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Thin film bulk acoustic wave (BAW) resonators have been the subject of research in RF microelectronics for some time. Much of the interest lay in utilizing the resonators to design filters for wireless applications. Some of the major advantages BAW devices present over other filter technologies in use today include size reduction and the possibility of on-chip integration. As the technology matures, the necessity to more fully characterize the performance of the devices and to develop more accurate models describing their behavior is apparent. In this investigation, the effects that temperature variations have on 1.8-2.0 GHz zinc oxide (ZnO)-based solidly mounted BAW resonators (SMRs) are studied. The average temperature coefficients of the series and parallel resonant frequencies of the fabricated devices are found to be -31.5 ppm/degrees C and -35.3 ppm/degrees C, respectively. The slight decrease in separation between the two resonant frequencies with temperature implies there is slightly less effective coupling with increased temperature. No definite trend is found describing the behavior of the quality factor (Q) of the resonator with temperature variations. With little temperature coefficient data for thin film ZnO available in the literature, the importance of an accurate model is evident. The resonator device performance is simulated using Ballato's electronic circuit model for acoustic devices on a SPICE-based platform. By virtue of the comparison between the predicted and measured device response, various material parameters are extracted.

In order to elucidate the formation mechanism of unconventional arrangements of vortices in high- Tc superconducting thin films at an inclined magnetic field to the layer plane, we investigated the structures of vortex lines inside the films by Lorentz microscopy using our 1-MV field-emission electron microscope. Our observation results concluded that vortex lines are tilted to form linear chains in YBaCu3O(7,8). Vortex lines in the chain-lattice state in Bi2Sr2CaCu2O(8+delta), on the other hand, are all perpendicular to the layer plane, and therefore only vortices lined up along Josephson vortices form chains.

Neutron measurements show that superconducting ErNi2B2C (T(C) = 11 K) develops antiferromagnetic spin density wave magnetic order (T(N) = 6 K), which squares up with decreasing temperature yielding a series of higher-order magnetic Bragg peaks with odd harmonics. Below T(WFM) = 2.3 K where magnetization indicates a net moment develops, even-order Bragg peaks develop which low field (approximately 3 Oe) polarized beam measurements show are magnetic in origin. The data directly demonstrate the existence of a net magnetization with a periodicity of 20a, confirming the microscopic coexistence of spontaneous weak ferromagnetism with superconductivity.

We have investigated the temperature dependence of the H parallel to c flux line lattice structural phase transition from square to hexagonal symmetry, in the tetragonal superconductor LuNi2B2C ( T(c) = 16.6 K). At temperatures below 10 K the transition onset field, H2(T), is only weakly temperature dependent. Above 10 K, H2(T) rises sharply, bending away from the upper critical field. This contradicts theoretical predictions of H2(T) merging with the upper critical field and suggests that just below the H(c2)(T) curve the flux line lattice might be hexagonal.

Small angle neutron scattering studies of the flux line lattice in LuNi2B2C and ErNi2B2C induced by a field parallel to the a axis reveal a first order flux line lattice reorientation transition. Below the transition the flux line lattice nearest neighbor direction is parallel to the b axis, and above the transition it is parallel to the c axis. This transition cannot be explained using nonlocal corrections to the London model. In addition, the anisotropy of the penetration depth lambda and the coherence length xi change at the transition.

Transport studies in a Corbino disk suggest that the Bragg glass phase undergoes a first-order transition into a disordered solid. This transition shows sharp reentrant behavior at low fields. In contrast, in the conventional strip configuration, the phase transition is obscured by the injection of the disordered vortices through the sample edges, which results in the commonly observed vortex instabilities and smearing of the peak effect in NbSe2 crystals. These features are found to be absent in the Corbino geometry in which the circulating vortices do not cross the sample edges.

We report on transport and magnetization studies of the critical current in single crystal ErNi2B2C for applied fields below 4 kG. Below T approximately 2.5 K superconductivity coexists with weak ferromagnetism. We find that the critical currents are strongly enhanced for all field orientations in this ferromagnetic regime, corresponding to a threefold increase of the pinning force of the flux line lattice. We speculate that this increase is due to strong pair breaking by the ferromagnetism.

The magnetic flux line lattice in type II superconductors serves as a useful system in which to study condensed matter flow, as its dynamic properties are tunable. Recent studies have shown a number of puzzling phenomena associated with vortex motion, including: low-frequency noise and slow voltage oscillations; a history-dependent dynamic response, and memory of the direction, amplitude duration and frequency of the previously applied current; high vortex mobility for alternating current, but no apparent vortex motion for direct currents; and strong suppression of an a.c. response by small d.c. bias. Taken together, these phenomena are incompatible with current understanding of vortex dynamics. Here we report a generic mechanism that accounts for these observations. Our model, which is derived from investigations of the current distribution across single crystals of NbSe2, is based on a competition between the injection of a disordered vortex phase at the sample edges, and the dynamic annealing of this metastable disorder by the transport current. For an alternating current, only narrow regions near the edges are in the disordered phase, while for d.c. bias, most of the sample is in the disordered phase--preventing vortex motion because of more efficient pinning. The resulting spatial dependence of the disordered vortex system serves as an active memory of the previous history.

A silicon micromechanical magnetometer was constructed and successfully used in 60-tesla pulsed magnetic fields of less than 100-millisecond duration. The device is small, inexpensive to fabricate, and easy to use. It features a fast mechanical response (up to 50,000 hertz) and extremely high sensitivity yet is relatively robust against electrical and mechanical noise. Quantum oscillations in the magnetization of a 1-microgram sample of an organic superconductor, kappa-[bis(ethylenedithio)tetrathiafulvalene]2Cu(NCS)2, have been observed with this device.