Violation of Hund's third rule caused by structural disorder is observed for the induced magnetic moment of Zr, using X-ray magnetic circular dischroism. The induced spin and orbital magnetic moments are anti-parallel in the crystalline state, but parallel in an amorphous state of the investigated Co-and Fe-based materials. First principles calculations are used to provide physical insight into the dependency of the spin-orbit coupling on the interatomic distance and coordination number.

CoPd is an important nanomaterial for magnetic and magneto-optic storage of information. In this work, CoPd alloyed thin films are grown via radio frequency magnetron sputtering on silicon, glass and polyimide substrates in a vacuum chamber with base pressure of 5 x 10(-8) mbar. The films are nanocrystalline with grain size between 4 and 80 nm. The magnetic properties of thoroughly textured CoPd alloyed thin films are compared to random polycrystalline ones. Magnetization hysteresis loops recorded under fields up to 12 kOe via a home-made magneto-optic Kerr-effect magnetometer reveal strong tendency for perpendicular magnetic anisotropy for the textured film. This anisotropy leads to the formation of well-defined stripe or labyrinthine ferromagnetic domains with the local spins oriented perpendicular to the film plane. The domain patterns and the hysteresis loops are simulated with micromagnetic calculations. Finally, an induced magnetic moment of 0.44 microB/atom is measured for Pd via X-ray magnetic circular dichroism and it is separated into spin and orbital magnetic moment contributions.

Nickel films are grown by radio frequency magnetron sputtering on Corning glass, polyimide foils and on the native oxide of Si (100) wafers at low (1x10-3 mbar) and relatively high (2.5x10-2 mbar) Argon pressure at 100 °C. The base pressure of the high vacuum chamber is 1x10-7 mbar. X-ray diffraction experiments are performed to reveal the different texture of various Ni films. Magneto-optical Kerr effect hysteresis loops and magnetic force microscopy images show correlation between Argon pressure, texture and magnetic anisotropy of the films. The results are discussed with respect to relevant measurements of Ni/NiO magnetic multilayers prepared under similar experimental conditions.

A comparative study of low complexity motion estimation algorithms is presented. The algorithms included in the study are the 1-bit transform, the 2-bit transform, the constrained 1-bit transform and the multiplication free 1-bit transform which are using different motion estimation strategies compared to standard exhaustive search algorithm-mean absolute difference or similar combinations. These techniques provide better performance in terms of computational load compared to traditional algorithms. Although the accuracy of motion compensation is only slightly lower comparing to the other techniques, results in terms of objective quality (peak signal-to-noise ratio) and entropy are comparable. This fact, nominates them as suitable candidates for inclusion in embedded devices applications where lower complexity translates to lower power consumption and consequently improved device autonomy.

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