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Pressure drops and temperature rises caused by the cooling with liquid nitrogen are evaluated for two typical examples of HTS cables. One is the three-in-one-type AC cable located inside a corrugated pipe, and the other is the single-core-type DC cable located inside a straight pipe. The theoretical expressions of pressure drop and temperature rise indicate the contributions from three components such as the friction between the liquid nitrogen and the wetted surfaces, the ratio of the heat input to the mass flow rate of liquid nitrogen and the vertical change of position along the cooling pipe. The numerically estimated results are validated by comparing them with the test results carried out by the other groups. Furthermore, the maximum feeding distance of HTS cable can be determined by adjusting the flow rate of pump if the maximum permissible pressure drop and temperature rise are fixed in advance.

The development of a liquid nitrogen submerged pump for HTS applications is underway. A cryogenic active magnetic bearing is the main component of the pump. The bearing makes the maintenance interval of the pump longer than 3years such interval is essential for the pump in commercial use of HTS applications such as long HTS cable. The bearing will be set in a HTS motor shaft of the pump. In experiments, a shaft without an HTS motor is used and the bearing was immersed in liquid nitrogen. The rotation of the shaft is made by a high-speed motor at room temperature. The bearing consists of two radial bearings and one axial bearing. The shaft was floating by the bearing and was rotated by the motor at room temperature. The steady rotation speed of 2,000, 3,000, 4,000 and 5,000 rpm were achieved, and the rotation speed satisfied the design speed of the pump which is 5,000rpm.

Optical and magneto-optical properties of one-dimensional magneto-optical photonic crystal (1-D MPC) prepared by the sol–gel dip-coating method, including a magnetic defect layer composed of mixture of CoFe 2 O 4 and SiO 2 , are investigated from both the experimental and theoretical standpoints. The resonant transmission of light was observed around 570 nm in the photonic band gap. The Faraday rotation angle θ F showed two maxima at 490 and 640 nm, and the wavelength dependence of θ F above 760 nm was similar to that of the CoFe 2 O 4 +SiO 2 single-layer film. The two maxima of θ F are attributed to the enhanced Faraday rotation of nonmagnetic TiO 2 layers in the cavity structure and that in magnetic CoFe 2 O 4 +SiO 2 layer through the light localization in MPC. The maximum value of θ F due to the magnetic CoFe 2 O 4 +SiO 2 layer in the MPC was 22-times larger than that in the single-layer film. The simulation study of MPC with CoFe 2 O 4 +SiO 2 magnetic defect layer, based on the matrix approach method, showed that the resonant light transmission was accompanied by the localization of electric field, and large enhancement of θ F appeared at different wavelengths so as to agree with the experimental features. This can be explained in terms of the wavelength dependent off-diagonal components of the dielectric constant tensor in addition to the large extinction coefficient in the CoFe 2 O 4 +SiO 2 magnetic defect layer.

A facile synthesis method for monodisperse Fe nanoparticles has been developed by the injection of iron carbonyl into kerosene in one pot. By controlling reaction parameters, 3–12 nm Fe nanoparticles were prepared. The size distribution is very narrow and any size-selective treatment is not required, even when several grams of Fe nanoparticles are synthesized. Magnetic measurements reveal that the saturation magnetization (Ms) of the 9.3 nm Fe nanoparticles is always over 150 emu g−1 at room temperature.

The Faraday rotation in Bi-substituted yttrium-iron garnet thin films, in which an artificially fabricated Au nanoparticle array is embedded, is studied as a function of lattice spacing compared with the extinction spectra. With decreasing lattice spacing in the Au array, the wavelengths corresponding to the enhanced Faraday rotation and the extinction peak showed blueshifts in the same manner. This indicates that Faraday rotation can be manipulated by means of the wavelength shift of localized surface plasmon resonance that originates from the change in electromagnetic interaction between Au nanoparticles.

Faraday rotation spectra of Co nanoparticles embedded in polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) matrix were investigated by the theoretical and experimental approaches. Co nanoparticles were synthesized by means of the thermal decomposition method, which makes it possible to control the particle concentration without changing the particle size distribution. The amplitude of Faraday rotation is dependent on the particle concentration, and the Faraday rotation spectra show the blueshift accompanied by the decrease in size of Co nanoparticles. The experimental results of Faraday spectra were consistent with the calculation using the Maxwell-Garnett model which is considering the size-dependent free-electron contribution and size independent bound-electron contribution. It was found that the spectral shift was caused only by the size-dependent diagonal element in the dielectric constant tensor, which originates from the confinement of the free electrons in nanoparticles.

Frictional behaviors of flake and adsorbed monolayer on substrate can be observed by Frictional force microscope and Quartz crystal microbalance experiments and are typical problems in nano-friction. Computer simulations had been played important roles in understanding those behaviors, but in most of them the driving direction coincides with one of the crystal axes of the substrate. Here we report our numerical results of direction dependence of friction of flake and adsorbed monolayer. We found a new kind of dynamical phase transition in which flake and adsorbed monlayer change their structure relative to the substrate and make incommensurae structure to reduce kinetic frictional force after certain transition time. When the driving velocity is decreased the transition time tends to diverge at certain critical velocity for the flake. For the adsorbed monlayer the transition time tends to diverge at certain critical magnitudes of the external force or the interaction strength between adsorbates when they are decreased.