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We present in this paper the changes in the room temperature magnetic property of ZnO on Mn doping prepared using solvo-thermal process. The zero field cooled (ZFC) and field cooled (FC) magnetisation of undoped ZnO showed bifurcation and magnetic hysteresis at room temperature. Upon Mn doping the magnetic hysteresis at room temperature and the bifurcation in ZFC-FC magnetization vanishes. The results seem to indicate that undoped ZnO is ferromagnetic while on the other hand the Mn doped ZnO is not a ferromagnetic system. We observe that on addition of Mn atoms the system shows antiferromagnetism with very giant magnetic moments., Comment: 5 figures

We report here enhancement of ferromagnetism in pure ZnO upon thermal annealing with the ferromagnetic transition temperature Tc above room temperature. We observe a finite coercive field upto 300K and a finite thermoremanent magnetization upto 340K for the annealed sample. We propose that magnetic moments can form at anionic vacancy clusters. Ferromagnetism can occur due to either superexchange between vacancy clusters via isolated F+ centers, or through a limited electron delocalization between vacancy clusters. Isolated vacancy clusters or isolated F+ centers give rise to a strong paramagnetic like behaviour below 10K., Comment: 4 figures

In this letter we report observation of room temperature ferromagnetism in bulk Ga$_2$O$_3$ . We also observe large (10-60%) increase/decrease in photoluminescence. In the red(700 nm wavelength)/blue(500 nm), with the application of small magnetic field(0.4 Tesla). We argue, that ferromagnetism occurs entirely due to chains of oxygen(O(3) sites, Fig. 5) vacancies. We propose a simple model to explain, origin and location of moment, formation of ferromagnetic dislocation needles, and strong increase/decrease ofred/blue photoluminescence intensity with magnetic field., Comment: 1 LaTex file and 7 figure gziped ps files

Thermopower measurements have been carried out on the Ni substituted samples of Na0.75CoO2 in the temperature range 4.2K to 300K. The room temperature TEP increases by 20microV/K even with 1% Ni substitution and systematically increases with increasing Ni content upto 5%. The increase in TEP is accompanied by a decrease in rho, thus increasing the ratio of S^(2)/rho on Ni substitution. At low T, the TEP shows an anomaly in the substituted samples, showing a peak at T ~ 20K., Comment: To appear in Sol. St. Phys.India Vol 50 (2005)

We report here that atomic force microscope (AFM) in frictional force mode can be used to detect onset of chain scission and crosslinking in polymeric and macromolecular samples upon irradiation. A systematic investigation to detect chain scission and crosslinking of two elastomers: (1) Ethylene-propylene-diene monomer rubber (EPDM) and (2) Fluorocarbon rubber (FKM) upon gamma-ray irradiation has been carried out using frictional force microscopy (FFM). From the AFM results we observed that both the elastomers show a systematic smoothening of its surfaces, as the gamma-ray dose rate increases. However, the frictional property studied using FFM of the sample surfaces show an initial increase and then a decrease as a function of dose rate. This behavior of increase in its frictional property has been attributed to the onset of chain scission and the subsequent decrease in friction has been attributed to the onset of crosslinking of the polymer chains. The evaluated qualitative and semi-quantitative changes observed in the overall frictional property as a function of gamma-ray dose rate for the two elastomers are presented in this paper., Comment: 18 pages, 7 figs included

We report on the effect of Ni substitution at the Co site on the physical properties of NaxCoO2 system by investigating the series NaxCo1-yNiyO2 (x=0.75, 0

Room temperature Raman scattering measurements have been carried out on well characterized samples of MgB2-xCx. The Raman line corresponding to the E2g phonon mode shows progressive hardening from 620 cm-1 in pristine MgB2 to 775 cm-1 in the sample with carbon fraction x=0.2. The corresponding line width on the other hand, increases from a value of about 220 cm-1 to 286 cm-1 in samples with x = 0.1, beyond which it decreases to a value 167 cm-1 for x=0.2. From the average mode frequency and the line width obtained from Raman measurements and taking the values of N(0) obtained from the calculated variation in s hole density of states in MgB2-xCx, the electron phonon coupling strength to the E2g phonon, l2g, is evaluated using Allen’s formula. This remains large for low C fraction, but shows rapid decrease for x > 0.10. Using this value of l2g appropriately weighted, TC is obtained from McMillan’s equation. These values are in good agreement with the experimentally measured TC variation in MgB2-xCx., Comment: PDF format; containing text and figures. accepted for publication in Journal of Physics Condensed Matter

We present an extensive study on electrical spectroscopy of graphene ribbons and edges of highly oriented pyrolytic graphite (HOPG) using atomic force microscope (AFM). We have addressed in the present study two main issues, (1) How does the electrical property of the graphite (graphene) sheet change when the graphite layer is displaced by shear forces? and (2) How does the electrical property of the graphite sheet change across a step edge? While addressing these two issues we observed, (1) variation of conductance among the graphite ribbons on the surface of HOPG. The top layer always exhibits more conductance than the lower layers, (2) two different monolayer ribbons on the same sheet of graphite shows different conductance, (3) certain ribbon/sheet edges show sharp rise in current, (4) certain ribbons/sheets on the same edge shows both presence and absense of the sharp rise in the current, (5) some lower layers at the interface near a step edge shows a strange dip in the current/conductance (depletion of charge). We discuss possible reasons for such rich conducting landscape on the surface of graphite., Comment: 13 pages, 9 figures. For better quality figures please contact author

We report a systematic study to determine local elastic properties of surfaces combining atomic force microscope (AFM) with acoustic waves which is known as atomic force acoustic microscopy - AFAM. We describe the methodology of AFAM in detail and interpret the measurement using simple arguments and other complementary measurements using AFM.We have used a few selected samples to elucidate the capability of the AFAM technique to map the local elastic constant of the sample surface. Using the force-distance measurement and the change in the frequency of resonance peak at various regions we quantitatively determine the change in the local stiffness (elastic constant) of the sample surface. We have also shown that AFAM technique can be used to get a better surface image contrast where contact mode AFM fails., Comment: High resolution figures available on request from author

In this paper we report the results of electrical resistivity (1.5K < T <300K) and point contact spectroscopy (PCS) measurements on single crystals of metallic sodium tungsten bronze with varying sodium content. We have shown that the electron-phonon coupling function as measured through PCS can explain quantitatively the large temperature dependence of resistivity $\rho$ seen in these materials over the entire temperature range. The electron-phonon coupling function shows predominatly large peaks for phonon frequency range of 30meV < $\omega$ 100meV which match well with the calculated optical phonon modes for WO$_6$ octahedra. The integrated electron-phonon coupling constant $\lambda$ from this data is $\approx$ 0.25-0.45., Comment: RevTEX format with 8 figures

We report a study of the magnetoresistance (MR) of the metallic perovskite oxide LaNiO$_{3-\delta}$ as a function of the oxygen stoichiometry $\delta$ ($\delta \leq$ 0.14), magnetic field (H $\leq 6T$) and temperature (1.5K $\leq $ T $\leq $ 25K). We find a strong dependence of the nature of MR on the oxygen stoichiometry. The MR at low temperatures change from positive to negative as the sample becomes more oxygen deficient (i.e, $\delta$ increases). Some of the samples which are more resistive, show a resistivity minima at $T_{min}$ $\approx$ 20K. We find that in these samples the MR is positive at T > $T_{min}$ and negative for T < $T_{min}$. We conclude that in the absence of strong magnetic interaction, the negative MR in these oxides can arise from weak localisation effects., Comment: 10 pages in REVTeX format, 4 eps figs