Engineering Papers⌕ Search

SEARCH · Engineering Papers

Results for “CONFINEMENT”

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 487 records · Page 27
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2011

Longitudinal confinement and matching of an intense electron beam

An induction cell has successfully been demonstrated to longitudinally confine a space-charge dominated bunch for over a thousand turns (>11.52 km) in the University of Maryland Electron Ring [Haber et al., Nucl. Instrum. Methods Phys. Res. A 606, 64 (2009) and R. A. Kishek et al., Int. J. Mod. Phys. A 22, 3838 (2007)]. With the use of synchronized periodic focusing fields, the beam is confined for multiple turns overcoming the longitudinal space-charge forces. Experimental results show that an optimum longitudinal match is obtained when the focusing frequency for containment of the 0.52 mA beam is applied at every fifth turn. Containment of the beam bunch is achievable at lower focusing frequencies, at the cost of a reduction in the transported charge from the lack of sufficient focusing. Containment is also obtainable, if the confinement fields overfocus the bunch, exciting multiple waves at the bunch ends, which propagate into the central region of the beam, distorting the overall constant current beam shape.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2011

Diagnostics of laser plasma plume dynamics within an electrically biased confining cavity

The dynamics of laser generated plasma plumes expanding within confining surfaces display a two-phase nature. Early phase enhancement due to hydrodynamic containment results in higher temperatures, densities, and average charges states in comparison to freely expanding plasma plumes. Later phase dynamics result in rapid decay of the plasma plume due to lossy plasma--surface interactions. This paper examines laser plasma generation and expansion within rectangular aluminium cavities biased to high voltages (V{sub bias} = {+-}9 kV). ''Hydro-electro-dynamic'' confinement of the laser plasma plumes and the expansion dynamics were studied via space and time resolved visible emission spectroscopy. The charged confining cavities displayed enhanced emission, higher electron densities (N{sub e}) and longer emission durations compared to those of an unbiased cavity. This behavior is attributed to the influence of the electric fields in the cavity on the charged particle dynamics within the cavity volume. The degree of enhancement depended strongly on the applied polarity.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2012

Influence of the shear flow on electron cyclotron resonance plasma confinement in an axisymmetric magnetic mirror trap of the electron cyclotron resonance ion source

Influence of shear flows of the dense plasma created under conditions of the electron cyclotron resonance (ECR) gas breakdown on the plasma confinement in the axisymmetric mirror trap (''vortex'' confinement) was studied experimentally and theoretically. A limiter with bias potential was set inside the mirror trap for plasma rotation. The limiter construction and the optimal value of the potential were chosen according to the results of the preliminary theoretical analysis. This method of ''vortex'' confinement realization in an axisymmetric mirror trap for non-equilibrium heavy-ion plasmas seems to be promising for creation of ECR multicharged ion sources with high magnetic fields, more than 1 T.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2012

Pure electron plasmas confined for 90 ms in a stellarator without electron sources or internal objects

We report on the creation and up to 90 ms sustainment of pure electron plasmas confined in a stellarator without internal objects. Injection of positrons into such plasmas is expected to lead to the creation of the first electron-positron plasma experiments. These newly created plasmas will also allow a study of pure electron plasmas without the perturbing presence of internal objects. The plasmas were created by thermionic emission of electrons from a heated, biased filament that was retracted in 20 ms. The confinement of these transient plasmas is different from that of steady state plasmas with internal objects and emissive filaments, and is generally shorter, limited by ion buildup. The decay time is increased by lowering the neutral pressure, lowering the electron plasma temperature, or operating with neutrals with high ionization energies (helium). These findings are all consistent with ion accumulation being the cause for the shorter than expected confinement times. The magnetic field strength also moderately increases the decay times. The deleterious effect of ions is not expected to imply a similar deleterious effect when introducing positrons, but it implies that ion accumulation must be avoided also in an electron-positron experiment.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2012

Classical confinement and outward convection of impurity ions in the MST RFP

Impurity ion dynamics measured with simultaneously high spatial and temporal resolution reveal classical ion transport in the reversed-field pinch. The boron, carbon, oxygen, and aluminum impurity ion density profiles are obtained in the Madison Symmetric Torus [R. N. Dexter et al., Fusion Technol. 19, 131 (1991)] using a fast, active charge-exchange-recombination-spectroscopy diagnostic. Measurements are made during improved-confinement plasmas obtained using inductive control of tearing instability to mitigate stochastic transport. At the onset of the transition to improved confinement, the impurity ion density profile becomes hollow, with a slow decay in the core region concurrent with an increase in the outer region, implying an outward convection of impurities. Impurity transport from Coulomb collisions in the reversed-field pinch is classical for all collisionality regimes, and analysis shows that the observed hollow profile and outward convection can be explained by the classical temperature screening mechanism. The profile agrees well with classical expectations. Experiments performed with impurity pellet injection provide further evidence for classical impurity ion confinement.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2012

Suppression of electric and magnetic fluctuations and improvement of confinement due to current profile modification by biased electrode in Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics tokamak

Improvement of plasma confinement is achieved in normal q{sub a} discharges of SINP-tokamak by introducing a biased electrode inside the last closed flux surface. All the important features of high confinement mode are observed biasing the electrode negatively with respect to the vacuum vessel. Arrays of electric and magnetic probes introduced in the edge plasma region reveal suppression of electric and magnetic fluctuations over distinct frequency ranges as well as modification of the toroidal current profile due to biasing. Further analysis identifies the electrostatic fluctuations to be due to drift mode and the magnetic fluctuations may be of slow compressional Alfven waves. Both get suppressed due to current profile modification during biasing, hence leading to the improvement of plasma confinement.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2012

The virial theorem for the smoothly and sharply, penetrably and impenetrably confined hydrogen atom

Confinement of atoms by finite or infinite boxes containing sharp (discontinuous) jumps has been studied since the fourth decade of the previous century, modelling the effect of external pressure. Smooth (continuous) counterparts of such confining potentials, that depend on a parameter such that in an appropriate limit they coincide with the sharp confining potentials, are investigated, with an emphasis on deriving the corresponding virial and Hellmann-Feynman theorems.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2012

Space-charge-based electrostatic plasma confinement involving relaxed plasma species

A numerical study is reported on the equilibrium properties of a surface-emitted or edge-confined non-drifting plasma. A self-consistent finite-differences evaluation of the electrostatic potential is carried out for a non-neutral plasma that follows a Boltzmann density distribution. The non-neutral plasma generates an electrostatic potential that has an extremum at the geometric center. Poisson's equation is solved for different ratios of the non-neutral plasma size to the edge Debye length. The profiles of the electrostatic potential and the plasma density are presented for different values of that ratio. A second plasma species is then introduced for two-plasma-species confinement studies, with one species confined by the space charge of the other, while each species follows a Boltzmann density distribution. An equilibrium in which a neutral region forms is found. An equilibrium is also found in which the two species have equal temperatures and charge states.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2013

Comparison of non-neutral electron plasma confinement in harmonic and rectangular potentials in a very dense regime

Confinement of high density electron plasmas in a strong uniform magnetic field was experimentally studied in a multi-ring trap (MRT). The trap was housed inside a bore tube and surrounded by a superconducting solenoid. A 5 T magnetic field was used to provide radial confinement while an electrostatic harmonic or rectangular potential well was used for axial confinement. For trapped electrons of N = 1.2 Multiplication-Sign 10{sup 10} in a harmonic potential well (HPW) with the trap length of L{sub T} = 320 mm, the plasma lifetime was about 10{sup 4} s and it became much longer at lower N = 4.5 Multiplication-Sign 10{sup 9}. Such long holding times were achieved without application of rotating electric fields. Contrastingly, in a rectangular potential well (RPW), the plasma of N = 1.2 Multiplication-Sign 10{sup 10} under the same trap length expanded to cover the whole Faraday Cup within 200 s, where its radial expansion rate was {eta} = 3.2 Multiplication-Sign 10{sup -2} mm/s, which was 20 times faster than HPW. The lifetime for RPW became shorter with increasing L{sub T} and scaled as 1/[L{sub T}]{sup 2}. This scaling found for high density plasmas is similar to the obtained one with different Penning-Malmberg traps at UC San Diego (USCD).

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2014

Field-induced confined states in graphene

We report an approach to confine the carriers in single-layer graphene, which leads to quantum devices with field-induced quantum confinement. We demonstrated that the Coulomb-blockade effect evolves under a uniform magnetic field perpendicular to the graphene device. Our experimental results show that field-induced quantum dots are realized in graphene, and a quantum confinement-deconfinement transition is switched by the magnetic field.

77 NANOSCIENCE AND NANOTECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2014

Quantum confinement of zero-dimensional hybrid organic-inorganic polaritons at room temperature

We report on the quantum confinement of zero-dimensional polaritons in perovskite-based microcavity at room temperature. Photoluminescence of discrete polaritonic states is observed for polaritons localized in symmetric sphere-like defects which are spontaneously nucleated on the top dielectric Bragg mirror. The linewidth of these confined states is found much sharper (almost one order of magnitude) than that of photonic modes in the perovskite planar microcavity. Our results show the possibility to study organic-inorganic cavity polaritons in confined microstructure and suggest a fabrication method to realize integrated polaritonic devices operating at room temperature.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2014

Effects of self-heating and phase change on the thermal profile of hydrogen isotopes in confined geometries

Growth of high-quality single-crystal hydrogen in confined geometries relies on the in situ formation of seed crystals. Generation of deuterium-tritium seed crystals in a confined geometry is governed by three effects: self-heating due to tritium decay, external thermal environment, and latent heat of phase change at the boundary between hydrogen liquid and vapor. A detailed computation of the temperature profile for liquid hydrogen inside a hollow shell, as is found in inertial confinement fusion research, shows that seeds are likely to form at the equatorial plane of the shell. Radioactive decay of tritium to helium slowly alters the composition of the hydrogen vapor, resulting in a modified temperature profile that encourages seed formation at the top of the shell. We show that the computed temperature profile is consistent with a variety of experimental observations.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2014

Sustained spheromaks with ideal n = 1 kink stability and pressure confinement

Increasing the helicity injector drive frequency up to 68.5 kHz on the Helicity Injected Torus-Steady Inductive (HIT-SI) experiment has produced spheromaks with current amplifications of 3.8, ideal n = 1 kink stability, improved toroidal symmetry and pressure confinement. Current centroid calculations from surface magnetic probes show an outward shift in the magnetic field at frequencies above 50 kHz. Grad-Shafranov equilibria indicate pressure confinement at higher injector operating frequencies. The minimum characteristic frequency needed to achieve this confining effect on HIT-SI plasmas is found to be approximately 30 kHz by analysis of the density fluctuations.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2014

Assessment of field-induced quantum confinement in heterogate germanium electron–hole bilayer tunnel field-effect transistor

The analysis of quantum mechanical confinement in recent germanium electron–hole bilayer tunnel field-effect transistors has been shown to substantially affect the band-to-band tunneling (BTBT) mechanism between electron and hole inversion layers that constitutes the operating principle of these devices. The vertical electric field that appears across the intrinsic semiconductor to give rise to the bilayer configuration makes the formerly continuous conduction and valence bands become a discrete set of energy subbands, therefore increasing the effective bandgap close to the gates and reducing the BTBT probabilities. In this letter, we present a simulation approach that shows how the inclusion of quantum confinement and the subsequent modification of the band profile results in the appearance of lateral tunneling to the underlap regions that greatly degrades the subthreshold swing of these devices. To overcome this drawback imposed by confinement, we propose an heterogate configuration that proves to suppress this parasitic tunneling and enhances the device performance.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2014

Ion flux enhancements and oscillations in spatially confined laser produced aluminum plasmas

Ion signals from laser produced plasmas (LPPs) generated inside aluminum rectangular cavities at a fixed depth d = 2 mm and varying width, x = 1.0, 1.6, and 2.75 mm were obtained by spatially varying the position of a negatively biased Langmuir probe. Damped oscillatory features superimposed on Maxwellian distributed ion signals were observed. Depending on the distance of the probe from the target surface, three to twelve fold enhancements in peak ion density were observed via confinement of the LPP, generated within rectangular cavities of varying width which constrained the plasma plume to near one dimensional expansion in the vertical plane. The effects of lateral spatial confinement on the expansion velocity of the LPP plume front, the temperature, density and expansion velocity of ions, enhancement of ion flux, and ion energy distribution were recorded. The periodic behavior of ion signals was analyzed and found to be related to the electron plasma frequency and electron-ion collision frequency. The effects of confinement and enhancement of various ion parameters and expansion velocities of the LPP ion plume are explained on the basis of shock wave theory.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2014

Enhancing interfacial conductivity and spatial charge confinement of LaAlO{sub 3}/SrTiO{sub 3} heterostructures via strain engineering

We explored the possibility of enhancing interfacial conductivity and spatial charge confinement of LaAlO{sub 3}/SrTiO{sub 3} (LAO/STO) heterostructure (HS) via strain engineering using first-principles electronic structure calculations. We found that applying a tensile strain on the STO substrate along the ab-plane can significantly enhance the interfacial conductivity, magnetic moments, and the spatial charge confinement of the HS system. In contrast, a compressive strain can dilute the interfacial charge carrier density, make the mobile charges transfer to deep STO substrate, and weaken the spatial charge confinement along the c-axis. Hence, we propose that applying a tensile strain can be an effective way to enhance the interfacial conductivity and magnetism of STO-based HS systems.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2015

Quantum confinement in self-assembled two-dimensional nanoporous honeycomb networks at close-packed metal surfaces

Quantum confinement of a two-dimensional electron gas by supramolecular nanoporous networks is investigated using the boundary elements method based on Green’s functions for finite geometries and electron plane wave expansion for periodic systems. The “particle in a box” picture was analyzed for cases with selected symmetries that model previously reported architectures constructed from organic and metal-organic scattering centers confining surface state electrons of Ag(111) and Cu(111). First, by analyzing a series of cases with systematically defined parameters (scattering geometry, potentials, and effective broadening), we demonstrate how the scattering processes affect the properties of the confined electrons. For the features of the local density of states reported by scanning tunneling spectroscopy (STS), we disentangle the contributions of lifetime broadening and splitting of quantum well states due to coupling of neighboring quantum dots. For each system, we analyze the local electron density distribution and relate it to the corresponding band structure as calculated within the plane-wave expansion framework. Then, we address two experimental investigations, where in one case only STS data and in the other case mainly angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) data were reported. In both cases, the experimental findings can be successfully simulated. Furthermore, the missing information can be complemented because our approach allows to correlate the information obtained by STS with that of ARPES. The combined analysis of several observations suggests that the scattering potentials created by the network originate primarily from the adsorbate-induced changes of the local surface dipole barrier.

77 NANOSCIENCE AND NANOTECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2015

Enhanced coupling of optical energy during liquid-confined metal ablation

Liquid-confined laser ablation was investigated with various metals of indium, aluminum, and nickel. Ablation threshold and rate were characterized in terms of surface deformation, transient acoustic responses, and plasma emissions. The surface condition affected the degree of ablation dynamics due to variations in reflectance. The liquid confinement yielded up to an order of larger ablation crater along with stronger acoustic transients than dry ablation. Enhanced ablation performance resulted possibly from effective coupling of optical energy at the interface during explosive vaporization, plasma confinement, and cavitation. The deposition of a liquid layer can induce more efficient ablation for laser metal processing.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗