Magnetism in confined structures is an important and active area of research world wide. There are two main scientific issues driving this research: changes in the properties of small structures when compared to the bulk; and modification of materials properties due to the proximity with dissimilar materials. Of course, the great relevance of nanostructured materials to a variety of applied areas makes this basic research particularly relevant. To understand these materials it is important to understand quantitatively the physical, magnetic and structural properties and the nanoscale and in the subnanosecond time domain. I will give two examples in which both the proximity effect and confinement play a major role in the areas of superconductivity and magnetism.
(Work supported by US-DOE, NSF, DARPA and AFOSR)
Physics Department, Univ California-San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA