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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.

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At least 415 records · Page 23
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2014

A super-compact metamaterial absorber cell in L-band

A super-compact metamaterial absorber (SMA) unit cell in L band (1–2 GHz) is proposed, which is composed of a pair of electric ring resonator (ERR) and its complementary ERR (CERR) with a high dielectric substrate sandwiched in between. The CERR has a cross sectional area where approximately the etched copper foil in ERR is now retained, and the remaining region is now etched. In contract with quarter-wavelength (λ/4) thickness which is required for conventional absorbers, the largest in-plane dimension and thickness of the SMA cell are only λ/33 and λ/250, respectively, leading to a super compact cell volume. While traditionally the long straight wire is introduced in electric-LC resonators for increasing inductance, the CERR achieves similar inductance with much shorter lengths. Thus, its cell dimensions can be drastically reduced without compromising its performance. In addition, simulations together with an automated phase correction algorithm show that the SMA is a type of metamaterial possessing simultaneous negative electric permittivity (NEP) and negative magnetic permeability (NMP). Further the SMA has a very large imaginary part of the NEP and NMP, resulting in significantly large imaginary part of the refractive index at resonant frequency. These properties are well suited to design excellent absorbers. In addition, numerical results demonstrate that the maximum absorption coefficient of the SMA can reach greater than 99% at resonant frequency, and the full-width half-maximum is roughly 1% of the operating frequency, and a wide incident angle of ±49° over 90% absorption. Meanwhile, it is pointed out that this type of absorber is rather sensitive to polarization characteristic of the incident electromagnetic wave.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2014

Maximal Cherenkov γ-radiation on Fermi-surface of compact stars

The quantum magnetohydrodynamic model is employed in this paper to study the extraordinary (XO) elliptically polarized electromagnetic wave dispersion in quantum plasmas with spin-1/2 magnetization and relativistic degeneracy effects, considering also the electron-exchange and quantum diffraction of electrons. From the lower and upper calculated XO-modes, it is observed that, for electrons on the surface of the Fermi-sphere, the lower XO-mode can excite the Cherenkov radiation by crossing the Fermi-line, with some proper conditions depending on the values of independent plasma parameters, such as the relativistic-degeneracy, the atomic-number of constituent ions, and the magnetic field strength. Particularly, a lower electron number-density and Cherenkov radiation frequency limits are found to exist, for instance, for given values of the plasma ions atomic-number and the magnetic field strength below which the radiation can not be excited by the electrons on the Fermi-surface. This lower density limit increases by decrease in the atomic-number but decreases with decrease in the strength of the ambient magnetic field. It is remarkable that in this research it is discovered that the maximal Cherenkov-radiation per unit-length (the energy radiated by superluminal electrons traveling through the dielectric medium) coincides with the plasma number-densities, which is present in compact stars with the maximal radiation frequency lying in the gamma-ray spectrum. Current study can provide an important plasma diagnostic tool for a wide plasma density range, be it the solid density, the warm dense matter, the inertial confined or the astrophysical compact plasmas and may reveal an important cooling mechanism for white dwarfs. Current findings may also answer the fundamental astrophysical question on the mysterious origin of intense cosmic gamma-ray emissions.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2014

Design of a compact spectrometer for high-flux MeV gamma-ray beams

A novel design for a compact gamma-ray spectrometer is presented. The proposed system allows for spectroscopy of high-flux multi-MeV gamma-ray beams with MeV energy resolution in a compact design. In its basic configuration, the spectrometer exploits conversion of gamma-rays into electrons via Compton scattering in a low-Z material. The scattered electron population is then spectrally resolved using a magnetic spectrometer. The detector is shown to be effective for gamma-ray energies between 3 and 20 MeV. The main properties of the spectrometer are confirmed by Monte Carlo simulations.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2014

Design and initial operation of a two-color soft x-ray camera system on the Compact Toroidal Hybrid experiment

A multi-camera soft x-ray diagnostic has been developed to measure the equilibrium electron temperature profile and temperature fluctuations due to magnetohydrodynamic activity on the Compact Toroidal Hybrid experiment. The diagnostic consists of three separate cameras each employing two 20-channel diode arrays that view the same plasma region through different beryllium filter thicknesses of 1.8 μm and 3.0 μm allowing electron temperature measurements between 50 eV and 200 eV. The Compact Toroidal Hybrid is a five-field period current-carrying stellarator, in which the presence of plasma current strongly modifies the rotational transform and degree of asymmetry of the equilibrium. Details of the soft x-ray emission, effects of plasma asymmetry, and impurity line radiation on the design and measurement of the two-color diagnostic are discussed. Preliminary estimates of the temperature perturbation due to sawtooth oscillations observed in these hybrid discharges are given.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2014

Design of a compact ultrahigh vacuum-compatible setup for the analysis of chemical vapor deposition processes

Optimizing thin film deposition techniques requires contamination-free transfer from the reactor into an ultrahigh vacuum (UHV) chamber for surface science analysis. A very compact, multifunctional Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) reactor for direct attachment to any typical UHV system for thin film analysis was designed and built. Besides compactness, fast, easy, and at the same time ultimately clean sample transfer between reactor and UHV was a major goal. It was achieved by a combination of sample manipulation parts, sample heater, and a shutter mechanism designed to fit all into a NW38 Conflat six-ways cross. The present reactor design is versatile to be employed for all commonly employed variants of CVD, including Atomic Layer Deposition. A demonstration of the functionality of the system is provided. First results of the setup (attached to an Omicron Multiprobe x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy system) on the temperature dependence of Pulsed Spray Evaporation-CVD of Ni films from Ni acetylacetonate as the precursor demonstrate the reactor performance and illustrate the importance of clean sample transfer without breaking vacuum in order to obtain unambiguous results on the quality of CVD-grown thin Ni films. The widely applicable design holds promise for future systematic studies of the fundamental processes during chemical vapor deposition or atomic layer deposition.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2014

A compact, robust, and transportable ultra-stable laser with a fractional frequency instability of 1 × 10{sup −15}

We present a compact and robust transportable ultra-stable laser system with minimum fractional frequency instability of 1 × 10{sup −15} at integration times between 1 and 10 s. The system was conceived as a prototype of a subsystem of a microwave-optical local oscillator to be used on the satellite mission Space-Time Explorer and QUantum Equivalence Principle Space Test (STE-QUEST) ( http://sci.esa.int/ste-quest/ ). It was therefore designed to be compact, to sustain accelerations occurring during rocket launch, to exhibit low vibration sensitivity, and to reach a low frequency instability. Overall dimensions of the optical system are 40 cm × 20 cm × 30 cm. The acceleration sensitivities of the optical frequency in the three directions were measured to be 1.7 × 10{sup −11}/g, 8.0 × 10{sup −11}/g, and 3.9 × 10{sup −10}/g, and the absolute frequency instability was determined via a three-cornered hat measurement. Two additional cavity-stabilized lasers were used for this purpose, one of which had an instability σ{sub y} < 4 × 10{sup −16} at 1 s integration time. The design is also appropriate and useful for terrestrial applications.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2014

New compact hohlraum configuration research at the 1.7 MA Z-pinch generator

A new compact Z-pinch x-ray hohlraum design with parallel-driven x-ray sources was experimentally demonstrated in a full configuration with a central target and tailored shine shields (to provide a symmetric temperature distribution on the target) at the 1.7 MA Zebra generator. This presentation reports on the joint success of two independent lines of research. One of these was the development of new sources – planar wire arrays (PWAs). PWAs turned out to be a prolific radiator. Another success was the drastic improvement in energy efficiency of pulsed-power systems, such as the Load Current Multiplier (LCM). The Zebra/LCM generator almost doubled the plasma load current to 1.7 MA. The two above-mentioned innovative approaches were used in combination to produce a new compact hohlraum design for ICF, as jointly proposed by SNL and UNR. Good agreement between simulated and measured radiation temperature of the central target is shown. Experimental comparison of PWAs with planar foil liners (PFL) - another viable alternative to wire array loads at multi-MA generators show promising data. Results of research at the University of Nevada Reno allowed for the study of hohlraum coupling physics at University-scale generators. The advantages of new hohlraum design applications for multi-MA facilities with W or Au double PWAs or PFL x-ray sources are discussed.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2015

Compact femtosecond electron diffractometer with 100 keV electron bunches approaching the single-electron pulse duration limit

We present the design and implementation of a highly compact femtosecond electron diffractometer working at electron energies up to 100 keV. We use a multi-body particle tracing code to simulate electron bunch propagation through the setup and to calculate pulse durations at the sample position. Our simulations show that electron bunches containing few thousands of electrons per bunch are only weakly broadened by space-charge effects and their pulse duration is thus close to the one of a single-electron wavepacket. With our compact setup, we can create electron bunches containing up to 5000 electrons with a pulse duration below 100 fs on the sample. We use the diffractometer to track the energy transfer from photoexcited electrons to the lattice in a thin film of titanium. This process takes place on the timescale of few-hundred femtoseconds and a fully equilibrated state is reached within 1 ps.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2015

The mass-radius relationship of massive compact stars

The properties of pure hadronic and hybrid compact stars are reviewed using nuclear equation of state (EoS) for β-equilibrated neutron star (NS) matter obtained using a density-dependent M3Y (DDM3Y) effective nucleon-nucleon interaction. Depending on the model, the energy density of quark matter can be lower than that of this nuclear EoS at higher densities, implying the possibility of transition to quark matter inside the core and the transition density depends on the particular quark matter model used. The recent observations of the binary millisecond pulsar J1614–2230 by P.B. Demorest et al. [1] and PSR J0348+0432 by J. Antoniadis et al. [2] suggest that the masses lie within 1.97 ± 0.04 M{sub ⊙} and 2.01 ± 0.04 M{sub ⊙}, respectively, where M{sub ⊙} is the solar mass. In conformity with recent observations, a pure nucleonic EoS determines that the maximum mass of NS rotating with frequency ν∼ 667 Hz below r-mode instability is ∼ 1.95 M{sub ⊙} with radius ∼ 10 km. Compact stars with quark cores rotating with same frequency have the maximum mass of ∼ 1.72 M{sub ⊙} turns out to be lower than the observed masses.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2015

Implementation of a spark plasma sintering facility in a hermetic glovebox for compaction of toxic, radiotoxic, and air sensitive materials

Spark plasma sintering (SPS) is a rapidly developing method for densification of powders into compacts. It belongs to the so-called “field assisted sintering techniques” that enable rapid sintering at much lower temperatures than the classical approaches of pressureless sintering of green pellets or hot isostatic pressing. In this paper, we report the successful integration of a SPS device into a hermetic glovebox for the handling of highly radioactive material containing radioisotopes of U, Th, Pu, Np, and Am. The glovebox implantation has been facilitated by the replacement of the hydraulic system to apply pressure with a compact electromechanical unit. The facility has been successfully tested using UO{sub 2} powder. Pellets with 97% of the theoretical density were obtained at 1000 °C for 5 min, significantly lower than the ∼1600 °C for 5-10 h used in conventional pellet sintering.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2015

A compact time-of-flight mass spectrometer for ion source characterization

A compact time-of-flight mass spectrometer with overall dimension of about 413 × 250 × 414 mm based on orthogonal injection and angle reflection has been developed for ion source characterization. Configuration and principle of the time-of-flight mass spectrometer are introduced in this paper. The mass resolution is optimized to be about 1690 (FWHM), and the ion energy detection range is tested to be between about 3 and 163 eV with the help of electron impact ion source. High mass resolution and compact configuration make this spectrometer useful to provide a valuable diagnostic for ion spectra fundamental research and study the mass to charge composition of plasma with wide range of parameters.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2015

A compact broadband ion beam focusing device based on laser-driven megagauss thermoelectric magnetic fields

Ultra-intense lasers can nowadays routinely accelerate kiloampere ion beams. These unique sources of particle beams could impact many societal (e.g., proton-therapy or fuel recycling) and fundamental (e.g., neutron probing) domains. However, this requires overcoming the beam angular divergence at the source. This has been attempted, either with large-scale conventional setups or with compact plasma techniques that however have the restriction of short (<1 mm) focusing distances or a chromatic behavior. Here, we show that exploiting laser-triggered, long-lasting (>50 ps), thermoelectric multi-megagauss surface magnetic (B)-fields, compact capturing, and focusing of a diverging laser-driven multi-MeV ion beam can be achieved over a wide range of ion energies in the limit of a 5° acceptance angle.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2015

A compact 300 kV solid-state high-voltage nanosecond generator for dielectric wall accelerator

Compact solid-state system is the main development trend in pulsed power technologies. A compact solid-state high-voltage nanosecond pulse generator with output voltage of 300 kV amplitude, 10 ns duration (FWHM), and 3 ns rise-time was designed for a dielectric wall accelerator. The generator is stacked by 15 planar-plate Blumlein pulse forming lines (PFL). Each Blumlein PFL consists of two solid-state planar transmission lines, a GaAs photoconductive semiconductor switch, and a laser diode trigger. The key components of the generator and the experimental results are reported in this paper.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2015

Proposal of a novel compact P-band magnetically insulated transmission line oscillator with inclined vanes

In this paper, we present a novel compact P-band magnetically insulated transmission line oscillator (MILO) with specially inclined slow-wave-structure (SWS) vanes to decrease its total dimension and weight. The dispersion characteristics of the inclined SWS are investigated in detail and made comparisons with that of the traditional straight SWS. The results show that the inclined SWS is more advantageous in operating on a steady frequency in a wide voltage range and has a better asymmetric mode segregation and a relatively large band-gap between the TM{sub 00} and TM{sub 01} modes which are in favor of avoiding the asymmetric and transverse mode competition. Besides, the transverse dimension of the proposed novel inclined SWS with the same operation frequency is decreased by about 50%, and correspondingly the device volume shrinks remarkably to its 0.35 times. In particle-in-cell simulation, the electron bunching spokes are obviously formed in the inclined SWS, and a P-band high-power microwave with a power of 5.8 GW, frequency of 645 MHz, and efficiency of 17.2% is generated by the proposed device, which indicates the feasibility of the compact design with the inclined vanes at the P-band.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2015

A novel compact three-dimensional laser-sintered collimator for neutron scattering

Improvements in the available flux at neutron sources are making it increasingly feasible to obtain refineable neutron diffraction data from samples smaller than 1 mm{sup 3}. The signal is typically too weak to introduce any further sample environment in the 30–50 mm diameter surrounding the sample (such as the walls of a pressure cell) due to the high ratio of background to sample signal, such that even longer count times fail to reveal reflections from the sample. Many neutron instruments incorporate collimators to reduce parasitic scattering from the instrument and from any surrounding material and larger pieces of sample environment, such as cryostats. However, conventional collimation is limited in the volume it can focus on due to difficulties in producing tightly spaced neutron-absorbing foils close to the sample and in integrating this into neutron instruments. Here we present the design of a novel compact 3D rapid-prototyped (or “printed”) collimator which reduces these limitations and is shown to improve the ratio of signal to background, opening up the feasibility of using additional sample environment for neutron diffraction from small sample volumes. The compactness and ease of customisation of the design allows this concept to be integrated with existing sample environment and with designs that can be tailored to individual detector geometries without the need to alter the setup of the instrument. Results from online testing of a prototype collimator are presented. The proof of concept shows that there are many additional collimator designs which may be manufactured relatively inexpensively, with a broad range of customisation, and geometries otherwise impossible to manufacture by conventional techniques.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2015

Compact low temperature scanning tunneling microscope with in-situ sample preparation capability

We report on the design of a compact low temperature scanning tunneling microscope (STM) having in-situ sample preparation capability. The in-situ sample preparation chamber was designed to be compact allowing quick transfer of samples to the STM stage, which is ideal for preparing temperature sensitive samples such as ultra-thin metal films on semiconductor substrates. Conventional spring suspensions on the STM head often cause mechanical issues. To address this problem, we developed a simple vibration damper consisting of welded metal bellows and rubber pads. In addition, we developed a novel technique to ensure an ultra-high-vacuum (UHV) seal between the copper and stainless steel, which provides excellent reliability for cryostats operating in UHV. The performance of the STM was tested from 2 K to 77 K by using epitaxial thin Pb films on Si. Very high mechanical stability was achieved with clear atomic resolution even when using cryostats operating at 77 K. At 2 K, a clean superconducting gap was observed, and the spectrum was easily fit using the BCS density of states with negligible broadening.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2015

Research of mechanics of the compact bone microvolume and porous ceramics under uniaxial compression

The research results of the mechanics are presented and the effective mechanical characteristics under uniaxial compression of the simulative microvolume of the compact bone are defined subject to the direction of the collagen-mineral fibers, porosity and mineral content. The experimental studies of the mechanics are performed and the effective mechanical characteristics of the produced porous zirconium oxide ceramics are defined. The recommendations are developed on the selection of the ceramic samples designed to replace the fragment of the compact bone of a definite structure and mineral content.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2016

Compact scanning transmission x-ray microscope at the photon factory

We report the design and performance of a compact scanning transmission X-ray microscope developed at the Photon Factory. Piezo-driven linear stages are used as coarse stages of the microscope to realize excellent compactness, mobility, and vibrational and thermal stability. An X-ray beam with an intensity of ∼10{sup 7} photons/s was focused to a diameter of ∼40 nm at the sample. At the soft X-ray undulator beamline used with the microscope, a wide range of photon energies (250–1600 eV) is available. The microscope has been used to research energy materials and in environmental sciences.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗