properties of the pinning layer have been shown to enable mechanical (viz. piezomagnetic via FeF2) and electric control (viz. magneto-electric via Cr2O3) of EB, respectively. Electric control promises to become relevant for TMR devices in MRAM technology.     

Temperature dependence of ferromagnetic resonance in permalloy/NiO exchange-biased films

The temperature dependencies of the ferromagnetic resonance (FMR) linewidth and the resonance field-shift have been investigated for NiO/NiFe exchange-biased bilayers from 78 K to 450 K. A broad maximum in the linewidth of 500 Oe, solely due to the exchange-bias, is observed at ≈150 K when the magnetic field is applied along the film plane. When the magnetic field is applied perpendicular to the film plane, the maximum in the linewidth is less pronounced and amounts to 100 Oe at the same temperature. Such a behavior of the FMR linewidth is accompanied with a monotonic increase in the negative resonance field-shift with decreasing temperature. Our results are compared with the previous experimental FMR and Brillouin light scattering data for various ferromagnetic/antiferromagnetic (FM/AF) structures, and suggest that spin dynamics (spin-wave damping and anomalous resonance field-shift) in the FM/AF structures can be described in a consistent way by a single mechanism of the so-called slow-relaxation.     

Origin of superenhanced light transmission through two-dimensional subwavelength rectangular hole arrays

Superenhanced light transmission through subwavelength rectangular hole arrays have been reported and some investigations have been made into the physical origin of this phenomenon [K.J. Klein Koerkamp et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 92, 183901 (2004)]. In our current work, by performing FDTD (finite difference in the time domain) numerical simulations, we demonstrate that mechanism that is different from surface plasmon polaritons set up by the periodicity at the in-plane metal surfaces may account for this superenhanced light transmission. We suggest that for arrays of rectangular holes with small enough width in comparison to the wavelength of the incident light, standing electromagnetic fields can be set up inside the cavity by the surface plasmons on the hole walls with its intensity being substantially enhanced inside the cavity. So resonant cavity-enhanced light transmission is predominant and responsible for its superenhanced light transmission. Rectangular holes behave as Fabry-Pérot resonance cavities except that the frequency of their fundamental modes is restricted by their TM cutoff frequency. However we believe that both localized surface plasmon modes and surface plasmon polaritons set up by the periodicity at the in-plane metal surfaces have their shares in extraordinary optical transmission of rectangular hole arrays especially when the width of the rectangular hole is not small enough and the metal film is not thick enough.     

Cotunneling through a quantum dot coupled to ferromagnetic leads with noncollinear magnetizations

Spin-dependent electronic transport through a quantum dot has been analyzed theoretically in the cotunneling regime by means of the second-order perturbation theory. The system is described by the impurity Anderson Hamiltonian with arbitrary Coulomb correlation parameter U. It is assumed that the dot level is intrinsically spin-split due to an effective molecular field exerted by a magnetic substrate. The dot is coupled to two ferromagnetic leads whose magnetic moments are noncollinear. The angular dependence of electric current, tunnel magnetoresistance, and differential conductance are presented and discussed. The evolution of a cotunneling gap with the angle between magnetic moments and with the splitting of the dot level is also demonstrated.     

Exact thermodynamic limit of short-range correlation functions of the antiferromagnetic XXZ-chain at finite temperatures

We numerically evaluate certain multiple integrals representing nearest and next-nearest neighbor correlation functions of the spin-1/2 XXZ Heisenberg infinite chain at finite temperatures.     

Delocalization of quasiparticles in quasi-two-dimensional disordered superconductors with s-wave pairing

We investigate localization behavior of quasiparticles in disordered multi-plane superconductors with s-wave pairing. By introducing disorder with random site energies, the spatial fluctuations of Bogoliubov-de Gennes pairing potential are self-consistently determined. The size dependence of rescaled localization length for a long bar is calculated by using the transfer-matrix method. From the finite-size scaling analysis we show that there exists a critical point of the disorder strength W_c which separates the extended and localized quasiparticle states in such quasi-two-dimensional systems. The associated critical behavior is studied and the relationship of the results to the number of planes is discussed.     

Quantum interference in nanotube electron waveguides

We have calculated the quantum conductance of single-walled carbon nanotube (SWNT) waveguide by using a tight binding-based Greens function approach. Our calculations show that the slow conductance oscillations as well as the fast conductance oscillations are manifestations of the intrinsic quantum interference properties of the conducting SWNTs, being independent of the defect and disorder of the SWNTs. And zigzag type tubes do not show the slow oscillations. The SWNT electron waveguide is also found to have distinctly different transport behavior depending on whether or not the length of the tube is commensurate with a (3N+1) rule, with N the number of basic carbon repeat units along the nanotube length.     

Generic two-phase coexistence in nonequilibrium systems

A beautifully simple model introduced a couple of decades ago, Tooms cellular automaton, revealed that non-equilibrium systems may exhibit generic bistability, i.e. two-phase coexistence over a finite area of the (two-dimensional) phase diagram, in violation of the equilibrium Gibbs phase rule. In this paper we analyse two interfacial models, describing more realistic situations, that share with Tooms model a phase diagram with a broad region of phase coexistence. An analysis of the interfacial models yields conditions for generic bistability in terms of physically relevant parameters that may be controlled experimentally.     

Complex grid computing

This article investigates the functional properties of complex networks used as grid computing systems. Complex networks following the Erdös-Rényi model and other models with a preferential attachment rule (with and without growth) or priority to the connection of isolated nodes are studied. Regular networks are also considered for comparison. The processing load of the parallel program executed on the grid is assigned to the nodes on demand, and the efficiency of the overall computation is quantified in terms of the parallel speedup. It is found that networks with preferential attachment allow lower computing efficiency than networks with uniform link attachment. At the same time, considering only node clusters of the same size, preferential attachment networks display better efficiencies. The regular networks, on the other hand, display a poor efficiency, due to their implied larger internode distances. A correlation is observed between the topological properties of the network, specially average cluster size, and their respective computing efficiency.     

A systematic study of neutrino mixing and <Emphasis Type="Italic">CP</Emphasis>-violationfrom lepton mass matrices with six texture zeros

We present a systematic study of 400 combinations of the charged lepton and neutrino mass matrices with six vanishing entries or texture zeros. Only 24 of them, which can be classified into a few distinct categories, are found to be compatible with current neutrino oscillation data at the level. A peculiar feature of the lepton mass matrices in each category is that they have the same phenomenological consequences. Taking account of a simple seesaw scenario for six parallel patterns of the charged lepton and Dirac neutrino mass matrices with six zeros, we show that it is possible to fit the experimental data at or below the level. In particular, the maximal atmospheric neutrino mixing can be reconciled with a strong neutrino mass hierarchy in the seesaw case. Numerical predictions are also obtained for the neutrino mass spectrum, flavor mixing angles, CP-violating phases and effective masses of the tritium beta decay and the neutrinoless double beta decay.Received: 28 September 2004, Revised: 14 October 2004, Published online: 1 December 2004PACS: 12.15.Ff, 12.10.Kt