The subject of the paper is Schrdinger operators on tree graphs which are radial, having the branching number bn at all the vertices at the distance tn from the root. We consider a family of coupling conditions at the vertices characterized by (bn1)2+4 real parameters. We prove that if the graph is sparse so that there is a subsequence of {tn+1tn} growing to infinity, in the absence of the potential the absolutely continuous spectrum is empty for a large subset of these vertex couplings, but on the the other hand, there are cases when the spectrum of such a Schrdinger operator can be purely absolutely continuous.

The most general admissible boundary conditions are derived for an idealized AharonovBohm flux intersecting the plane at the origin on the background of a homogeneous magnetic field. A standard technique based on self-adjoint extensions yields a four-parameter family of boundary conditions; the other two parameters of the model are the AharonovBohm flux and the homogeneous magnetic field. The generalized boundary conditions may be regarded as a combination of the AharonovBohm effect with a point interaction. Spectral properties of the derived Hamtonians are studied in detail.

We consider a Schrdinger particle on a graph consisting of <i>N</i> links joined at a single point. Each link supports a real locally integrable potential <i>V</i> _<i>j</i>; the self-adjointness is ensured by the type boundary condition at the vertex. If all the links are semi-infinite and ideally coupled, the potential decays as <i>x</i> ¹ along each of them, is nonrepulsive in the mean and weak enough, the corresponding Schrdinger operator has a single negative eigenvalue; we find its asymptotic behavior. We also derive a bound on the number of bound states and explain how the coupling constant may be interpreted in terms of a family of squeezed potentials.

In this paper, gold ball wire bonding at low temperature using a high frequency transducer was evaluated. The substrates used were FR-4 laminates with two different gold-plated surface finishes: electrolytic and immersion gold-plated. Bonding temperatures of 120/spl deg/C, 80/spl deg/C and 40/spl deg/C were investigated with 1 mil fine pitch gold wire. Prior to wire bonding, the laminates and dice were plasma treated. The surfaces were analyzed prior to and after plasma treatment before wire bonding using XPS and AFM. Bonded areas were also analyzed using SEM. Design of experiment (DOE) techniques have been employed to optimize the bonding parameters at each temperature. The response of the DOE was evaluated by using bond shear and bond pull. The results show that bonding at low temperature is viable with the use of a high frequency transducer wire bonder.

We investigate a charged two-dimensional particle in a homogeneous magnetic field interacting with a periodic array of point obstacles. We show that while Landau levels remain to be infinitely degenerate eigenvalues, between them the system has bands of absolutely continuous spectrum and exhibits thus a transport along the array. We also compute the band functions and the corresponding probability current.