At ambient pressure, bulk rhombohedral bismuth is a semimetal that remains in the normal state down to at least 10 millikelvin. Superconductivity in bulk bismuth is thought to be unlikely because of the extremely low carrier density. We observed bulk superconductivity in pure bismuth single crystals below 0.53 millikelvin at ambient pressure, with an estimated critical magnetic field of 5.2 microteslas at 0 kelvin. Superconductivity in bismuth cannot be explained by the conventional Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer theory because its adiabatic approximation does not hold true for bismuth. Future theoretical work will be needed to understand superconductivity in the nonadiabatic limit in systems with low carrier densities and unusual band structures, such as bismuth.

The Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor ͑TFTR͒ ͑R. J. Hawryluk, to be published in Rev. Mod. Phys.͒ experiments on high-temperature plasmas, that culminated in the study of deuterium-tritium D-T plasmas containing significant populations of energetic alpha particles, spanned over two decades from conception to completion. During the design of TFTR, the key physics issues were magnetohydrodynamic ͑MHD͒ equilibrium and stability, plasma energy transport, impurity effects, and plasma reactivity. Energetic particle physics was given less attention during this phase because, in part, of the necessity to address the issues that would create the conditions for the study of energetic particles and also the lack of diagnostics to study the energetic particles in detail. The worldwide tokamak program including the contributions from TFTR made substantial progress during the past two decades in addressing the fundamental issues affecting the performance of high-temperature plasmas and the behavior of energetic particles. The progress has been the result of the construction of new facilities, which enabled the production of high-temperature well-confined plasmas, development of sophisticated diagnostic techniques to study both the background plasma and the resulting energetic fusion products, and computational techniques to both interpret the experimental results and to predict the outcome of experiments.

The potential opportunities promised by nanotechnology for enabling advances in defence technologies are staggering. Although these opportunities are likely to be realised over a few decades, many advantages are currently being explored, particularly for defence applications. This review provides an insight into the capabilities offered by nanocomposites which include smart materials, harder/lighter platforms, new fuel sources and storage as well as novel medical applications. It discusses polymer-based nanocomposite materials, nanoscale fillers and provides examples of the actual and potential uses of nanocomposite materials in defence with practical examples.

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Using graphene resonator, we perform electromechanical measurements in quantum Hall regime to probe the coupling between a quantum Hall (QH) system and its mechanical motion. Mechanically perturbing the QH state through resonance modifies the DC resistance of the system and results in a Fano-lineshape due to electronic interference. Magnetization of the system modifies the resonator's equilibrium position and effective stiffness leading to changes in resonant frequency. Our experiments show that there is an intimate coupling between the quantum Hall state and mechanics -electron transport is affected by physical motion and in turn the magnetization modifies the electromechanical response. Nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS)1,2 have emerged as an active field for studying mechanical oscillations of nanoscale resonators and thereby provide a good platform for sensing mass 3-5 , charge 6 , magnetic flux and magnetic moments 7-10 . Actuation and detection of these systems can be done using electrical signals; this makes them suitable for probing the coupling of electrical and mechanical properties [11][12][13] . An intriguing property of graphene is the anomalous quantum Hall effect (QHE) 14,15 . Graphene NEMS have also been realized [16][17][18][19][20] , and this enables us to conduct experiments to answer the following two questionshow is the conductance modified due to mechanical vibrations, and how does the quantum Hall (QH) state affect the electromechanics of the resonator? We find that magnetization of graphene plays a crucial role in providing a coupling to the mechanical motion.In quantum Hall regime, graphene's density of states (DOS) spectrum splits into unequally spaced landau levels (LL). When Fermi energy lies between the gap of two LLs, the longitudinal resistance (R xx ) vanishes and transverse resistance (R xy ) gets quantized to h νe 2

The Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor (TFTR) is a large tokamak which has performed experiments with 50:50 deuterium-tritium fuelled plasmas. Since 1993, TFTR has produced about 1090 D-T plasmas using about 100 grams of tritium and producing about 1.6 GJ of D-T fusion energy. These plasmas have significant populations of 3.5 MeV alphas (the charged D-T fusion product). TFTR research has focused on alpha particle confinement, alpha driven modes, and alpha heating studies. Maximum D-T fusion power production has aided these studies, requiring simultaneously operation at high input heating power and large energy confinement time (to produce the highest temperature and density), while maintaining low impurity content. The principal limitation to the TFTR fusion power production was the disruptive stability limit. Secondary limitations were the confinement time, and limiter power handling capability.

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Experiments in the Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor ͑TFTR͒ ͓Phys. Plasmas 2, 2176 ͑1995͔͒ have explored several novel regimes of improved tokamak confinement in deuterium-tritium ͑D-T͒ plasmas, including plasmas with reduced or reversed magnetic shear in the core and high-current plasmas with increased shear in the outer region ͑high l i ͒. New techniques have also been developed to enhance the confinement in these regimes by modifying the plasma-limiter interaction through in situ deposition of lithium. In reversed-shear plasmas, transitions to enhanced confinement have been observed at plasma currents up to 2.2 MA (q a Ϸ4.3), accompanied by the formation of internal transport barriers, where large radial gradients develop in the temperature and density profiles. Experiments have been performed to elucidate the mechanism of the barrier formation and its relationship with the magnetic configuration and with the heating characteristics. The increased stability of high-current, high-l i plasmas produced by rapid expansion of the minor cross section, coupled with improvement in the confinement by lithium deposition has enabled the achievement of high fusion power, up to 8.7 MW, with D-T neutral beam heating. The physics of fusion alpha-particle confinement has been investigated in these regimes, including the interactions of the alphas with endogenous plasma instabilities and externally applied waves in the ion cyclotron range of frequencies. In D-T plasmas with q 0 Ͼ1 and weak magnetic shear in the central region, a toroidal Alfvén eigenmode instability driven purely by the alpha particles has been observed for the first time. The interactions of energetic ions with ion Bernstein waves produced by mode conversion from fast waves in mixed-species plasmas have been studied as a possible mechanism for transferring the energy of the alphas to fuel ions.