About us

Vopson research is a blog associated with Dr Vopson's Physics research activities at the University of Portsmouth, School of Mathematics and Physics, Faculty of Technology.

Can diamagnets offer a new kind of coupling in nano-layers?

 
Combining nanoscale thin films of magnetic and non-magnetic phases in various hetero-structures has generated a rich variety of new magnetic and magneto-transport phenomena and applications. A new article published by our group proposes a coupling between ferromagnetic and diamagnetic layers. The new diamagnetic coupling was used to improve the exchange bias field of a diamagnet/ferromagnet/anti-ferromagnet hetero-structure by up to 212%, as evidenced. Since diamagnets have very special properties, including temperature independent negative magnetic susceptibilities, this coupling could be a powerful tool in future synthesis of solid state nanostructures such as exchange bias systems, spintronic devices, magnetic random access memories, sensors, and multiferroics.
Read full article here: https://aip.scitation.org/doi/abs/10.1063/5.0008482?journalCode=apl

Physics of the melting point

Lindemann developed the melting temperature theory over 100 years ago, known as the Lindemann criterion. Its main assumption is that melting occurs when the root-mean-square vibration amplitude of ions and atoms in crystals exceeds a critical fraction, η of the inter-atomic spacing in crystals. The Lindemann coefficient η is undefined and scientific papers report different η values for different elements. In this paper, Dr Vopson and his collaborators, present previously unobserved data trends pointing to the fact that the Lindemann coefficient could be linked to the periodic groups of the periodic table, having an exact value for each element belonging to a given periodic group. This newly observed result opens up the possibility of further refining the Lindemann melting criterion by stimulating analytical studies of the Lindemann coefficient in the light of this newly discovered result.
Read more here: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssc.2020.113977