We study the electromagnetic wave propagation in three-dimensional (3-D) dense random discrete media containing dielectric spheroidal scatterers. We employ a Monte Carlo method in conjunction with the Method of Moments to solve the volume integral equation for the electric field. We calculate the effective permittivity of the random medium through a coherent-field approach and compare our results with a classical mixing formula. A parametric study on the dependence of the effective permittivity on particle elongation and fractional volume is included.

The micro positioning systems using magnetic suspension technique, which is one of precision actuating method, have been suggested. Utilizing the various potentials such as the exclusion of a mechanical friction, they are being applied broadly to multi degrees of freedom (d.o.f) system requesting high accuracy or hybrid system requesting to be controlled position and force simultaneously. This paper presents the entire development procedure of a novel six d.o.f micro positioning system using mag-netic levitation, with a repulsive force mechanism covering the all d.o.f. First, the interactions between magnetic elements are modeled and the system design flow by an optimal location of the elements is given. A kinematic relationship between the measuring instruments and the levitated object is derived, and dynamic characteristics are identified by the narrow gap principles. And the main issues for control are discussed.

In this study, the shielding effect of high-loss dielectric and magnetic materials themselves and also an oval human model placed behind these material, were investigated by the FDTD method, for near- and far-field exposure, using the half-wave length dipole antenna. According to the results, a high-loss magnetic material showed a large shielding effect (average 20 dB) compared to the high-loss dielectric material, for near- and far-field shields. Also, the reduction of the shielding effect was small (2 dB) for the high-loss magnetic material, while it was large for the high loss dielectric material, on decreasing the distance between the antenna and shield. Moreover, the variation of the shielding effect on a human model placed behind the shield was small (0.2-1.5 dB) for the high-loss magnetic material, but large for the high-loss dielectric material. This is similar to the results of the shield materials themselves, for the close antenna-shield and human-shield distances, respectively.

Nonlinear behavior of electromagnetic surface waves propagating along a tangentially magnetized ferrite slab is investigated. The nonlinear Schrodinger equation (NLSE) which describes the temporal evolution of the electromagnetic wave pulses has been derived directly from the Maxwell equations and the equation of precessional motion for the magnetization in the ferrite slab with the aid of the reductive perturbation method without magnetostatic approximation. Based on the formula derived, we have numerically evaluated the frequency-dependence of the nonlinear coefficient in the NLSE for both a magnetostatic surface wave mode and a dynamic mode. As a result, we have confirmed the possibility of the propagation of solitons in the waveguide.

The Paper describes design and experiment of 2nd cyclotron harmonic peniotron at microwave region using a permanent magnet system. The magnet system using a cylindrical magnet magnetized along the cylindrical axis is designed and fabricated. The 2nd cyclotron harmonic peniotron operating at the π mode in a six vane magnetron waveguide resonator and at 5 GHz was constructed by using the magnet system. The peak electronic efficiency higher than 30% was achieved at the π mode in the resonator.

Magnetoencephalography (MEG) is a powerful and non-invasive technique for measuring human brain activity with a high temporal resolution. The motivation for studying MEG data analysis is to extract the essential features from measured data and represent them corresponding to the human brain functions. In this paper, a novel MEG data analysis method based on independent component analysis (ICA) approach with pre-processing and post-processing multistage procedures is proposed. Moreover, several kinds of ICA algorithms are investigated for analyzing MEG single-trial data which is recorded in the experiment of phantom. The analyzed results are presented to illustrate the effectiveness and high performance both in source decomposition by ICA approaches and source localization by equivalent current dipoles fitting method.

Triple-layer CoCrPt magnetic thin films with different bias configurations were fabricated by DC magnetron sputtering on CrV and glass substrate. In-plane coercivity (Hc) showed an increase for those films with bias sputtered CoCrPt layer. The in-plane coercivity (Hc) was optimized in NB-B-NB type film prepared with substrate heating at 300C (NB: no bias and B: rf bias applied in sputtering). Better in-plane crystal texture was observed in NB-B-NB type film by XRD and this is believed to be the main reason for the coercivity improvement. The other resource for the coercivity improvement was due to the decoupling of intergrain magnetic interactions. This was discussed accordingly to the results obtained from TEM, MFM and SIMS depth profiling.

Future high density magnetic recording requires a nanometer spaced head-slider interface, high track seeking velocity and high spindle speed. Such a combination greatly increases the likelihood of slider-disk and slider-particle-disk impact. Furthermore, the impact can generate high flash temperature and leads to data reliability problems, such as partial or full data erasure. This work report a method to conduct controlled experimental investigations into the possibility of such a data erasure even when the temperature is far below the Curie temperature. Results indicate that the high density magnetic transitions are of high likelihood of being affected by the flash temperature. Investigations also extended to micromagnetic modeling of the flash temperature effect. Results suggest that thermally induced local stress can play important roll in the data erasure process. Modeling results also exhibit that smaller grain size and higher recording density are also of higher likelihood of getting the transitions being affected by the flash temperature.

Ferromagnetic Co77Cr20Ta3 layers were deposited on a Pt seed layer by a facing targets sputtering apparatus. The Co-Cr-Ta and Pt crystallites revealed better c-axis orientation at a substrate temperature Ts above 200C. Relatively high perpendicular coercivity Hc⊥ of 2.5 kOe was obtained for the bilayered film with a Co-Cr-Ta layer thickness, δCo, of 50 nm deposited at Ts of 250C. Although the Co-Cr-Ta/Pt medium with δCo of 100 nm exhibited lower recording density than a Co-Cr-Ta/Cr longitudinal one, its noise level became small at the high-density recording range. Measurement of the anomalous Hall voltage clarified that the bilayered film with δCo as small as 30 nm revealed larger perpendicular magnetization than the single layer. The Pt seed layer is effective for depositing thin ferromagnetic Co-Cr-Ta layers below 100 nm in thickness.

As technology moves at an annual area density increase rate of 80-120% and channel density moves beyond 3, micro-fluctuation of media recording performance and the homogeneity of media's recording capability become serious reliability concerns in future high density magnetic recording systems. Two concepts are proposed in this work for the characterization of the micro-recording performance fluctuation at high bit and channel densities: recording performance roughness analysis and dynamic magnetic roughness analysis. The recording performance roughness analysis is based on an in-situ measurement technique of the non-linear transition shift (NLTS). Relationship between the performance roughness and the roughness of dynamic magnetic parameters are studied. Results of experimental investigations indicate that the NLTS based performance roughness analysis can reveal more details on media's recording capability and the capability fluctuation--the macro and micro fluctuation of recording performance. The dynamic magnetic roughness analysis is read/write operation based and can be used to characterize the macro and micro fluctuation of media's dynamic magnetic properties. The parameters used for the analysis include media's dynamic coercivity and the dynamic coercive squareness. Here, "dynamic" refers to the dynamic performance measured at MHz frequency. The authors also noticed in their technology development process that further methodology development and confirmation are necessary for media's dynamic performance analysis. Therefore, the work also extends to the accuracy analysis of the playback amplitude based methods for the analysis of the dynamic coercive squareness and dynamic hysteresis loop. A method which is of smaller testing error is identified and reported in this work.

The origins of baseline shift were discussed considering the measured off-track properties using a wide write head with track widths of 97 µm and a narrow read head with track widths of 2.7 µm. The baseline shift increased when the read head was moved close to the track edge. Beyond the track edge, baseline shift decreased to negative values. The impulse response curve of the MR head to the perpendicular magnetization was estimated from the readback waves of the MIG head and the MR head. The response curve depended on the recorded track width. When the recorded track was narrow, the undershoot of the response curve was smaller than that of the head field based on the 2D double-gap ring head model with infinite track width. This small undershoot induces sensitivity of the DC-component of the recorded magnetization and causes the baseline shift. To calculate the readback waves of the MR head for single-layer perpendicular recording media with narrow-track recording, the effect from stray field at the recorded track edge must be included in the impulse response curve of read head.

As the track becomes narrower, the effects of track edge become more significant. These effects, such as the amplitude reduction, variations in the shape of the isolated pulse, the partial erasure and the amplitude asymmetry, are dependent on head/disk combination and the off-track position. These relationships are discussed in detail in this paper. More importantly, an off-track model is proposed to study the off-track BER performance for the head with narrow track width. The BER performances of EPRML channel for different off-track cases and different head/media combinations are studied based on this model. Simulation results have proved that this model is a useful tool for simulation of system performance.

Magnetic layer thickness dependences of magnetic properties are investigated for Co-Cr-Pt polycrystalline thin films with different Cr-alloy underlayers (Cr-Ti, Cr-W, Cr-Mo, Cr-V, Cr-Mo-V). The specimens with Cr-Ti, Cr-V, and Cr-Mo-V underlayers show higher coercivities by about 30% and lower activation magnetic moments than those with Cr-Mo underlayer. The effective diameter of activation volume increases by 10-20% when the magnetic layer thickness is decreased from 12 to 8 nm. Temperature dependences of magnetic properties are also determined and discussed by referring to the data obtained using single crystal magnetic thin films with similar composition.

SiO2-added Ba ferrite (BaM:SiO2) films were prepared using BaFe12Si0.18Ox targets. BaM:SiO2 films exhibited perpendicular coercivity Hc⊥ of over 4.2 kOe and squareness ratio of 0.83, although saturation magnetization Ms decreased by about 15%. The angular dependence of coercivity Hc and remanent coercivity Hr were investigated to explain the magnetization reversal mechanism. Intergranular interactions in the films were also evaluated. The magnetization reversal mode of Ba ferrite films with and without SiO2 additives is not coherent rotation but appears to be the curling mode. The origin of the high coercivity of BaM:SiO2 films is different from that of Al-substituted Ba ferrite films. It seemed that SiO2 additives and the defects caused by them decreased Ms and prevented the expansion of reversed domains in the magnetization reversal process, similarly to some pinning effects, and caused high Hc⊥ of 4.2-5.1 kOe in BaM:SiO2 films.

A Co/Pd multilayer film with perpendicular coercivity of 2.2 kOe and remanence ratio (SQ) of unity was prepared by electron beam evaporation in vacuum. In the MFM image of signal patterns of 4 kFRPI recorded using a ring-type MIG head, many reversed domains were observed. However, when the film was magnetized along the film normal direction using an electromagnet (H = -13 kOe), only few reversed magnetic domains were observed, which was consistent with SQ = 1. Therefore, the reversed domains in the signal patterns were induced in the recording process. dc erasing was also studied with the magnetic field inclined to the film normal. The domain structures were almost the same when the perpendicular component of the field was kept constant while the in-plane component was varied, implying that the in-plane field component did not contribute to the formation of the reversed domains. It was found that reversed magnetic domains were easily induced even by a weak reversing magnetic field applied along the film normal. Hence, although the possibility of an insufficient recording head field was not excluded, it seemed more likely that the reversed magnetic domains in the signal patterns were caused by some erasing effect of the ring-type MIG head. For a Co/Pd multilayer medium with a negative nucleation field in the perpendicular M-H loop, a stronger reversing field was needed to induce the reversed magnetic domains. No reversed magnetic domains were observed in the MFM image for signal patterns of 4 kFRPI in this medium, indicating that a negative nucleation field was effective to suppress the formation of reversed magnetic domains.

It is known that amorphous continuous media such as TbFeCo have extremely low noise characteristics because of the structure of the continuous grainless medium. There is great interest in the use of amorphous media in magnetic recording. This study investigated the recording characteristics of the amorphous continuous medium by computer simulation using the Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert equation. It was shown that the transition of the continuous medium is very sharp and the noise level very low. It was also shown that the recorded magnetization patterns of the continuous medium are distinct at the high recording density of 380 Gbit/inch2. We concluded that the continuous medium has great potential for use in ultra-high density recording.

When the inter-slice resolution of tomographic image slices is large, it is necessary to estimate the locations and intensities of pixels, which would appear in the non-existed intermediate slices. This paper presents a new method for generating the missing medical slices from two given slices. It uses the contours of organs as the control parameters to the intensity information in the physical gaps of sequential medical slices. The Snake model is used for generating the control points required for the elastic body spline (EBS) morphing algorithm. Contour information derived from this segmentation pre-process is then further processed and used as control parameters to warp the corresponding regions in both input slices into compatible shapes. In this way, the intensity information of the interpolated intermediate slices can be derived more faithfully. In comparison with the existing intensity interpolation methods, including linear interpolation, which only considers corresponding points in a small physical neighborhood, this method warps the data images into similar shapes according to contour information to provide a more meaningful correspondence relationship.

For plasma simulations, we developed a one-dimensional (1d) Object-Oriented Particle-in-Cell code for X11-based Unix workstations (XOOPIC) by modifying the current two-dimensional version which was originally developed by PTSG (Plasma theory and simulation group) in the University of California at Berkeley. We implemented a simplified field solve and current deposition in the code. We retained three components of particle velocity, although the spatial variation for particle position and field components is limited to one dimension. To verify the function of the 1d code, we perform simulations with typical models such as the Child-Langmuir current model and electromagnetic wave propagation in plasma. In both cases, the simulation results quantitatively agree with the theory.

This report introduces a new approach to the time domain analysis of the magnetostatic wave in ferrite materials. The time domain analysis is carried out by the finite difference time domain (FDTD) method. To include the gyromagnetic properties which is the origin of magnetostatic wave, direct differentiation of magnetic dipole moment equation in time and space domains without any approximation are carried out and is combined with Maxwell's equation under the FDTD method. As a result, the possibilities of the analysis on the magnetostatic wave with the FDTD method are confirmed and the validities of this approach are confirmed by some inspections. In addition, the analyses of the nonlinear characteristics on the magnetostatic backward volume waves (MSBVW) are carried out and clarify the dependance of the space profile on the input power.

This paper reviews recent progresses in the research and development of planar photonic band-gap (PBG) structures, also called electromagnetic crystals, for microwave and millimeter-wave applications. Planar electromagnetic crystals are particularly attractive and intensively investigated because of their easy fabrication, low cost, and compatibility with standard planar circuit technology. Two configurations and their applications are described in this paper: a square lattice of holes etched in a ground plane and the recently developed Uniplanar Compact PBG (UC-PBG) structure. Basic properties as well as applications to microwave circuits are reported. These include harmonic tuning in power amplifier, leakage suppression in conductor-backed coplanar waveguide (CB-CPW), realization of planar slow-wave structure, and performance improvement in microstrip filters and patch antennas.