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The results are described of the final stage of the research involving the role of anions in the behavior of magnesium oxide, as well as the continued efforts of the fracture behavior of silicon nitride materials. These efforts, particularly the first, are further sub-divided in subsections describing individual types of behavior of materials.
In the context of various models for the early evolution of a solar nebula, the possible roles assigned to ambient magnetic fields and the paleointensities required to establish the stable natural remanent magnetization observed in meteorites, are discussed. It is suggested that the record of paleofields present during condensation, growth, and accumulation of grains is likely to have been preserved as chemical or thermochemical remanence in unaltered meteoritic material. Fine particle theories appear adequate for treating meteoritic remanence, if models based on corresponding types of permanent magnet materials, e.g., powder ferrites for chondrites and diffusion hardened alloys for iron meteorites, are adopted.
Hydrogen embrittlement is classified into three types: internal reversible hydrogen embrittlement, hydrogen reaction embrittlement, and hydrogen environment embrittlement. Characteristics of and materials embrittled by these types of hydrogen embrittlement are discussed. Hydrogen environment embrittlement is reviewed in detail. Factors involved in standardizing test methods for detecting the occurrence of and evaluating the severity of hydrogen environment embrittlement are considered. The effects of test technique, hydrogen pressure, gas purity, strain rate, stress concentration factor, and test temperature are discussed.
The disclosure relates to reversible bonded structural joints using active adhesive compositions that can allow for dis-assembly, repair, and re-assembly. The disclosure is particularly directed to the adhesive composition material, irrespective of the type of the substrate(s) being joined. The adhesive composition can include any thermoplastic adhesive material that can be remotely activated for targeted heating of just the adhesive composition (e.g., and not the surrounding substrates being joined) via the inclusion of electromagnetically excitable particles in the adhesive composition. The substrates can be any metal material, any composite material, any hybrid material, or otherwise. The disclosed adhesive compositions allow for recyclability of parts at the end of their lifetime and repair/replacement of parts during their lifetime.
Disclosed embodiments include CdS/CdTe PV devices (100) having a back contact (110,112) with oxygen gettering capacity. Also disclosed are back contact structures (110, 112) and methods of forming a back contact in a CdS/CdTe PV device (100). The described contacts and methods feature a contact having a contact interface layer (100) comprising a contact interface material, a p-type dopant and a gettering metal.
Experimental evaluation of selected encapsulation designs and materials based on an earlier study which have potential for use in low cost, long-life photovoltaic arrays are reported. The performance of candidate materials and encapsulated cells were evaluated principally for three types of encapsulation designs based on their potentially low materials and processing costs: (1) polymeric coatings, transparent conformal coatings over the cell with a structural-support substrate; (2) polymeric film lamination, cells laminated between two films or sheets of polymeric materials; and (3) glass-covered systems, cells adhesively bonded to a glass cover (superstrate) with a polymeric pottant and a glass or other substrate material. Several other design types, including those utilizing polymer sheet and pottant materials, were also included in the investigation.
The p-type Mg 2 Li x Si 0.4 Sn 0.6 were synthesized by a B 2 O 3 -encapsulation method using Li 2 CO 3 as doping agent and showed significant improvement in ZT .
Two-dimensional (2D) materials have extraordinary characteristics that offer promising new approaches for science and technology. Electrons in graphene can move ballistically through a sheet, even though it is only a single atom thick. And transition metal dichalcogenide materials can be cleaved into 2D flakes of all types – metals, semiconductors, insulators, magnetic materials, and superconductors. To benefit from these discoveries, the science needs to be understood to transform 2D materials into useful new devices and systems. The evolution in time of atomic scale graphene structures has been studied in time with a transmission electron microscope (TEM), and ballistic transport of electrons in graphene was been imaged using a cooled scanning probe microscope (SPM), as well as electron motion in MoS 2 . Graphene is only one atom thick but is extremely strong, creating the opportunity to fabricate atomic scale structures in the lateral direction. Using an atomic resolution TEM, a suspended sheet of graphene can be shaped by a Si impurity atom on its surface that acts like a chisel to open up apertures, one atom at a time. The electrons in the TEM provide both the chiseling energy and the ability to image the results. Electrons and holes in graphene form a new type of electronic system with conical conduction and valence bands that meet at the Dirac point, with no energy gap. For moderate densities, the carriers form a Fermi liquid with ballistic transport over micron-scale distances. Using a cooled SPM the cyclotron orbit of electrons in graphene has been imaged. In the magnetic focusing regime, electrons leaving a point contact circle around and leave from a second point contact when the cyclotron diameter is equal to the contact spacing. The paths of electrons are focused - they enter at different angles but converge again at the exiting contact. When the SPM tip knocks an electron out of its orbit, an imaging signal is created. The ballistic motion of carriers in graphene opens the way for ballistic devices that manipulate beams of electrons and holes. Our collaborator Gil-Ho Lee, in Philip Kim's group, created a collimating contact by placing zig-zag absorbers on either side of entering electrons. Our cooled SPM was used to image the electron beam and determine its 9-degree halfwidth. By changing the gate voltage, a collimated beam of holes was also created, opening the way for colliding beam experiments. Coherent beams of carriers are desirable for quantum information processing. Via Andreev reflection, superconducting contacts can covert Cooper pairs in a superconductor to an ingoing and outgoing electrons and holes. Using our cooled SPM, Andreev reflection was imaged from a superconducting contact on a graphene device. Magnetic focusing was used to create an incoming beam of electrons and an outgoing beam of holes, detected by a third point contact. The images show a clear transition from normal reflection above the superconducting transition temperature to Andreev reflection as the device is cooled. Transition metal dichalcogenides offer a wide array of materials that can be exfoliated into ultrathin 2D sheets. A cooled SPM can be used to detect quantum dots as well as to image electron flow. The tip charge capacitively couples to electrons on the dot, acting as a gate to tune the dot conductance. Coulomb blockade peaks appear as a bullseye pattern in an SPM image as the tip is raster scanned above the dot. This approach was used to detect quantum dots in a MoS 2 channel as the carrier density was reduced and electrons pooled in low energy points. Through our DOE supported research, cooled SPM imaging has proven to be a very useful tool to uncover the motion of electrons and holes in the new quantum materials graphene and MoS 2 .
Designing nanoporous zeolites with tunable physicochemical properties can substantially impact their performance in commercial applications spanning diverse areas such as adsorption, separations, catalysis, and drug delivery. Zeolite synthesis typically requires the use of an organic structure-directing agent to facilitate the formation of crystals with specific pore size and topology. Attempts to remove organics from syntheses to achieve commercially-viable methods of preparing zeolites often lead to the formation of unwanted crystal polymorphs (i.e., impurities). Here, we present an organic-free synthesis of the small-pore zeolite P (GIS framework topology) that can be selectively tailored to produce two pure polymorphs: P1 and P2. To this end, we developed kinetic phase diagrams that identify synthesis compositions leading to the formation of GIS (P1 and P2), as well as their structural analogues MER and PHI. Using a combination of adsorption measurements and density functional theory (DFT) calculations, we also show that both GIS polymorphs are highly selective adsorbents for H2O relative to other light gases (e.g,, H2, N2, CO2). These studies highlight the potential application of GIS materials for dehydration processes, while our findings also refute prior theoretical studies postulating that GIS-type zeolites are excellent materials for CO2 separation/sequestration. Moreover, there is an impetus for discovering novel small-pore zeolites that are shape-selective catalysts for the production of value-added chemicals (e.g., light olefins); thus, our discovery of more thermally-stable P2 opens new avenues for exploring the potential role of this material as a high-performance catalyst.
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Abstract Ultrahigh surface-to-volume ratio in nanoscale materials, could dramatically facilitate mass transport, leading to surface-mediated diffusion similar to Coble-type creep in polycrystalline materials. Unfortunately, the Coble creep is just a conceptual model, and the associated physical mechanisms of mass transport have never been revealed at atomic scale. Akin to the ambiguities in Coble creep, atomic surface diffusion in nanoscale crystals remains largely unclear, especially when mediating yielding and plastic flow. Here, by using in situ nanomechanical testing under high-resolution transmission electron microscope, we find that the diffusion-assisted dislocation nucleation induces the transition from a normal to an inverse Hall-Petch-like relation of the strength-size dependence and the surface-creep leads to the abnormal softening in flow stress with the reduction in size of nanoscale silver, contrary to the classical “alternating dislocation starvation” behavior in nanoscale platinum. This work provides insights into the atomic-scale mechanisms of diffusion-mediated deformation in nanoscale materials, and impact on the design for ultrasmall-sized nanomechanical devices.
Phosphorus-doped amorphous silicon carbide films were prepared using a polymeric precursor solution. Unlike conventional polymeric precursors, this polymer requires neither catalysts nor oxidation for its synthesis and cross-linkage, providing semiconducting properties in the films. The valence and conduction states of resultant films were determined directly through the combination of inverse photoemission spectroscopy and photoelectron yield spectroscopy. The incorporated carbon widened energy gap and optical gap comparably in the films with lower carbon concentrations. In contrast, a large deviation between the energy gap and the optical gap was observed at higher carbon contents because of exponential widening of the band tail.
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Monolithic plate-type fuel is a fuel form being developed for high performance research and test reactors to minimize the use of enriched material. These plate-type fuels consist of a high Uranium density, LEU foil contained within diffusion barriers and encapsulated within a cladding material. To benchmark this new design, effects of various geometrical and operational variables on irradiation performance have been evaluated. For this work, the effects of fuel foil centering on the thermo-mechanical performance of the mini-plates were studied. To evaluate these effects, a selected plate from RERTR-12 experiments, the Plate L1P756, was considered. The fuel foil was moved within the fuel plate to study the effects of the fuel centering on stress, strain and overall shape of the fuel elements. The thickness of the fuel foil, thickness of the Zr-liners and total thickness of the plate were held constant, except the centerline alignment of the fuel foil. For this, the position of the fuel foil was varied from the center position to a maximum offset corresponding to the minimum allowable aluminum cladding thickness of 0.1524 mm. Results were then compared with each other and with the ideal case to make a comparative assessment. Fabrication simulations indicated that the thermal expansion mismatch results in warping of the fuel plate during fabrication as the fuel plate is cooled from the HIP temperature when the fuel is not centered. Even if the model is constrained during cooling to simulate the rigid HIP can surrounding the fuel plate during cooling, warping is observed when the constraint is removed. Similarly, irradiation simulations revealed that the fuel offset causes virtually all irradiation-induced swelling to occur on the thin-cladding side of the plate. This is observed even for the smallest offset that was considered. The total magnitude of the swelling is approximately same for all offsets values.
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Abstract Ambient-temperature sodium-sulfur (Na-S) batteries are potential attractive alternatives to lithium-ion batteries owing to their high theoretical specific energy of 1,274 Wh kg −1 based on the mass of Na 2 S and abundant sulfur resources. However, their practical viability is impeded by sodium polysulfide shuttling. Here, we report an intercalation-conversion hybrid positive electrode material by coupling the intercalation-type catalyst, MoTe 2 , with the conversion-type active material, sulfur. In addition, MoTe 2 nanosheets vertically grown on graphene flakes offer abundant active catalytic sites, further boosting the catalytic activity for sulfur redox. When used as a composite positive electrode and assembled in a coin cell with excess Na, a discharge capacity of 1,081 mA h g s −1 based on the mass of S with a capacity fade rate of 0.05% per cycle over 350 cycles at 0.1 C rate in a voltage range of 0.8 to 2.8 V is realized under a high sulfur loading of 3.5 mg cm −2 and a lean electrolyte condition with an electrolyte-to-sulfur ratio of 7 μL mg −1 . A fundamental understanding of the electrocatalysis of MoTe 2 is further revealed by in-situ synchrotron-based operando X-ray diffraction and ex-situ time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry.
Measurements of spectral and total normal emittance have been made on three types of reusable external insulation materials proposed for space shuttles. Emittances were measured in the spectral range 1 to 15 micrometer at temperatures of 800 K and 1100 K using a radiometric measurement technique. Results indicated that the total normal emittance of these materials was less than 0.8 between 800 K and 1300 K. The total normal emittance decreased with increasing temperature. The three ceramic coating candidate materials exhibited a similar spectral emittance distribution.
A review of the sample processing of different types of reusable metal-containing material (catalytic agents, e-wastes, cuttings, etc.) is given in the article; the purpose of the sample processing is the further analysis in the form of solutions: dilution in the mineral acid mix, alloying with different fluxes, leaching, etc. Increase in the temperature and pressure, ultrasonic impact, and microwave radiation are applied for the purpose of sample processing intensification. Methods of sample processing with application of sorbate concentration for the further definition of not only the noble, nonferrous, and rare metals but also the toxic elements are described. The review shows that the stage of sample processing is very important for achieving the potential of the applied analytical methods.