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Phillips, Alan

Publications and source records attributed to Phillips, Alan.

Amplitude-mode spectroscopy of chemically injected and photogenerated charge carriers in semiconducting single-walled carbon nanotubes

In one-dimensional semiconductors such as conjugated polymers and semiconducting single-walled carbon nanotubes (s-SWCNTs), injected charge carriers (electrons or holes) can have profound impacts on both electronic conductivity and optical spectra, even at low carrier densities. Understanding charge-related spectral features is a key fundamental challenge with important technological implications. Here, we employ a systematic suite of experimental and theoretical tools to understand the mid-infrared charge signatures of heavily p-type doped polymer-wrapped s-SWCNTs. Across a broad range of nanotube diameters, we find that hole charge carriers induce strong Fano anti-resonances in mid-infrared transmission spectra that correspond to defect-related (D-band) and in-plane tangential (G-band) Raman-active vibrational modes, along with anti-resonances arising from infrared (IR)-active polymer and SWCNT modes. We employ 13C isotope-labeled s-SWCNTs and a removable wrapping polymer to clarify the relative intensities, energies, and sources of all observed anti-resonances. Simulations performed with the "amplitude mode model" are used to quantitatively reproduce Raman spectra and also help to explain the outsized intensity of the D-band anti-resonance, relative to the G-band, observed for both moderately and degenerately doped s-SWCNTs. Here, the results provide a framework for future studies of ground- and excited-state charge carriers in s-SWCNTs and a variety of low-dimensional materials.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

NASA Advanced Concepts Office, Earth-To-Orbit Team Design Process and Tools

The Earth-to-Orbit Team (ETO) of the Advanced Concepts Office (ACO) at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) is considered the pre-eminent "go-to" group for pre-phase A and phase A concept definition. Over the past several years the ETO team has evaluated thousands of launch vehicle concept variations for a significant number of studies including agency-wide efforts such as the Exploration Systems Architecture Study (ESAS), Constellation, Heavy Lift Launch Vehicle (HLLV), Augustine Report, Heavy Lift Propulsion Technology (HLPT), Human Exploration Framework Team (HEFT), and Space Launch System (SLS). The ACO ETO Team is called upon to address many needs in NASA's design community; some of these are defining extremely large trade-spaces, evaluating advanced technology concepts which have not been addressed by a large majority of the aerospace community, and the rapid turn-around of highly time critical actions. It is the time critical actions, those often limited by schedule or little advanced warning, that have forced the five member ETO team to develop a design process robust enough to handle their current output level in order to meet their customer's needs. Based on the number of vehicle concepts evaluated over the past year this output level averages to four completed vehicle concepts per day. Each of these completed vehicle concepts includes a full mass breakdown of the vehicle to a tertiary level of subsystem components and a vehicle trajectory analysis to determine optimized payload delivery to specified orbital parameters, flight environments, and delta v capability. A structural analysis of the vehicle to determine flight loads based on the trajectory output, material properties, and geometry of the concept is also performed. Due to working in this fast-paced and sometimes rapidly changing environment, the ETO Team has developed a finely tuned process to maximize their delivery capabilities. The objective of this paper is to describe the interfaces between the three disciplines used in the design process: weights and sizing, trajectory, and structural analysis. The tools used to perform such analysis are INtegrated Rocket Sizing (INTROS), Program to Optimize Simulated Trajectories (POST), and Launch Vehicle Analysis (LVA) respectively. The methods each discipline uses to streamline their particular part of the design process will also be discussed.

Waters, Eric D.↗

NASA Advanced Concepts Office, Earth-To-Orbit Team Design Process and Tools

The Earth-to-Orbit Team (ETO) of the Advanced Concepts Office (ACO) at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) is considered the pre-eminent go-to group for pre-phase A and phase A concept definition. Over the past several years the ETO team has evaluated thousands of launch vehicle concept variations for a significant number of studies including agency-wide efforts such as the Exploration Systems Architecture Study (ESAS), Constellation, Heavy Lift Launch Vehicle (HLLV), Augustine Report, Heavy Lift Propulsion Technology (HLPT), Human Exploration Framework Team (HEFT), and Space Launch System (SLS). The ACO ETO Team is called upon to address many needs in NASA s design community; some of these are defining extremely large trade-spaces, evaluating advanced technology concepts which have not been addressed by a large majority of the aerospace community, and the rapid turn-around of highly time critical actions. It is the time critical actions, those often limited by schedule or little advanced warning, that have forced the five member ETO team to develop a design process robust enough to handle their current output level in order to meet their customer s needs. Based on the number of vehicle concepts evaluated over the past year this output level averages to four completed vehicle concepts per day. Each of these completed vehicle concepts includes a full mass breakdown of the vehicle to a tertiary level of subsystem components and a vehicle trajectory analysis to determine optimized payload delivery to specified orbital parameters, flight environments, and delta v capability. A structural analysis of the vehicle to determine flight loads based on the trajectory output, material properties, and geometry of the concept is also performed. Due to working in this fast-paced and sometimes rapidly changing environment, the ETO Team has developed a finely tuned process to maximize their delivery capabilities. The objective of this paper is to describe the interfaces between the three disciplines used in the design process: weights and sizing, trajectory, and structural analysis. The tools used to perform such analysis are INtegrated Rocket Sizing (INTROS), Program to Optimize Simulated Trajectories (POST), and Launch Vehicle Analysis (LVA) respectively. The methods each discipline uses to streamline their particular part of the design process will also be discussed.

Waters, Eric D.↗

Analysis of Parallel Burn Without Crossfeed TSTO RLV Architectures and Comparison to Parallel Burn With Crossfeed and Series Burn Architectures

There are currently three dominant TSTO class architectures. These are Series Burn (SB), Parallel Burn with crossfeed (PBw/cf), and Parallel Burn without crossfeed (PBncf). The goal of this study was to determine what factors uniquely affect PBncf architectures, how each of these factors interact, and to determine from a performance perspective whether a PBncf vehicle could be competitive with a PBw/cf or SB vehicle using equivalent technology and assumptions. In all cases, performance was evaluated on a relative basis for a fixed payload and mission by comparing gross and dry vehicle masses of a closed vehicle. Propellant combinations studied were LOX: LH2 propelled orbiter and booster (HH) and LOX: Kerosene booster with LOX: LH2 orbiter (KH). The study conclusions were: 1) a PBncf orbiter should be throttled as deeply as possible after launch until the staging point. 2) a detailed structural model is essential to accurate architecture analysis and evaluation. 3) a PBncf TSTO architecture is feasible for systems that stage at mach 7. 3a) HH architectures can achieve a mass growth relative to PBw/cf of < 20%. 3b) KH architectures can achieve a mass growth relative to Series Burn of < 20%. 4) center of gravity (CG) control will be a major issue for a PBncf vehicle, due to the low orbiter specific thrust to weight ratio and to the position of the orbiter required to align the nozzle heights at liftoff. 5 ) thrust to weight ratios of 1.3 at liftoff and between 1.0 and 0.9 when staging at mach 7 appear to be close to ideal for PBncf vehicles. 6) performance for all vehicles studied is better when staged at mach 7 instead of mach 5. The study showed that a Series Burn architecture has the lowest gross mass for HH cases, and has the lowest dry mass for KH cases. The potential disadvantages of SB are the required use of an air-start for the orbiter engines and potential CG control issues. A Parallel Burn with crossfeed architecture solves both these problems, but the mechanics of a large bipropellant crossfeed system pose significant technical difficulties. Parallel Burn without crossfeed vehicles start both booster and orbiter engines on the ground and thus avoid both the risk of orbiter air-start and the complexity of a crossfeed system. The drawback is that the orbiter must use 20% to 35% of its propellant before reaching the staging point. This induces a weight penalty in the orbiter in order to carry additional propellant, which causes a further weight penalty in the booster to achieve the same staging point. One way to reduce the orbiter propellant consumption during the first stage is to throttle down the orbiter engines as much as possible. Another possibility is to use smaller or fewer engines. Throttling the orbiter engines soon after liftoff minimizes CG control problems due to a low orbiter liftoff thrust, but may result in an unnecessarily high orbiter thrust after staging. Reducing the number or size of engines size may cause CG control problems and drift at launch. The study suggested possible methods to maximize performance of PBncf vehicle architectures in order to meet mission design requirements.

Smith, Garrett↗