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NASA NTRS2003

Measurement and evaluation of the radiative properties of a thin solid fuel

Accurate modeling of combustion systems requires knowledge of the radiative properties of the system. Gas phase properties are well known, but detailed knowledge of surface properties is limited. Recent work has provided spectrally resolved data for some solid fuels, but only for the unburned material at room temperature, and for limited sets of previously burned and quenched samples. Due to lack of knowledge of the spectrally resolved properties at elevated temperatures, as well as processing limitations in the modeling effort, graybody values are typically used for the fuels surface radiative properties. However, the spectrally resolved properties for the fuels at room temperature can be used to give a first-order correction for temperature effects on the graybody values. Figure 1 shows a sample of the spectrally resolved emittance/absorptance for a thin solid fuel of the type commonly used in combustion studies, from approximately 2 to 20 microns. This plot clearly shows a strong spectral dependence across the entire range. By definition, the emittance is the ratio of the emitted energy to that of a blackbody at the same temperature. Therefore, to determine a graybody emittance for this material, the spectrally resolved data must be applied to a blackbody curve. The total area under the resulting curve is ratioed to the total area under the blackbody curve to yield the answer. Due to the asymmetry of the spectrally resolved emittance and the changing shape of the blackbody curve as the temperature increases, the relative importance of the emittance value at any given wavelength will change as a function of temperature. Therefore, the graybody emittance value for a given material will change as a function of temperature even if the spectral dependence of the radiative properties remains unchanged. This is demonstrated in Figures 2 and 3, which are plots of the spectrally resolved emittance for KimWipes (shown in Figure 1) multiplied by the blackbody curves for 300 K (Figure 2) and 800 K (Figure 3). Each figure also shows the blackbody curve for that temperature. Ratioing the areas under the curve for each of these figures give a graybody emittance of 0.64 at 300 K, and 0.46 at 800 K. It is recognized that materials undergoing pyrolysis will change in composition as they heat up, and that the radiative properties of the materials may have inherent temperature dependence. Both of these effects will contribute to changes in the radiative characteristics of a given material, and are not accounted for here. However, this paper demonstrates the temperature dependence of graybody radiative properties, and provides a method for a first-order correction (for temperature) to the graybody values if the spectrally resolved properties are known.

Pettegrew, Richard↗

NASA NTRS1973

Fabrication and life testing of thermionic converters

An unfueled converter containing a chloride-fluoride duplex tungsten emitter of 4.78 eV vacuum work function was tested for 46,647 hours at an emitter temperature of 1973 K and an electrode power output of about 8 watts/sq cm. The test demonstrated the superior and stable performance of the (110) oriented tungsten emitter at high temperatures. Three 90 UC-10 ZrC(C/U = 1.04, tungsten additive = 4 wt %) fueled converters were fabricated and tested at an emitter temperature of 1873 K. Converter containing chloride-arc-cast duplex tungsten cladding showed temperature thermionic performance and slower rate of performance drop than converter containing chloride-fluoride duplex tungsten cladding. This is believed to be due to the superior fuel component diffusion resistance of the arc-cast tungsten substrate used in the fuel cladding. It was shown that a converter containing a carbide fueled chloride-arc-cast duplex tungsten emitter with an initial electrode power output of 6.80 watts/sq cm could still deliver an electrode power output of 6.16 watts/sq cm after 18,632 hours of operation at an emitter temperature of 1873 K.

Yang, L.↗

NASA NTRS1976

Solid-state current transformer

A signal transformation network which is uniquely characterized to exhibit a very low input impedance while maintaining a linear transfer characteristic when driven from a voltage source and when quiescently biased in the low microampere current range is described. In its simplest form, it consists of a tightly coupled two transistor network in which a common emitter input stage is interconnected directly with an emitter follower stage to provide virtually 100 percent negative feedback to the base input of the common emitter stage. Bias to the network is supplied via the common tie point of the common emitter stage collector terminal and the emitter follower base stage terminal by a regulated constant current source, and the output of the circuit is taken from the collector of the emitter follower stage.

Farnsworth, D. L.↗

NASA NTRS1996

Review of recent thermophotovoltaic (TPV) research at Lewis Research Center

Thermophotovoltaic (TPV) research at NASA Lewis Research Center that began in the late 1980's is reviewed. This work has been concentrated on low bandgap indium gallium arsenide (InGaAs) PV cells and rare earth yttrium aluminum garnet (YAG) thin film selective emitters, as well as, TPV system studies. An emittance theory has been developed for the thin film emitters. Experimental spectral emittance results for erbium Er-YAG and holmium Ho-YAG show excellent emittance (greater than or equal to .7) within the emission bands. The .75 eV InGaAs PV cells fabricated at Lewis have excellent quantum efficiency. An efficiency of 13% has been measured for this cell coupled to an Er-YAG selective emitter and a short pass IR filter.

Chubb, Donald L.↗

NASA NTRS1999

Analyses of Transistor Punchthrough Failures

The failure of two transistors in the Altitude Switch Assembly for the Solid Rocket Booster followed by two additional failures a year later presented a challenge to failure analysts. These devices had successfully worked for many years on numerous missions. There was no history of failures with this type of device. Extensive checks of the test procedures gave no indication for a source of the cause. The devices were manufactured more than twenty years ago and failure information on this lot date code was not readily available. External visual exam, radiography, PEID, and leak testing were performed with nominal results Electrical testing indicated nearly identical base-emitter and base-collector characteristics (both forward and reverse) with a low resistance short emitter to collector. These characteristics are indicative of a classic failure mechanism called punchthrough. In failure analysis punchthrough refers to an condition where a relatively low voltage pulse causes the device to conduct very hard producing localized areas of thermal runaway or "hot spots". At one or more of these hot spots, the excessive currents melt the silicon. Heavily doped emitter material diffuses through the base region to the collector forming a diffusion pipe shorting the emitter to base to collector. Upon cooling, an alloy junction forms between the pipe and the base region. Generally, the hot spot (punch-through site) is under the bond and no surface artifact is visible. The devices were delidded and the internal structures were examined microscopically. The gold emitter lead was melted on one device, but others had anomalies in the metallization around the in-tact emitter bonds. The SEM examination confirmed some anomalies to be cosmetic defects while other anomalies were artifacts of the punchthrough site. Subsequent to these analyses, the contractor determined that some irregular testing procedures occurred at the time of the failures heretofore unreported. These testing irregularities involved the use of a breakout box and were the likely cause of the failures. There was no evidence to suggest a generic failure mechanism was responsible for the failure of these transistors.

Nicolas, David P.↗

NASA NTRS1995

Review of Recent Thermophotovoltaic (TPV) Research at Lewis Research Center

Thermophotovoltaic (TPV) research at NASA Lewis Research Center that began in the late 1980's is reviewed. This work has been concentrated on low bandgap indium gallium arsenide (InGaAs) PV calls and rare earth - yttrium aluminum garnet (YAG) thin film selective emitters, as well as, TPV system studies. An emittance theory has been developed for the thin film emitters. Experimental spectral emittance results for erbium Er-YAG and holmium Ho-YAG show excellent emittance (greater than or equal to 0.7) within the emission bands. The 0.75 eV InGaAs PV cells fabricated at Lewis have excellent quantum efficiency. An efficiency of 130% has been measured for this cell coupled to an Er-YAG selective emitter and a short pass IR filter.

Chubb, Donald L.↗

NASA NTRS2003

Long-Term Reliability of High Speed SiGe/Si Heterojunction Bipolar Transistors

Accelerated lifetime tests were performed on double-mesa structure Si/Si0.7Ge0.3/Si npn heterojunction bipolar transistors, grown by molecular beam epitaxy, in the temperature range of 175C-275C. Both single- and multiple finger transistors were tested. The single-finger transistors (with 5x20 micron sq m emitter area) have DC current gains approximately 40-50 and f(sub T) and f(sub MAX) of up to 22 GHz and 25 GHz, respectively. The multiple finger transistors (1.4 micron finger width, 9 emitter fingers with total emitter area of 403 micron sq m) have similar DC current gain but f(sub T) of 50 GHz. It is found that a gradual degradation in these devices is caused by the recombination enhanced impurity diffusion (REID) of boron atoms from the p-type base region and the associated formation of parasitic energy barriers to electron transport from the emitter to collector layers. This REID has been quantitatively modeled and explained, to the first order of approximation, and the agreement with the measured data is good. The mean time to failure (MTTF) of the devices at room temperature is estimated from the extrapolation of the Arrhenius plots of device lifetime versus reciprocal temperature. The results of the reliability tests offer valuable feedback for SiGe heterostructure design in order to improve the long-term reliability of the devices and circuits made with them. Hot electron induced degradation of the base-emitter junction was also observed during the accelerated lifetime testing. In order to improve the HBT reliability endangered by the hot electrons, deuterium sintered techniques have been proposed. The preliminary results from this study show that a deuterium-sintered HBT is, indeed, more resistant to hot-electron induced base-emitter junction degradation. SiGe/Si based amplifier circuits were also subjected to lifetime testing and we extrapolate MTTF is approximately 1.1_10(exp 6) hours at 125iC junction temperature from the circuit lifetime data.

Ponchak, George E.↗

NASA NTRS2004

The Effect of Martian Dust on Radiator Performance

Experiments were performed in which the effective emittance of three types of radiator Coatings was measured as Martian dust simulant was added to the radiator face. The apparatus consisted of multiple radiator coupons on which Carbondale Red Clay dust was deposited. The coupons were powered by electric heaters, using a guard-heating configuration to achieve the accuracy required for acceptable emittance calculations. The apparatus was containing in a vacuum chamber that featured a liquid-nitrogen cooled shroud that simulated the Martian sky temperature. Radiator temperatures ranged from 250 to 350 K with sky temperatures from 185 to 248 K. Results show that as dust was added to the radiator surfaces, the effective emittance of the high - emittance coatings decreased from near 0.9 to a value of about 0.5. A low-emittance control surface, polished aluminum, demonstrated a rise in effective emittance for thin dust layers, and then a decline as the dust layer thickened. This behavior is attributed to the conductive resistance caused by the dust layer.

Hollingsworth, D. Keith↗

NASA NTRS1972

Development of techniques and associated instrumentation for high temperature emissivity measurements

The progress during the sixth quarterly period is reported on construction and assembly of a test facility to determine the high temperature emittance properties of candidate thermal protection system materials for the space shuttle. This facility will provide simulation of such reentry environment parameters as temperature, pressure, and gas flow rate to permit studies of the effects of these parameters on the emittance stability of the materials. Also reported are the completed results for emittance tests on a set of eight Rene 41 samples and one anodized titanium alloy sample which were tested at temperatures up to 1600 F in vacuum. The data includes calorimetric determinations of total hemispherical emittance, radiometric determinations of total and spectral normal emittance, and pre- and post-test room temperature reflectance measurements.

Cunnington, G. R.↗

NASA NTRS1978

Design considerations for silicon HLE solar cells

The high-low (H-L) junction in the emitter region that defines the high-low-junction emitter (HLE) solar cell suppresses the dark emitter recombination current J sub E so that the base recombination current dominates in determining the open-circuit voltage. For silicon cells this enables the achievement of considerably larger values of open-circuit voltage than those achievable in conventional structures. This paper describes experiments that demonstrate the achievement of J sub E suppression (to less than 5 x 10 to the -14th A/sq cm) and large open-circuit voltage (640 mV) in HLE test cells of two distinct types. In the first type (the diffused HLE structure) impurity diffusion forms the H-L junction in the emitter; in the second type (the oxide-charge-induced HLE structure) the H-L junction is formed in emitter material of relatively low doping concentration by an oxide-charge-induced electron accumulation layer.

Lindholm, F. A.↗

NASA NTRS1983

Spindt cold cathode electron gun development program

A thin film field emission cathode array and an electron gun based on this emitter array are summarized. Fabricating state of the art cathodes for testing at NASA and NRL, advancing the fabrication technology, developing wedge shaped emitters, and performing emission tests are covered. An anistropic dry etching process (reactive ion beam etching) developed that leads to increasing the packing density of the emitter tips to about 5 x 10 to the 6th power/square cm. Tests with small arrays of emitter tips having about 10 tips has demonstrated current densities of over 100 A/sq cm. Several times using cathodes having a packing density of 1.25 x 10 to the 6th power tips/sq cm. Indications are that the higher packing density achievable with the dry etch process may extend this capability to the 500 A/sq cm range and beyond. The wedge emitter geometry was developed and shown to produce emission. This geometry can (in principle) extend the current density capability of the cathodes beyond the 500 A/sq cm level. An emission microscope was built and tested for use with the cathodes.

Spindt, C. A.↗

NASA NTRS1986

Enhancement of time images for photointerpretation

The Thermal Infrared Multispectral Scanner (TIMS) images consist of six channels of data acquired in bands between 8 and 12 microns, thus they contain information about both temperature and emittance. Scene temperatures are controlled by reflectivity of the surface, but also by its geometry with respect to the Sun, time of day, and other factors unrelated to composition. Emittance is dependent upon composition alone. Thus the photointerpreter may wish to enhance emittance information selectively. Because thermal emittances in real scenes vary but little, image data tend to be highly correlated along channels. Special image processing is required to make this information available for the photointerpreter. Processing includes noise removal, construction of model emittance images, and construction of false-color pictures enhanced by decorrelation techniques.

Gillespie, A. R.↗

NASA NTRS1987

High temperature radiator materials for applications in the low Earth orbital environment

Radiators must be constructed of materials which have high emittance in order to efficiently radiate heat from high temperature space power systems. In addition, if these radiators are to be used for applications in the low Earth orbital environment, they must not be detrimentally affected by exposure to atomic oxygen. Four materials selected as candidate radiator materials (304 stainless steel, copper, titanium-6% aluminum-4% vanadium (Ti-6%Al-4%V), and niobium-1% zirconium (Nb-1%Zr)) were surface modified by acid etching, heat treating, abrading, sputter texturing, electrochemical etching, and combinations of the above in order to improve their emittance. Combination treatment techniques with heat treating as the second treatment provided about a factor of two improvement in emittance for 304 stainless steel, Ti-6%Al-4%V, and Nb-1%Zr. A factor of three improvement in emittance occurred for discharge chamber sputter textured copper. Exposure to atomic oxygen in an RF plasma asher did not significantly change the emittance of those samples that had been heat treated as part of their texturing process. An evaluation of oxygen penetration is needed to understand how oxidation affects the mechanical properties of these materials when heat treated.

Rutledge, Sharon K.↗

NASA NTRS1989

Report on the multicolor pyrometry session at the Second NASA Non-Contact Temperature-Measurement Workshop

The session met jointly with the other special sessions. Due to time constraints, the concerns of multicolor pyrometry were not addressed in depth. Multicolor pyrometry attempts to determine an object's temperature and emittance as a function of wavelength from simultaneous measurement of the spectral radiance of the object at multiple wavelengths. The main issues are those of the most appropriate model for the wavelength dependence of the emittance, the number of undetermined parameters, and the error in the measured temperature. It has long been known that it is inappropriate to attempt to model the emittance with a functional form that contains as many unknowns as wavelengths. Such attempts will lead to gross errors in the measured temperature. However, more recent work by Hunter and Khan has indicated that emittance can be modeled by a function with many fewer degrees of freedom than sampled wavelengths (e.g., it may be appropriate to use a second order polynomial to fit data from a forty-color pyrometer). In a platform lecture, Khan described algorithms for determination of the parameters by minimization of the errors between the model and the data in a least-squares sense. The first was a linear method and the second was a non-linear method where the emittance could assume any functional form. Both methods were shown to be very sensitive to random noise and non-linearity in the measurement system.

Spjut, R. Erik↗

NASA NTRS1990

Aeolian removal of dust from radiator surfaces on Mars

Simulated radiator surfaces made of arc-textured Cu and Nb-1 percent-Zr and ion beam textured graphite and C-C composite were fabricated and their integrated spectral emittance characterized from 300 to 3000 K. A thin layer of aluminum oxide, basalt, or iron (III) oxide dust was then deposited on them, and they were subjected to low pressure winds in the Martian Surface Wind Tunnel. It was found that dust deposited on simulated radiator surfaces may or may not seriously lower their integrated spectral emittance, depending upon the characteristics of the dust. With Al2O3 there is no appreciable degradation of emittance on a dusted sample, with basaltic dust there is a 10 to 20 percent degradation, and with Fe2O3 a 20 to 40 percent degradation. It was also found that very high winds on dusted highly textured surfaces can result in their abrasion. Degradation in emittance due to abrasion was found to vary with radiator material. Arc-textured Cu and Nb-1 percent Zr was found to be more susceptible to emittance degradation than graphite or C-C composite. The most abrasion occurred at low angles, peaking at the 22.5 deg test samples.

Gaier, James R.↗

NASA NTRS1991

Radar signal categorization using a neural network

Neural networks were used to analyze a complex simulated radar environment which contains noisy radar pulses generated by many different emitters. The neural network used is an energy minimizing network (the BSB model) which forms energy minima - attractors in the network dynamical system - based on learned input data. The system first determines how many emitters are present (the deinterleaving problem). Pulses from individual simulated emitters give rise to separate stable attractors in the network. Once individual emitters are characterized, it is possible to make tentative identifications of them based on their observed parameters. As a test of this idea, a neural network was used to form a small data base that potentially could make emitter identifications.

Anderson, James A.↗

NASA NTRS1994

Radiation effects on p+n InP junctions grown by MOCVD

The superior radiation resistance of InP over other solar cell materials such as Si or GaAs has prompted the development of InP cells for space applications. The early research on radiation effects in InP was performed by Yamaguchi and co-workers who showed that, in diffused p-InP junctions, radiation-induced defects were readily annealed both thermally and by injection, which was accompanied by significant cell recovery. More recent research efforts have been made using p-InP grown by metalorganic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD). While similar deep level transient spectroscopy (DLTS) results were found for radiation induced defects in these cells and in diffused junctions, significant differences existed in the annealing characteristics. After injection annealing at room temperature, Yamaguchi noticed an almost complete recovery of the photovoltaic parameters, while the MOCVD samples showed only minimal annealing. In searching for an explanation of the different annealing behavior of diffused junctions and those grown by MOCVD, several possibilities have been considered. One possibility is the difference in the emitter structure. The diffused junctions have S-doped graded emitters with widths of approximately 0.3 micrometers, while the MOCVD emitters are often doped with Si and have widths of approximately 300A (0.03 micrometers). The difference in the emitter thickness can have important effects, e.g. a larger fraction of the total photocurrent is generated in the n-type material for thicker emitters. Therefore the properties of the n-InP material may explain the difference in the observed overall annealing behavior of the cells.

Messenger, Scott R.↗

NASA NTRS1996

The 27-28 October 1986 FIRE IFO Cirrus Case Study: Cirrus Parameter Relationships Derived from Satellite and Lidar Data

Cirrus cloud radiative and physical characteristics are determined using a combination of ground based, aircraft, and satellite measurements taken as part of the First ISCCP Region Experiment (FIRE) cirrus intensive field observations (IFO) during October and November 1986. Lidar backscatter data are used with rawinsonde data to define cloud base, center and top heights and the corresponding temperatures. Coincident GOES-4 4-km visible (0.65 micrometer) and 8-km infrared window (11.5 micrometer) radiances are analyzed to determine cloud emittances and reflectances. Infrared optical depth is computed from the emittance results. Visible optical depth is derived from reflectance using a theoretical ice crystal scattering model and an empirical bidirectional reflectance model. No clouds with visible optical depths greater than 5 or infrared optical depths less than 0.1 were used in the analysis. Average cloud thickness ranged from 0.5 km to 8.0 km for the 71 scenes. Mean vertical beam emittances derived from cloud-center temperatures were 062 for all scenes compared to 0.33 for the case study (27-28 October) reflecting the thinner clouds observed for the latter scenes. Relationships between cloud emittance , extinction coefficients, and temperature for the case study are very similar to those derived from earlier surface-based studies. The thicker clouds seen during the other IFO days yield different results. Emittances derived using cloud-top temperature wer ratioed to those determined from cloud-center temperature. A nearly linear relationship between these ratios and cloud-center temperature holds promise for determining actual cloud-top temperature and cloud thickness from visible and infrared radiance pairs. The mean ratio of the visible scattering optical depth to the infrared absorption optical depth was 2.13 for these data. This scattering efficiency ratio shows a significant dependence on cloud temperature. Values of mean scattering efficiency as high as 2.6 suggest the presence of small ice particles at temperatures below 230 K. the parameterization of visible reflectance in terms of cloud optical depth and clear sky reflectance shows promise as a simplified method for interpreting visible satellite data reflected from cirrus clouds. Large uncertainties in the optical parameters due to cloud reflectance anisotropy and shading were found by analyzing data for various solar zenith angles and for simultaneous advanced very high resolution radiometer (AVHRR) data. Inhomogeneities in the cloud fields result in uneven cloud shading that apparently causes the occurrence of anomalously dark, cloud pixels in the GOES data. These shading effects complicate the interpretation of the satellite data. The results highlight the need for additional study or cirrus cloud scattering processes and remote sensing techniques.

Minnis, Patrick↗