In 1988 Professor Guillermo Velarde, founder of the Instituto de Fusión Nuclear (IFN), chaired the 19th European Conference on Laser Interaction with Matter held in Madrid on 3–7 October 1988. About 170 scientists from Europe, the Soviet Union, United States, Japan, Canada, Israel, Australia, China, and South Africa participated in the ECLIM 88. ECLIM 88 was among ECLIM's series a turning point in inertial confinement fusion (ICF) research. The work already performed by different laboratories in Europe, Japan, and around the world had reached a level such that without explicitly expressing it, the collective scientific consensus wanted a change in the existing close policies in several ICF areas at large Laboratories in the USA, Russia, France, and UK.

Dr. Erik Storm from the US Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory proposed to Professor Velarde to write a letter to be signed by the participants of the ECLIM in favor of having an open international collaboration in ICF. Professor Velarde then suggested drawing up a manifesto instead of a letter because the name manifesto had bigger historical connotations. The manifesto received a very successful response among the conference participants and was signed by more than 130 scientists. Our paper aims at twofold objective: (1) to put into account the positive repercussions derived from the MADRID MANIFESTO in the ICF research and (2) to remember the figure of Professor Guillermo Velarde, the most influential physicist in nuclear fusion energy by inertial confinement along the 20th century. His inspiration and leadership in science contributed to make this world a safer and secure place and for us, his disciples and colleagues, an irreplaceable personality in our lives.

A novel method to perform small-scale laboratory experiments that reproduce concrete–bentonite and concrete–groundwater interactions has been developed. Such interfaces will prevail in engineered barrier systems used for isolation of nuclear waste. With the goal of optimizing the experimental method, this work has analysed the geochemical interaction of distilled water, low-pH cement mortar and FEBEX-bentonite for 75 days. Limited but evident reactivity between the materials was observed, mainly decalcification in cement mortar, carbonation at the interface with bentonite and Mg enrichment in bentonite. These results are consistent with the state-of-the-art literature and were used to validate this small-scale pilot laboratory experiment to establish the basis for further studies comparing the behaviour of different buffer and cement materials.

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons are increasingly widespread pollutants introduced into the environment via oil spillage and incomplete anthropogenic combustion of fossil fuels. In this work, the capacity of stevensite and sepiolite to adsorb phenanthrene (PHE) has been evaluated experimentally by batch testing. Both clay minerals are distributed widely in the Madrid Basin, are of low cost and can be applied with minimal environmental impact. In the context of few previous studies, adsorption isotherms have been developed to understand the adsorption mechanisms and were fitted to the Freundlich and linear models with virtually the same results. Although stevensite showed greater adsorption capacity than sepiolite, the isotherms were constructed for equilibrium concentrations up to 0.8–1.0 mg/L due to the low solubility of PHE in water. When compared to other adsorbents the ability of stevensite to retain PAHs should be examined further in order to add and complement novel functions in reactive barriers.

In the standard model of core accretion, the cores of the giant planets form by the accretion of planetesimals. In this scenario, the evolution of the planetesimal population plays an important role in the formation of massive cores. Recently, we studied the role of planetesimal fragmentation in the in situ formation of a giant planet. However, the exchange of angular momentum between the planet and the gaseous disk causes the migration of the planet in the disk. In this new work, we incorporate the migration of the planet and study the role of planet migration in the formation of a massive core when the population of planetesimals evolves by planet accretion, migration, and fragmentation.

In this work we study the interfaces between the Mott insulator LaMnO3 (LMO) and the band insulator SrTiO3 (STO) in epitaxially grown superlattices with different thickness ratios and different transport and magnetic behaviors. Using atomic resolution electron energy-loss spectral imaging, we analyze simultaneously the structural and chemical properties of these interfaces. We find changes in the oxygen octahedral tilts within the LaMnO3 layers when the thickness ratio between the manganite and the titanate layers is varied. Superlattices with thick LMO and ultrathin STO layers present unexpected octahedral tilts in the STO, along with a small amount of oxygen vacancies. On the other hand, thick STO layers exhibit undistorted octahedra while the LMO layers present reduced O octahedral distortions near the interfaces. These findings are discussed in view of the transport and magnetic differences found in previous studies.

In this paper, we explore the interfacial effects appearing in highly strained La0.7Ca0.3MnO3 (LCMO) ultra-thin films (10-12nm) grown on BaTiO3 (BTO) ferroelectric substrates. The strong tendency to phase separation of this optimally doped manganite contributes to the exotic phenomena observed in magnetism and transport experiments: the so-called Matteucci magnetic loops, magnetic granularity and a second metal insulator transition are observed between 50K and the LCMO Curie temperature, 180K. All these properties define the multiferroic character of these heterostructures, which in LCMO//BTO system is strongly linked to magnetoelastic coupling.

Extended abstract of a paper presented at Microscopy and Microanalysis 2013 in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA, August 4 – August 8, 2013.

Extended abstract of a paper presented at Microscopy and Microanalysis 2013 in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA, August 4 – August 8, 2013.

Extended abstract of a paper presented at Microscopy and Microanalysis 2011 in Nashville, Tennessee, USA, August 7–August 11, 2011.

Extended abstract of a paper presented at Microscopy and Microanalysis 2011 in Nashville, Tennessee, USA, August 7–August 11, 2011.

Colossal ionic conductivity was recently discovered in YSZ/SrTiO3 multilayers and was explained in terms of strain- and interface-enhanced disorder of the O sublattice. In the present paper we use a combination of scanning transmission electron microscopy and electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS) and theoretical EELS simulations to confirm the presence of a disordered YSZ O sublattice in coherent YSZ/SrTiO3 multilayers. O K-edge fine structure simulated for the strained disordered O sublattice phase of YSZ possesses blurred-out features compared to that of ordered cubic bulk YSZ, and experimental EELS fine structure taken from the strained YSZ of coherent YSZ/SrTiO3 thin films is similarly blurred out. Elemental mapping is shown to be capable of resolving ordered YSZ O sublattices. Elemental mapping of O in the coherent YSZ/STO multilayers is presented in which the O sublattice is seen to be clearly resolved in the STO but blurred out in the YSZ, indicating it to be disordered. In addition, we present imaging and EELS results which show that strained regions exist at the incoherent interfaces of YSZ islands in STO with blurred out fine structure, suggesting these incoherent regions may also support high ionic conductivities. Recently, Cavallaro et al. reported electronic conductivities in samples of incoherent disconnected islands embedded in STO that are similar to the islands described herein. The presence of a region of O depleted STO at the interface with incoherent YSZ islands is revealed by EELS elemental mapping, implying the n-type doping of STO/YSZ nanocomposites with disconnected incoherent YSZ islands.

Ultrathin superlattices of 123 superconducting cuprates have been fabricated by high oxygen pressure sputtering technique. The superlattices show high quality, with negligible step disorder, roughness and interdiffusion. The insulating PrBa2Cu3O7 (PBCO) layer thickness has been kept constant at 5 unit cells (u.c.) and the superconducting YBa2Cu3O7 (YBCO) layer thickness has been changed from 8 u.c. to 1 u.c. In these uncoupled multilayers the critical temperature (Tc0) changes from 44 (1 u.c. YBCO) to 80 K (8 u.c. YBCO). In the vortex liquid regime, at constant temperature, the angular dependence of the magnetoresistance scales down with the applied magnetic field values in all the temperature range. This behavior allows us to study the anisotropy and dimensionality behavior of the mixed state in ultrathin superlattices. A dimensional crossover 3D-2D is found in the anisotropy with the 1 u.c. YBCO superlattices following a pure 2D behavior.

We report large magnetoresistance (in excess of 1000%) in ferromagnet / superconductor / ferromagnet structures made of La0.7Ca0.3MnO3 and YBa2Cu3O7 in the current in plane (CIP) geometry. This magnetoresistance has many of the ingredients of the giant magnetoresistance of metallic superlattices: it is independent on the angle between current and magnetic field, depends on the relative orientation of the magnetization in the ferromagnetic layers, and takes very large values. The origin is enhanced scattering at the F/S interface in the anti parallel configuration of the magnetizations. Furthermore, we examine the dependence of the magnetoresistance effect on the thickness of the superconducting layer, and show that the magnetoresistance dies out for thickness in excess of 30 nm, setting a length scale for the diffusion of spin polarized quasiparticles.

We analyze in this work the influence of ordering on the oxygen ion dynamics in the ionic conductor Gd2(Ti0.65Zr0.35)2O7, prepared by mechanical milling. As-prepared powder phase presents a metastable anion deficient fluorite-type of structure below 800°C becoming a disordered pyrochlore above this temperature. Such phase transformation implies a significant increase in the ionic conductivity of this material as a result of a systematic decrease in the activation energy for the dc conductivity, from 1.23 to 0.78 eV. Electrical conductivity relaxation is well described by the Kohlrausch-Williams-Watts (KWW) stretched exponential function with the fractional exponent n decreasing systematically with increasing sintering temperature (increasing ordering) as a result of decreasing ion-ion interactions in better ordered samples.