Spectroscopic ellipsometry as an optical probe of strain evolution in ferroelectric thin films.

Heteroepitaxial strain in ferroelectric thin films is known to have a significant impact on both their low and high frequency dielectric properties. In this paper, we use ex-situ spectroscopic ellipsometry to study the strain evolution with film thickness, and strain relaxation in ferroelectric Ba0.5Sr0.5

Use of high temperature superconductor in a receiver coil for magnetic resonance imaging.

A planar YBa2Cu3Ox (YBCO) coil has been used as a pick-up coil in a nuclear magnetic resonance imager. It was found that the quality factor (Q) of the YBCO coil was greater than its copper counterpart by approaching 50% even in a field of 0.15 T. The Q of the copper coil at 77 K and in a field of 0.15 T was 1200 while that of the YBCO coil under identical conditions was 1700.