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Atomic defects and their dynamics play a vital role in controlling the behavior of non-volatile phase change memory materials used in advanced optical storage devices. Synthesis and structural analysis by XRD and Raman spectroscopy on α-GeTe single crystal with different sizes are reported. The spectroscopic measurements on micron and nano sized α-GeTe single crystal reveal the evolution of phonon confinement with crystal sizes of few hundred nanometers. The characteristic vibrational modes of bulk α-GeTe structure are found to downshift and asymmetrically broaden to lower frequency with decreasing the single crystal size. We attribute the observed downshift of Raman lines in α-GeTe is largely due to the presence of high concentration of atomic vacancies. The crystal size and temperature dependent Raman spectra provide explicitly the dynamics of vacancies on optical phonon confinement in α-GeTe structure. Thus, the observed large concentration of vacancies and their size dependency might influence the phase change phenomenon in GeTe based alloys.

The paper analyzes low-frequency waves in a plasma model that is made up of two thermally anisotropic magnetohydrodynamic components, by means of wave-front diagrams, a useful tool that has not attracted the desired attention. The wave-front diagrams of the fast propagating suprathermal mode, besides the usual fast, slow, and Alfvén modes, have been plotted for a variety of situations. These diagrams are used to bring out the physical significance of the anisotropic model vis-à-vis the isotropic model. The question of stability that has been completely ignored so far in the plasma models based on two magnetohydrodynamic components has also been addressed. Analogues of the firehose and mirror instabilities, which are supported by this model, are examined. Their comparison with single-component anisotropic plasma results suggests the possibility of suppressing the mirror instability.

Starting with the Chew, Goldberger & Low equations, an analysis is made of instability arising due to a tangential velocity discontinuity in a dilute plasma. The velocities on either side are parallel but oppositely directed. Two cases are considered: (i) the magnetic field is uniform and everywhere transverse to the motion, and (ii) the magnetic field vectors on either side are orthogonal, being parallel to the motion on one side and perpendicular on the other. The conditions for instability are obtained and it is found that the effect of magnetic field is destabilizing in both cases. The effect of orthogonality of magnetic fields on the conventional fire-hose instability for a uniform, static plasma is also discussed as special case.

Gedalin [Phys. Rev. E 47, 4354 (1993)] derived a dispersion relation for linear waves in relativistic anisotropic Magnetohydrodynamics (MHD). This dispersion relation is used to point out the regions where the relativistic anisotropic MHD leads to new results that cannot be obtained using usual collisional relativistic MHD. This is highlighted by plotting a Fresnal ray surface. Conditions for the onset of firehose and mirror instabilities are also indicated. Such a study can be applied to astrophysical features such as pulsar winds, propagation of cosmic rays, etc.

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The plasma in several physical situations such as movement of electrons along the geomagnetic field lines in the magnetosphere, the movement of the ionosphere, propagation of cosmic rays, etc., can be appropriately simulated by a drifting relativistic model. Keeping this in view, a general dispersion relation for magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) waves has been derived in a laboratory stationary coordinate system with respect to which plasma is drifting with a velocity which need not be small compared with the speed of light. This dispersion relation gives several earlier well-known results for MHD waves supported by an ideal relativistic plasma. The characteristic equation for arbitrary direction of propagation with reference to the ambient magnetic field is quite unwieldy. So, the detailed discussion is confined to the special cases when the propagation vector is along or across the magnetic field. However, wherever feasible, approximate solutions for arbitrary direction of propagation have also been discussed.