Magnetic anisotropy of textured CrO2 thin films investigated by X-ray magnetic circular dichroism

Highly a-axis-textured CrO₂ films have been deposited on Al₂O₃ (0001) substrates by chemical vapor deposition. CrO₂ has been found to have highly a-axis (010)-oriented columnar growth on a Cr₂O₃ (0001) initial layer. The six-fold surface symmetry of the Cr₂O₃ initial layer leads to three equivalent in-plane orientations of the a-axis-oriented CrO₂ unit cell. We report Cr L_2,3 X-ray magnetic circular dichroism data along the surface normal and at 60° off-normal sample orientation. For a 60° sample alignment, a strong increase of the projected orbital moment could be observed for unoccupied majority t_2g states using moment analysis. Therefore, the c axis is identified as the intrinsic magnetic easy axis of CrO₂. In addition, a small spin moment and a very strong magnetic dipole term T_z have been found. Received: 8 January 2002 / Accepted: 8 January 2002     

Conditional Time Before Ruin of an Insurance Company

The statistical characteristics of conditional time before ruin of an insurance company, including the distribution function of conditional time and its moments are examined.     

Electronic properties of model quantum-dot structures in zero and finite magnetic fields

We have computed electronic structures and total energies of circularly confined two-dimensional quantum dots and their lateral dimers in zero and finite uniform external magnetic fields using different theoretical schemes: the spin-density-functional theory (SDFT), the current-and-spin-density-functional theory (CSDFT), and the variational quantum Monte Carlo (VMC) method. The SDFT and CSDFT calculations employ a recently-developed, symmetry-unrestricted real-space algorithm allowing solutions which break the spin symmetry. Results obtained for a six-electron dot in the weak confinement limit and in zero magnetic field as well as in a moderate confinement and in finite magnetic fields enable us to draw conclusions about the reliability of the more approximative SDFT and CSDFT schemes in comparison with the VMC method. The same is true for results obtained for the two-electron quantum dot dimer as a function of inter-dot distance. The structure and role of the symmetry-breaking solutions appearing in the SDFT and CSDFT calculations for the above systems are discussed. Received 16 October 2001 and Received in final form 17 January 2002     

Creation of a donor-acceptor pair for studying intraprotein electron transfer with the participation of amino-acid derivatives of fullerene C60

Efficient quenching of eosin phosphorescence by amino-acid derivatives of fullerene (AADFs) such as C₆₀-alanine and C₆₀-glycine in aqueous solutions indicates the possibility of transferring electrons from eosin to fullerene upon collisions or in the exciplex state. To investigate electron transfer in the protein structure, we studied the process of incorporation of C₆₀-alanine and C₆₀-glycine into the heme pocket of myoglobin by controlling Förster quenching. The dissociation constant for the protein-AADF complex was estimated.     

The kinetics and mechanisms of thermal degradation of some divalent metal salts of mono(hydroxyethyl) phthalate

The thermal decomposition of lead and manganese salts of mono(hydroxyethyl) phthalate was studied by thermogravimetry and differential scanning calorimetry. The kinetic parameters for the various stages of decomposition of these salts were calculated by different methods and mechanisms are proposed to explain the results.     

Element Pools and Numeric Coprocessors for Linear Programming on Personal Computers

This note discusses the need to use various data-compaction schemes in the implementation of sophisticated large-scale linear programming codes on modest personal computers. It demonstrates a method whereby the overhead of using these schemes is significantly reduced on Intel 80 x 86 processors.