Mimicking the hair surface for neutron reflectometry.

The surface of human hair is normally hydrophobic as it is covered by a lipid layer, mainly composed of 18-methyleicosanoic acid (18-MEA). When the hair is damaged, this layer can be partially or fully removed and more hydrophilic, mainly negatively charged surfaces are formed with a wide variety of physical and chemical characteristics. The cosmetic industry is currently embracing the opportunity of increasing the sustainability of their hair-care products whilst improving product performance.

Observation by SANS and PNR of pure Néel-type domain wall profiles and skyrmion suppression below room temperature in magnetic [Pt/CoFeB/Ru] multilayers.

We report investigations of the magnetic textures in periodic multilayers [Pt(1 nm)/(CoFeB(0.8 nm)/Ru(1.4 nm)] using polarised neutron reflectometry (PNR) and small-angle neutron scattering (SANS).

Realization of an advanced super-mirror solid-state neutron polarizer for the instrument PF1B at the Institut Laue-Langevin.

In this last of a series of three papers on the development of an advanced solid-state neutron polarizer, we present the final construction of the polarizer and the results of its commissioning. The polarizer uses spin-selective reflection of neutrons by interfaces coated with polarizing super-mirrors. The polarizer is built entirely in-house for the PF1B cold neutron beam facility at the Institut Max von Laue-Paul Langevin (ILL).

Reversible exchange bias in epitaxial VO/Ni hybrid magnetic heterostructures.

In this work we present a temperature and angular dependent study of the structural and magnetic properties in highly crystalline VO/Ni/Zr magnetic heterostructure films. Our investigation focuses on the coupling between the ferromagnetic Ni layer and VOlayer which undergoes an antiferromagnetic/paramagnetic phase transition coupled to the structural phase transition of the material at around 150 K. Structural investigations using x-ray diffraction reveal highly crystalline films of a quality which has previously not been reported in the literature.

Emergent Magnetic Fan Structures in Manganite Homojunction Arrays.

Devices with tunable magnetic noncollinearity are important components of superconducting electronics and spintronics, but they typically require epitaxial integration of several complex materials. The spin-polarized neutron reflectometry measurements on La Sr MnO homojunction arrays with modulated Sr concentration reported herein have led to the discovery of magnetic fan structures with highly noncollinear alignment of Mn spins and an emergent periodicity twice as large as the array's unit cell. The neutron data show that these magnetic superstructures can be fully long-range ordered, despite the gradual modulation of the doping level created by charge transfer and chemical intermixing.