Magnetic hysteretic characterization of the irradiation-induced embrittlement of Fe,Fe–Cu model alloys,and reactor pressure vessel steel

Neutron irradiation is known to cause embrittlement of iron-based materials; in the nuclear industry, this effect can be detrimental for reactor pressure vessel steels. In this paper, we investigate the variations of the magnetic hysteretic behavior due to neutron irradiation, for four materials, i.e. nominally pure Fe, Fe-0.1 wt% Cu and Fe-0.3 wt%Cu model alloys, and a reactor pressure vessel steel, JRQ A533-B. Two parameters related to the magnetization loop shape, i.e. maximum relative differential permeability and peak intensity of local interaction field distribution, are measured as a function of neutron fluence. For all materials both parameters decrease with increasing fluence, due to the irradiation-induced formation of nano-size defects. This decreasing trend in magnetic parameters during embrittlement is noticeable regardless the origin of the embrittlement, which can be only Cu-precipitation (thermal aging of Fe–Cu), only matrix damage (irradiation of pure Fe), or both mechanisms (irradiation of Fe–Cu or steel). The magnetic parameters relatively change up to 40%, which indicates the potential of magnetic characterization to assess irradiation-induced material hardening and embrittlement.     

Equilibrium magnetic properties of dipolar interacting ferromagnetic nanoparticles

We use Monte Carlo simulations to study the influence of dipolar interaction on the equilibrium magnetic properties of monodisperse single-domain ferromagnetic nanoparticles. Low field magnetizations simulated in zero field cooling (ZFC)/field cooling (FC) procedures and field-dependent magnetization curves above the blocking temperatures show strong dependence on the concentration and the spatial arrangement (cubic or random) of the magnetic particles. The field-dependent magnetizations can not be simply described by the T^* model at relative low temperatures due to the interplay between anisotropy and dipolar interactions, as well as the spatial arrangement effect.     

Electron spin precession in two-dimensional electron gas with Rashba spin-orbit coupling

Using the time-dependent Schrödinger equation, we present the analytical result of the expectation value of spin injected into a two-dimensional electron gas with respect to an arbitrarily spin-polarized electron state and monitor the spin time-evolution. We demonstrate that the expectation value of spin operator Sx is the time-independent, and only the expectation values in the Sy-Sz plane are time-dependent. A detailed study of spin precession in the spin-valve and spin-transistor geometry is presented, in which the initial spin-polarized electron state point perpendicular and parallel to the current direction, respectively. We put forward the possible reason that the resistance change is independent of gate voltage in the spin-valve geometry. Furthermore, it has been shown that the effective magnetic field generated by the spin-orbit interaction is not same with the truly magnetic field. The main effect of the truly magnetic field is to align the spin along the field direction, but the effective magnetic field generated by the spin-orbit interaction does not.     

Magnetic viscosity-coercivity relation for Fe1−xCox fine particles

The variation of the applied field results in a subsequent change of magnetization with time. There is a relationship between the coercivity (H_c), as the equilibrium characteristic of the system, and its magnetic stability (1/S), as a parameter characterizing the time dependence. 1/S as a function of H_c has been measured and studied for different Fe_1−xCo_x samples. We synthesized several samples with different values of x by applying various magnetic fields during the grains’ growth, and observed a linear relationship between 1/S and H_c.     

New experimental evidence for origin of ferromagnetism ordering in Fe-doped SiC

Fe-doped 6H-SiC polycrystalline powders were synthesized by solid-state reaction of high-purity silicon, graphite and iron powder. X-ray powder diffraction (XRD) and high-resolution transmission electron microscope (HRTEM) analysis showed the presence of little Fe₃Si as secondary phase. Temperature-dependent magnetization showed two typical ferromagnetic (FM) transition temperatures located at 438 and 837 K, respectively. These features provided convincing experimental evidence to demonstrate that the presence of Fe₃Si is not the nature origin of FM ordering in Fe-doped SiC. It also indicated that trace of Fe-doping in SiC will induce a high-temperature FM arrangement.     

Flattop operation of the ILC accelerating cryomodule

A 500 GeV center-of-mass International Linear Collider (ILC), currently under R&D development, is foreseen as the next-generation high-energy physics (HEP) instrument [1]. The achievement of a 31.5 MV/m average operational accelerating gradient in a single cryomodule is a proof of principle for the ILC project. However, individual cavity performance may have a large spread in operating gradients, up to 20% of the nominal value [2, 3]. In case of cavities performing below the average, the design parameters could be achieved by tweaking the RF distribution accordingly. We present a simple theoretical analysis of the ILC cryomodule operation with a gradient spread. The difference in the gradients breaks the synchronism of a transient processes in each cavity and causes nonuniform acceleration along the bunch train. A proper solution was found to maintain flattop operation of the accelerating module. Finally, we perform numerical efficiency estimations for the proposed RF distribution scheme based on real data of the gradient spread of actual cavities. The text was submitted by the authors in English.