Search

The Standard Model is not a complete description of reality; it omits the existence of dark matter, dark energy, and an explanation as to why no CP violation has been observed. However, some of these phenomena could be explained through a new force mediated by a new boson. If such a boson were massless it would result in a power law potential and if massive the interaction would be Yukawa-like. A previous experiment employing the interactions of a micromechanical oscillator attached to spherical test mass was successful in placing the best limits on a mass–mass Yukawa-like interaction, but the data were never analyzed in the context of a power law. Here, those data are analyzed considering a power law for powers n = 1–5 where n is the number of boson exchanges. The results show that the limits obtained through power law analysis of these data are not better than the currently accepted limits. A discussion of an experiment design capable of producing better limits on power law extensions to the Standard Model is presented, and suggests that a micromechanical-oscillator-based experiment remains capable of improving the limits by at least one order of magnitude. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The exchange coupling between two ferromagnetic thin films, one with magnetically hard and the other with soft phases, separated by a thin non-magnetic layer, is studied. Nd-Fe-B/Ti/Fe thin film heterostructures were fabricated using DC magnetron sputtering on Si substrates, which were heated in situ at 650 °C using a house-built vacuum-compatible heater. The effect of the thickness of the Ti buffer layer and the annealing temperature on the formation of various phases of Nd-Fe-B was investigated. The effect of the thickness of the non-magnetic Ti spacer layer on the exchange coupling strength between the hard phase Nd-Fe-B ferromagnetic thin layer and the soft phase transition metal Fe layer was experimentally investigated. Hysteresis loops of multilayer thin films indicate an antiferromagnetic coupling was observed when the thickness of the spacer layer was 2 nm. This is within the range of an antiferromagnetic coupling calculation based on RKKY theory predictions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]