Context. The infrared wide-field camera (WFCAM) is now in operation on the 3.8 m UK Infrared Telescope on Mauna Kea. WFCAM currently has the fastest survey speed of any infrared camera in the world, and combined with generous allocations of telescope time, will produce deep maps of the sky from Z to K band. The data from a set of public surveys, known as UKIDSS, will be initially available to astronomers in ESO member states, and later to the world. Aims. In order to maximise survey speed, the WFCAM field of view was required to be as large as possible while incorporating conventional infrared-instrument design features such as a cold re-imaged pupil stop and cryogenic optics and mechanisms. Methods. The solution adopted was to build a cryogenic Schmidt-type camera, mounted forward of the primary mirror, which illuminates a very large 0.9• diameter focal plane, containing four 2k × 2k HgCdTe Rockwell detectors. Results. Following several commissioning periods during which the camera, focal plane and telescope optical axes were successfully co-aligned, WFCAM now operates close to specifications, regularly achieving 0.7 FWHM images over the full field. Projects which already report excellent results include the detection of variability in young stellar clusters, as well as preliminary deep IR imaging of the Subaru and XMM-Newton deep field.

ULTRASPEC is a high-speed imaging photometer mounted permanently at one of the Nasmyth focii of the 2.4-m Thai National Telescope (TNT) on Doi Inthanon, Thailand's highest mountain. ULTRASPEC employs a 1024×1024 pixel frame-transfer, electron-multiplying CCD (EMCCD) in conjunction with re-imaging optics to image a field of 7.7'×7.7' at (windowed) frame rates of up to ∼200 Hz. The EMCCD has two outputs -a normal output that provides a readout noise of 2.3 e − and an avalanche output that can provide essentially zero readout noise. A six-position filter wheel enables narrow-band and broad-band imaging over the wavelength range 330-1000 nm. The instrument saw first light on the TNT in November 2013 and will be used to study rapid variability in the Universe. In this paper we describe the scientific motivation behind ULTRASPEC, present an outline of its design and report on its measured performance on the TNT.

The pinning of domain walls in ferromagnetic (F) wires is one possible technique for the creation of a solid state magnetic memory. Such a system has been under consideration for some time but one of the main limitations is the control of, and non-uniformity of the domain wall pinning. Techniques such as the lithographic definition of notches and steps in the substrate have had some success in creating local pins but have the disadvantage of being expensive to fabricate and the reproducibility of the domain wall pinning strength is limited. In this letter, we report on an alternative strategy to create pins of reproducible strength using crossed ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic (AF) wires such that exchange bias can be introduced at the crossing points. Such a system has the advantage of ease of fabrication and creating domain wall pins of controlled strength by varying the width of the AF wire. We have achieved domain wall pinning field strengths of up to 37 Oe in a system where the AF wire is deposited above the F wire which is comparable to the values achieved using notches.

Crystalline formation of high magnetic-moment thin films through low-temperature annealing processes compatible with current semiconductor technologies is crucial for the development of next generation devices, which can utilise the spin degree of freedom. Utilising in-situ aberration corrected electron microscopy, we report a 235 °C crystallisation process for a Co-based ternary Heusler-alloy film whose initial nucleation is initiated by as few as 27 unit cells. The crystallisation occurs preferentially in the ⟨111⟩ crystalline directions via a two-dimensional (2D) layer-by-layer growth mode; resulting in grains with [110] surface normal and [111] plane facets. This growth process was found to reduce the crystallisation energy by more than 50% when compared to bulk samples whilst still leading to the growth of highly ordered grains expected to give a high degree of spin-polarisation. Our findings suggest that the 2D layer-by-layer growth minimises the crystallisation energy allowing for the possible implementation of highly spin-polarised alloy films into current chip and memory technologies.