(001)_c-oriented 60–70-nm-thick SrIrO₃ films with a high-pressure-stable perovskite phase were epitaxially grown on (100)SrTiO₃ substrates by metalorganic chemical vapor deposition, and the crystal structure and the resistivity of the films were investigated. X-ray diffraction techniques including general θ–2θ scan, the rocking curve and high-resolution reciprocal space mapping, were used to determine crystal quality, lattice constant, and crystal structure of the SrIrO₃ films. It was demonstrated that the film crystal structure was tetragonal distorted by strong mechanical constraints due to the in-plane matching with the lattice parameters of SrTiO₃ substrates, and maintained almost the same unit cell volume as the reported one for the perovskite cubic SrIrO₃ phase. The resistivity of the film at room temperature was 740 µΩ cm, and it decreased with decreasing temperature down to 100 K. Finally, an atomically flat surface was obtained on atomically stepped (100)SrTiO₃ substrates.

X-ray reciprocal space mapping (XRSM) was employed to investigate epitaxial ${\mathrm{Bi}}_2{\mathrm{Sr}}_2{\mathrm{Ca}}_1{\mathrm{Cu}}_2{\mathrm{O}}_x\left(\mathrm{Bi}\text{-}2212\right)$ film. Ordinal cross section XRSM $\left(\omega \text{-}2\theta \right)$ and plan view XRSM $\left(\omega \text{-}\psi \right)$ clearly indicated asymmetric intensity distribution of four satellite peaks caused by supercell structure of $\mathrm{Bi}\text{-}2212$ film. Modulation vector estimated by XRSM was $\mathbf{q}=0.2{\mathbf{b}}^{*}+0.9{\mathbf{c}}^{*}$ . The XRSM image simulated by sawtooth wave vector showed good agreement with asymmetric satellite peaks observed on epitaxial film.

Two dimensional x-ray images of a multilayered bismuth high-temperature superconductor (HTS) together with reciprocal-space simulation have shown how unit cells are distorted to form “supercells,” the structural modulation consisting of multiple unit cells with incommensurate modulation period in a HTS. Strain induced by the multilayered structure alters the lattice mismatch between bismuth and perovskite blocks, resulting in increased supercell distortion described by the amplitude in the modulation wave. While oxygen content affects the modulation period of the supercell, lattice mismatch dominates the displacement of each atom from its position in the perfect crystal to construct the distorted structure, the supercell.

The mass matrix forms of quarks and leptons are studied in a theory with permutation flavor symmetry. The structure of the scalar potential is analyzed in the case that the electroweak doublet Higgs fields have non-trivial flavor symmetry charges. We find that realistic forms of the mass matrices are obtained dynamically in the vacuum of the theory, where some of the Higgs fields have vanishing expectation values which lead to vanishing elements in the quark and lepton mass matrices. Mass textures are realized in the true vacuum, and their positions are controlled by the flavor symmetry. An interesting point is that, due to the flavor group structure, the up and down quark mass matrices are automatically different in the vacuum. This leads to non-vanishing generation mixing. It is also discussed that it is necessary for the flavor symmetry to be broken to realize scalars whose masses are not too small. The lower bounds of the Higgs masses are derived from the experimental data of flavor-changing rare processes, such as neutral K meson mixing.