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    Ion-irradiation-assisted tuning of phase transformations and physical properties in single crystalline Fe7Pd3ferromagnetic shape memory alloy thin films
    ([London] : IOP, 2015) Arabi-Hashemi, A.; Witte, R.; Lotnyk, A.; Brand, R.A.; Setzer, A.; Esquinazi, P.; Hahn, H.; Averback, R.S.; Mayr, S.G.
    Control of multi-martensite phase transformations and physical properties constitute greatly unresolved challenges in Fe7Pd3-based ferromagnetic shape memory alloys. Single crystalline Fe7Pd3 thin films reveal an austenite to martensite phase transformation, continuously ranging from the face-centered cubic (fcc) to the face-centered tetragonal (fct) and body-centered cubic (bcc) phases upon irradiation with 1.8 MeV Kr+ ions. Within the present contribution, we explore this scenario within a comprehensive experimental study: employing atomic force microscopy (AFM) and high resolution transmission electron microscopy (HR-TEM), we first clarify the crystallography of the ion-irradiation-induced austenite $\Rightarrow $ martensite and inter-martensite transitions, explore the multi-variant martensite structures with c-a twinning and unravel a very gradual transition between variants at twin boundaries. Accompanying magnetic properties, addressed locally and globally, are characterized by an increasing saturation magnetization from fcc to bcc, while coercivity and remanence are demonstrated to be governed by magnetocrystalline anisotropy and ion-irradiation-induced defect density, respectively. Based on reversibility of ion-irradiation-induced materials changes due to annealing treatment and a conversion electron Mößbauer spectroscopy (CEMS) study to address changes in order, a quantitative defect-based physical picture of ion-irradiation-induced austenite ⇔ martensite transformation in Fe7Pd3 is developed. The presented concepts thus pave the way for ion-irradiation-assisted optimization strategies for tailored functional alloys.
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    Nonlinearly-enhanced energy transport in many dimensional quantum chaos
    (London : Nature Publishing Group, 2013) Brambila, D.S.; Fratalocchi, A.
    By employing a nonlinear quantum kicked rotor model, we investigate the transport of energy in multidimensional quantum chaos. This problem has profound implications in many fields of science ranging from Anderson localization to time reversal of classical and quantum waves. We begin our analysis with a series of parallel numerical simulations, whose results show an unexpected and anomalous behavior. We tackle the problem by a fully analytical approach characterized by Lie groups and solitons theory, demonstrating the existence of a universal, nonlinearly-enhanced diffusion of the energy in the system, which is entirely sustained by soliton waves. Numerical simulations, performed with different models, show a perfect agreement with universal predictions. A realistic experiment is discussed in two dimensional dipolar Bose-Einstein-Condensates (BEC). Besides the obvious implications at the fundamental level, our results show that solitons can form the building block for the realization of new systems for the enhanced transport of matter.