Engineering Papers⌕ Search

SEARCH · Engineering Papers

Results for “Pixel”

Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 1,801 records · Page 100

Measurements of a 2.1 MeV H− beam with an Allison scanner

Transverse 2D phase space distributions of a 2.1 MeV, 5 mA H− beam are measured at the Proton Improvement Plan II Injector Test accelerator at Fermilab with an Allison scanner. This paper describes the design, calibration, and performance of the scanner along with the main results from beam measurements. Analyses of the recorded phase portraits are performed primarily in action-phase coordinates. The stability of the action under linear optics makes it easier to compare measurements taken under different beamline conditions. The amplitude of a single measured point (“pixel”) is proportional to the phase density in the corresponding portion of the beam. When the Twiss parameters are calculated using only the high-phase density part of the beam, the pixel amplitude in the beam core is found to be decreasing approximately exponentially with action and to be phase-independent. Outside of the core, the amplitudes decrease with action at a slower rate than in the core. This “tail” comprises 10%–30% of the beam, with 0.1% of the total measured intensity extending beyond action 10–20 times larger than the rms emittance. The transition from the core to the tail is accompanied by the appearance of two “branches” that are separated in phase and extend beyond the core. A set of selected measurements shows that there is no measurable emittance dilution along the beamline; the beam parameters are practically constant over a 0.5 ms pulse; and scraping in various parts of the beamline is an effective way to decrease the transverse tails by removing the branches.

Richard, C. (ORCID:000000029891135X)↗

Upgrade of the gated laser entrance hole imager G-LEH-2 on the National Ignition Facility

A major upgrade has been implemented for the ns-gated laser entrance hole imager on the National Ignition Facility (NIF) to obtain high-quality data for Hohlraum physics study. In this upgrade, the single “Furi” hCMOS sensor (1024 × 448 pixel arrays with two-frame capability) is replaced with dual “Icarus” sensors (1024 × 512 pixel arrays with four-frame capability). Both types of sensors were developed by Sandia National Laboratories for high energy density physics experiments. With the new Icarus sensors, the new diagnostic provides twice the detection area with improved uniformity, wider temporal coverage, flexible timing setup, and greater sensitivity to soft x rays (<2 keV). These features, together with the fact that the diagnostic is radiation hardened and can be operated on the NIF for high neutron yield deuterium–triterium experiments, enable significantly greater return of data per experiment.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗

Correction and verification of x-ray imaging crystal spectrometer analysis on Wendelstein 7-X through x-ray ray tracing

X-ray ray tracing is used to develop ion-temperature corrections for the analysis of the X-ray Imaging Crystal Spectrometer (XICS) used at Wendelstein 7-X (W7-X) and perform verification on the analysis methods. The XICS is a powerful diagnostic able to measure ion-temperature, electron-temperature, plasma flow, and impurity charge state densities. While these systems are relatively simple in design, accurate characterization of the instrumental response and validation of analysis techniques are difficult to perform experimentally due to the requirement of extended x-ray sources. For this reason, a ray tracing model has been developed that allows characterization of the spectrometer and verification of the analysis methods while fully considering the real geometry of the XICS system and W7-X plasma. Through the use of ray tracing, several important corrections have been found that must be accounted for in order to accurately reconstruct the ion-temperature profiles. The sources of these corrections are described along with their effect on the analyzed profiles. The implemented corrections stem from three effects: (1) effect of sub-pixel intensity distribution during de-curving and spatial binning, (2) effect of sub-pixel intensity distribution during forward model evaluation and generation of residuals, and (3) effect of defocus and spherical aberrations on the instrumental response. Possible improvements to the forward model and analysis procedures are explored, along with a discussion of trade-offs in terms of computational complexity. Finally, the accuracy of the tomographic inversion technique in stellarator geometry is investigated, providing for the first time a verification exercise for inversion accuracy in stellarator geometry and a complete XICS analysis tool-chain.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗

Timing characterization of fast hCMOS sensors

We describe a method of analyzing gate profile data for ultrafast x-ray imagers that allows pixel-by-pixel determination of temporal sensitivity in the presence of substantial background oscillations. With this method, systematic timing errors in gate width and gate arrival time of up to 1 ns (in a 2 ns wide gate) can be removed. In-sensor variations in gate arrival and gate width are observed, with variations in each up to 0.5 ns. This method can be used to estimate the coarse timing of the sensor, even if errors up to several ns are present.

Benedetti, L. R. (ORCID:0000000160502983)↗

Poisson_CCD: A dedicated simulator for modeling CCDs

A dedicated simulator, Poisson_CCD, has been constructed which models astronomical CCDs by solving Poisson’s equation numerically and simulating charge transport within the CCD. The potentials and free carrier densities within the CCD are self-consistently solved for, giving realistic results for the charge distribution within the CCD storage wells. The simulator has been used to model the CCDs that are being used to construct the LSST digital camera. The simulator output has been validated by comparing its predictions with several different types of CCD measurements, including astrometric shifts, brighter-fatter induced pixel–pixel covariances, saturation effects, and diffusion spreading. The code is open source and freely available.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Optical and x-ray characterization of the Daedalus ultrafast x-ray imager

The Daedalus ultrafast x-ray imager is the latest generation in Sandia’s hybrid CMOS detector family. With three frames along an identical line of sight, 1 ns minimum integration time, a higher full well than Icarus, and added features, Daedalus brings exciting new capabilities to diagnostic applications in inertial confinement fusion and high energy density science. In this work, we present measurements of time response, dynamic range, spatial uniformity, pixel cross-talk, and absolute x-ray sensitivity using pulsed optical and x-ray sources. Here, we report a measured 1.5 Me — full well, pixel sensitivity at 9.58 × 10 —7 V/e — , and an estimate of spatial uniformity at ~5% across the sensor array.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗

Versatile multi-energy hard x-ray camera to study confined and unconfined fast electron dynamics and anisotropies (Invited)

A powerful and flexible hard x-ray (HXR) camera has been recently installed and tested on the WEST tokamak (CEA, France) in collaboration with the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory. The diagnostic is a pinhole camera fielded with a 2D pixel detector equipped with a 1 mm thick CdTe sensor. The novelty of this diagnostic technique is the detector’s capability of adjusting the threshold energy at the pixel level. This innovation provides great flexibility in the energy configuration, allowing simultaneous space, energy, and time resolved x-ray measurements. The novel camera has been used to measure the core radiation from non-Maxwellian (fast) electrons accelerated by Lower Hybrid (LH) waves and also the beam–target emission of tungsten in the divertor region produced by fast electron losses interacting with the target. In addition, anisotropic hard x-ray emission has been detected for the first time at the WEST core and edge plasma, with opposite toroidal intensity trends. Finally, experimental vertical and toroidal HXR profiles have been successfully reproduced with the LH code LUKE.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗

INR-TEM: Robust cavity detection in multifocus TEM images via implicit neural representations

When characterizing materials using transmission electron microscopy (TEM) images, detecting and quantifying small features in microstructures, such as cavities, pose significant challenges. Off-the-shelf object detection models, including YOLOv8, show considerable performance degradation, particularly when images vary in resolution and the objects of interest possess a low percentage of the total image region of interest. In this study, we introduce a novel detection pipeline that incorporates an implicit neural representation (INR)-based detection method, INR-TEM, and two-modality imaging (e.g., under-focused and over-focused images typically acquired during materials characterization) to improve object detection performance. The INR-TEM method incorporates a pixel-wise prediction principle inspired by pixel-wise centerness weighting. INR-TEM demonstrates superior robustness to resolution variability, maintaining high detection accuracy even at low image resolutions compared to YOLOv8. To leverage INR-TEM effectively in real-world two-modality characterization applications, we further integrate a two-stage motion correction pipeline designed explicitly for aligning multifocus TEM images. The alignment process, comprising keypoint (based on scale-invariant feature transform, SIFT) and intensity matching, significantly mitigates the adverse effects of perceived motion-induced image degradation during through-focal TEM imaging, directly enhancing INR-TEM’s detection capability over conventional single-focus images. Our integrated INR-TEM cavity detection framework notably improves performance across various cavity sizes, outperforming off-the-shelf YOLOv8 detections that rely on a single image modality.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗

Hyperspectral radiance mapping and chromatic correction for temperature measurement in laser-heated diamond anvil cells

In laser-heated diamond anvil cell (DAC) experiments, the effective heated region typically decreases in size with increasing pressure, leading to steeper thermal gradients. Under these conditions, chromatic aberration in the optical path from sample to detector can significantly create bias in spectro-radiometric temperature measurement. We present a radiance-mapping approach using a hyperspectral camera that records 25 spectral channels spanning 605–875 nm at each pixel in a single exposure, providing spatially and spectrally resolved radiance in each frame. This enables chromatic effects to be recorded and corrected in data processing. We developed a procedure for hyperspectral mapping, involving per-camera calibration, crosstalk removal, measured spectral throughput functions, and optional sub-pixel co-registration to minimize chromatic distortion. The calibrated radiance maps are then used to derive temperature maps of the laser-heated hotspots. For smaller heating spots, the radiance mapping approach reveals chromatic shifts that conventional spectro-radiometric methods cannot quantify. Ambient-pressure heating experiments confirm accurate temperature retrieval. At high pressure, application of the hyperspectral system to a platinum-heating experiment at 12 GPa demonstrates stable temperature reconstruction under steep thermal gradients. Beyond mitigating chromatic aberrations, the ability to diagnose optical artifacts separately from emissivity variations during controlled test experiments or in situ suggests a path toward more rigorous spectral emissivity analysis and improved modeling of thermal transport in laser-heated DAC experiments.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗

Reuniting crystallography with real space: Ab initio structure elucidation with 4D-STEM

Structure elucidation via single-crystal methods has historically lacked experimental access to real-space information, instead relying exclusively on diffraction-space measurements of Bragg reflections. Here we exploit the dual-space imaging power of 4D scanning transmission electron microscopy to meaningfully integrate real-space information into the crystallographic workflow. We show that virtual apertures assembled by segmentation of high-angle annular dark-field images enable i) pixel-by-pixel separation of coherent Bragg signal from clusters of closely spaced nanocrystals and ii) selective extraction of integrated intensities from thinner subregions of individual specimens, facilitating retroactive tuning of multiple scattering artifacts. This strategy empowers us to simply pick and choose whichever nanoscale regions of interest generate the highest-quality diffraction patterns, allowing us to solve several independent structures of the metal-organic framework UiO-66 from specimens whose agglomerated morphology proved intractable for conventional microcrystal electron diffraction. Our method is compatible with both rotational and serial approaches to data processing, ultimately divulging the first scanning nanobeam electron diffraction structures determined by direct methods at subangstrom resolution.

Saha, Ambarneil↗

Pan-tropical daily L-band microwave land surface emissivity retrieval from GNSS-R observations

The uncertainties in microwave land surface emissivity (MLSE) measurements have long limited the use of spaceborne microwave radiometer data. As an emerging observation method, Global Navigation Satellite System Reflectometry (GNSS-R) has demonstrated great potential in several land and ocean applications. In this study, a method for obtaining daily MLSE dataset in the pan-tropical region from Cyclone GNSS (CYGNSS) observations is presented and evaluated. The CYGNSS observations are first aggregated into the Equal-Area-Scalable-Earth (EASE) 2.0 36 km grid by a combined weight function of distance, time, and signal-to-noise ratio variance. Then, the method employs a pixel-by-pixel regression algorithm to conduct the daily MLSE retrieval using reference emissivity derived from the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) brightness temperature. The CYGNSS MLSE shows good agreement with SMAP MLSE, delivering an overall root-mean-square error (RMSE) of 0.022 and 0.017 for horizontal and vertical polarization, respectively, during the training set spanning the whole year of 2018. Furthermore, on the test set from January 2019 to May 2019, the RMSE values amounted to 0.030 and 0.023 for horizontal and vertical polarization, respectively. Temperature records from the International Soil Moisture Network are employed to calculate the emissivity and for in-situ validation, which yield an RMSE of 0.034 and 0.026 for the two polarizations, respectively. The proposed algorithm provides an encouraging approach to obtain accurate daily MLSE dataset for microwave remote sensing. Compared to the SMAP MLSE, the CYGNSS MLSE has a remarkable improvement of 86% in temporal resolution, greatly complementing the existing microwave emissivity datasets.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

The interstellar medium and star formation in edge-on galaxies. II. NGC 4157, 4565, and 5907

We present a study of the vertical structure of the gaseous and stellar disks in a sample of edge-on galaxies (NGC 4157, 4565, and 5907) using BIMA/CARMA {sup 12}COJ=1→0, VLA Hi, and Spitzer 3.6 μm data. In order to take into account projection effects when we measure the disk thickness as a function of radius, we first obtain the inclination by modeling the radio data. Using the measurement of the disk thicknesses and the derived radial profiles of gas and stars, we estimate the corresponding volume densities and vertical velocity dispersions. Both stellar and gas disks have smoothly varying scale heights and velocity dispersions, contrary to assumptions of previous studies. Using the velocity dispersions, we find that the gravitational instability parameter Q follows a fairly uniform profile with radius and is ⩾1 across the star-forming disk. The star formation law has a slope that is significantly different from those found in more face-on galaxy studies, both in deprojected and pixel-by-pixel plots. Midplane gas pressure based on the varying scale heights and velocity dispersions appears to roughly hold a power-law correlation with the midplane volume density ratio.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

ABRUPT LONGITUDINAL MAGNETIC FIELD CHANGES AND ULTRAVIOLET EMISSIONS ACCOMPANYING SOLAR FLARES

We have used Transition Region and Coronal Explorer 1600 A images and Global Oscillation Network Group (GONG) magnetograms to compare ultraviolet (UV) emissions from the chromosphere to longitudinal magnetic field changes in the photosphere during four X-class solar flares. An abrupt, significant, and persistent change in the magnetic field occurred across more than 10 pixels in the GONG magnetograms for each flare. These magnetic changes lagged the GOES flare start times in all cases, showing that they were consequences and not causes of the flares. Ultraviolet emissions were spatially coincident with the field changes. The UV emissions tended to lag the GOES start times for the flares and led the changes in the magnetic field in all pixels except one. The UV emissions led the photospheric field changes by 4 minutes on average with the longest lead being 9 minutes; however, the UV emissions continued for tens of minutes, and more than an hour in some cases, after the field changes were complete. The observations are consistent with the picture in which an Alfven wave from the field reconnection site in the corona propagates field changes outward in all directions near the onset of the impulsive phase, including downward through the chromosphere and into the photosphere, causing the photospheric field changes, whereas the chromosphere emits in the UV in the form of flare kernels, ribbons, and sequential chromospheric brightenings during all phases of the flare.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

CHANGES OF DUST OPACITY WITH DENSITY IN THE ORION A MOLECULAR CLOUD

We have studied the opacity of dust grains at submillimeter wavelengths by estimating the optical depth from imaging at 160, 250, 350, and 500 {mu}m from the Herschel Gould Belt Survey and comparing this to a column density obtained from the Two Micron All Sky Survey derived color excess E(J - K {sub s}). Our main goal was to investigate the spatial variations of the opacity due to 'big' grains over a variety of environmental conditions and thereby quantify how emission properties of the dust change with column (and volume) density. The central and southern areas of the Orion A molecular cloud examined here, with N {sub H} ranging from 1.5 Multiplication-Sign 10{sup 21} cm{sup -2} to 50 Multiplication-Sign 10{sup 21} cm{sup -2}, are well suited to this approach. We fit the multi-frequency Herschel spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of each pixel with a modified blackbody to obtain the temperature, T, and optical depth, {tau}{sub 1200}, at a fiducial frequency of 1200 GHz (250 {mu}m). Using a calibration of N {sub H}/E(J - K{sub s} ) for the interstellar medium (ISM) we obtained the opacity (dust emission cross-section per H nucleon), {sigma}{sub e}(1200), for every pixel. From a value {approx}1 Multiplication-Sign 10{sup -25} cm{sup 2} H{sup -1} at the lowest column densities that is typical of the high-latitude diffuse ISM, {sigma}{sub e}(1200) increases as N {sup 0.28} {sub H} over the range studied. This is suggestive of grain evolution. Integrating the SEDs over frequency, we also calculated the specific power P (emission power per H) for the big grains. In low column density regions where dust clouds are optically thin to the interstellar radiation field (ISRF), P is typically 3.7 Multiplication-Sign 10{sup -31} W H{sup -1}, again close to that in the high-latitude diffuse ISM. However, we find evidence for a decrease of P in high column density regions, which would be a natural outcome of attenuation of the ISRF that heats the grains, and for localized increases for dust illuminated by nearby stars or embedded protostars.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

SCIENTIFIC VERIFICATION OF FARADAY ROTATION MODULATORS: DETECTION OF DIFFUSE POLARIZED GALACTIC EMISSION

The design and performance of a wide bandwidth linear polarization modulator based on the Faraday effect is described. Faraday Rotation Modulators (FRMs) are solid-state polarization switches that are capable of modulation up to 10 kHz. Six FRMs were utilized during the 2006 observing season in the Background Imaging of Cosmic Extragalactic Polarization (BICEP) experiment; three FRMs were used at each of BICEP's 100 and 150 GHz frequency bands. The technology was verified through high signal-to-noise detection of Galactic polarization using two of the six FRMs during four observing runs in 2006. The features exhibit strong agreement with BICEP's measurements of the Galaxy using non-FRM pixels and with the Galactic polarization models. This marks the first detection of high signal-to-noise mm-wave celestial polarization using fast, active optical modulation. The performance of the FRMs during periods when they were not modulated was also analyzed and compared to results from BICEP's 43 pixels without FRMs.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

REGIONAL VARIATIONS IN THE DENSE GAS HEATING AND COOLING IN M51 FROM HERSCHEL FAR-INFRARED SPECTROSCOPY

We present Herschel PACS and SPIRE spectroscopy of the most important far-infrared cooling lines in M51, [C II](158 μm), [N II](122 and 205 μm), [O I](63 and 145 μm), and [O III](88 μm). We compare the observed flux of these lines with the predicted flux from a photon-dominated region model to determine characteristics of the cold gas such as density, temperature, and the far-ultraviolet (FUV) radiation field, G{sub 0}, resolving details on physical scales of roughly 600 pc. We find an average [C II]/F{sub TIR} of 4 × 10{sup –3}, in agreement with previous studies of other galaxies. A pixel-by-pixel analysis of four distinct regions of M51 shows a radially decreasing trend in both the FUV radiation field, G{sub 0}, and the hydrogen density, n, peaking in the nucleus of the galaxy, and then falling off out to the arm and interarm regions. We see for the first time that the FUV flux and gas density are similar in the differing environments of the arm and interarm regions, suggesting that the inherent physical properties of the molecular clouds in both regions are essentially the same.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

The PdBI arcsecond whirlpool survey (PAWS). I. A cloud-scale/multi-wavelength view of the interstellar medium in a grand-design spiral galaxy

The Plateau de Bure Interferometer Arcsecond Whirlpool Survey has mapped the molecular gas in the central ∼9 kpc of M51 in its {sup 12}CO(1-0) line emission at a cloud-scale resolution of ∼40 pc using both IRAM telescopes. We utilize this data set to quantitatively characterize the relation of molecular gas (or CO emission) to other tracers of the interstellar medium, star formation, and stellar populations of varying ages. Using two-dimensional maps, a polar cross-correlation technique and pixel-by-pixel diagrams, we find: (1) that (as expected) the distribution of the molecular gas can be linked to different components of the gravitational potential; (2) evidence for a physical link between CO line emission and radio continuum that seems not to be caused by massive stars, but rather depends on the gas density; (3) a close spatial relation between polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) and molecular gas emission, but no predictive power of PAH emission for the molecular gas mass; (4) that the I – H color map is an excellent predictor of the distribution (and to a lesser degree, the brightness) of CO emission; and (5) that the impact of massive (UV-intense) young star-forming regions on the bulk of the molecular gas in central ∼9 kpc cannot be significant due to a complex spatial relation between molecular gas and star-forming regions that ranges from cospatial to spatially offset to absent. The last point, in particular, highlights the importance of galactic environment—and thus the underlying gravitational potential—for the distribution of molecular gas and star formation.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

A CANDELS-3D-HST synergy: Resolved star formation patterns at 0.7 < z < 1.5

We analyze the resolved stellar populations of 473 massive star-forming galaxies at 0.7 < z < 1.5, with multi-wavelength broadband imaging from CANDELS and Hα surface brightness profiles at the same kiloparsec resolution from 3D-HST. Together, this unique data set sheds light on how the assembled stellar mass is distributed within galaxies, and where new stars are being formed. We find the Hα morphologies to resemble more closely those observed in the ACS I band than in the WFC3 H band, especially for the larger systems. We next derive a novel prescription for Hα dust corrections, which accounts for extra extinction toward H II regions. The prescription leads to consistent star formation rate (SFR) estimates and reproduces the observed relation between the Hα/UV luminosity ratio and visual extinction, on both a pixel-by-pixel and a galaxy-integrated level. We find the surface density of star formation to correlate with the surface density of assembled stellar mass for spatially resolved regions within galaxies, akin to the so-called 'main sequence of star formation' established on a galaxy-integrated level. Deviations from this relation toward lower equivalent widths are found in the inner regions of galaxies. Clumps and spiral features, on the other hand, are associated with enhanced Hα equivalent widths, bluer colors, and higher specific SFRs compared to the underlying disk. Their Hα/UV luminosity ratio is lower than that of the underlying disk, suggesting that the ACS clump selection preferentially picks up those regions of elevated star formation activity that are the least obscured by dust. Our analysis emphasizes that monochromatic studies of galaxy structure can be severely limited by mass-to-light ratio variations due to dust and spatially inhomogeneous star formation histories.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Refine your search to explore more results.