The proximity effect between a superconductor ͑S͒ and a weak ferromagnet ͑F͒ in sputtered Nb/ Pd 0.86 Ni 0.14 bilayers has been studied. The dependence of the critical temperature on the Sand F-layer thicknesses can be interpreted in the framework of recent theoretical models and yields reasonable numbers for the exchange energy of the ferromagnet and the interface transparency of the S/F barrier.

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Robust porous silicon substrates were employed for generating interconnected networks of superconducting ultrathin Nb nanowires. Scanning electron microscopy analysis was performed to investigate the morphology of the samples, which constitute of polycrystalline single wires with grain size of about 10 nm. The samples exhibit nonzero resistance over a broad temperature range below the critical temperature, fingerprint of phase slippage processes. The transport data are satisfactory reproduced by models describing both thermal and quantum fluctuations of the superconducting order parameter in thin homogeneous superconducting wires

We have investigated, in the framework of the proximity effect theory, the interface transparency T between Nb and Cu in the case of high quality Nb/Cu trilayers fabricated by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) and sputtering deposition techniques. The obtained T values do not seem to be strongly influenced by the fabrication methods but more by the intrinsic properties of the two metals; a slightly higher value for T has even been deduced for the MBE prepared samples. The proximity effect in these samples has also been studied in the presence of an external magnetic field. In the parallel configuration a significant shift towards lower values of the 2D-3D crossover temperature has been observed for MBE samples, in good agreement with very recent theoretical predictions. In the perpendicular case a positive curvature of the temperature dependence of the upper critical field has been detected, which was less pronounced for sputtered samples. Both the effects have been observed only for trilayers with low Nb thickness (<600 Å) which confirms the crucial influence of the interface transparency on the values of the upper critical field in such samples.

The interaction of electromagnetic radiation in X and Ka bands with magnetic nanocomposite of disordered carbon nanotubes arrays has been investigated both experimentally and theoretically. Samples were synthesized on the quartz reactor walls by decomposition of ferrocene and xylene which provided random intercalation of iron phase nanoparticles in carbon nanotube array. The exhaustive characterization of the samples by means of the scanning electron microscopy, Raman spectroscopy, and x-ray photoemission spectroscopy was performed. It was found that the absorption of the electromagnetic wave monotonically increases with the frequency. To describe these experimental data, we extended the Bruggeman effective medium theory to a more complex case of a magnetic nanocomposite with randomly distributed spherical ferromagnetic nanoparticles in a conducting medium. The essential feature of the developed model is the consideration of the complex nature of the studied material. In particular, such important parameters as magnetic and dielectric properties of both the carbon nanotube medium and the nanoparticles, the volume concentration and the dimensions of the nanoparticles, the wave impedance of the resistive-capacitive shells of the conductive nanoparticles are explicitly taken into account in our model. Moreover, analysing the experimental results, we were able to obtain the frequency dependencies of permittivity and permeability of the studied nanocomposite.