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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 379 records · Page 21
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2022

Root and xylem anatomy varies with root length, root order, soil depth and environment in intermediate wheatgrass (Kernza®) and alfalfa

Abstract Background and Aims Deep roots (i.e. >1 m depth) are important for crops to access water when the topsoil is dry. Root anatomy and hydraulic conductance play important roles in the uptake of soil water, particularly water located deep in the soil. We investigated whether root and xylem anatomy vary as a function of root type, order and length, or with soil depth in roots of two deep-rooted perennial crops: intermediate wheatgrass [Thinopyrum intermedium (Kernza®)] and alfalfa (Medicago sativa). We linked the expression of these anatomical traits to the plants’ capacity to take up water from deep soil layers. Methods Using laser ablation tomography, we compared the roots of the two crops for cortical area, number and size of metaxylem vessels, and their estimated root axial hydraulic conductance (ERAHCe). The deepest roots investigated were located at soil depths of 2.25 and at 3.5 m in the field and in rhizoboxes, respectively. Anatomical differences were characterized along 1-m-long individual roots, among root types and orders, as well as between environmental conditions. Key Results For both crops, a decrease in the number and diameter, or both, of metaxylem vessels along individual root segments and with soil depth in the field resulted in a decrease in ERAHCe. Alfalfa, with a greater number of metaxylem vessels per root throughout the soil profile and, on average, a 4-fold greater ERAHCe, took up more water from the deep soil layers than intermediate wheatgrass. Root anatomical traits were significantly different across root types, classes and growth conditions. Conclusions Root anatomical traits are important tools for the selection of crops with enhanced exploitation of deep soil water. The development and breeding of perennial crops for improved subsoil exploitation will be aided by greater understanding of root phenotypes linked to deep root growth and activity.

Plant Sciences↗
DOE OSTI2025

Time-series elemental imaging reveals CAX-dependent redistribution patterns for anoxia recovery

Flooding-induced oxygen deprivation (anoxia) is a challenge to plant survival, necessitating adaptive mechanisms for recovery. This study investigated elemental redistribution during anoxia recovery using time-series elemental imaging to show changes in nutrient distribution. Focusing on the role of Cation/H + Exchangers (CAXs) in Arabidopsis thaliana, we show how mutants deficient in specific CAX transporters (cax1 and the cax1-4 quadruple mutant) respond to anoxia and metal stress. Mutants showed reduced lipid peroxidation and increased expression of flood-tolerance proteins during recovery. X-ray fluorescence microscopy and laser ablation–inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry were used to show elemental redistribution over time. In wild-type plants (Col-0), post-anoxia elemental distribution resembled the elemental distribution of CAX mutants under normoxic conditions, suggesting that CAX-mediated elemental distribution before anoxia enables faster recovery post-anoxia, rather than affecting remobilization post-anoxia. Although CAX mutants had altered tolerance to excess manganese and copper, leaf metal distribution during metal stress was not altered. Here, these findings introduce the potential utility of time-series elemental imaging to show stress-response phenotypes and the importance of elemental distribution to recovery after anoxia. The novelty of this work lies in resolving spatial distribution patterns in a non-static system to gain insight into mechanisms of stress resilience in plants.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2022

Boiling and cavitation caused by transient heat transfer in superfluid helium-4

Superfluid helium-4 (He II) has been widely utilized as a coolant in various scientific and engineering applications due to its superior heat transfer capability. An important parameter required in the design of many He II based cooling systems is the peak heat flux $q^*$, which refers to the threshold heat flux above which boiling spontaneously occurs in He II. Past experimental and numerical studies showed that $q^*$ increases when the heating time $t_h$ is reduced, which leads to an intuitive expectation that very high $q^*$ may be achievable at sufficiently small $t_h$. Knowledge on how $q^*$ actually behaves at small $t_h$ is important for applications such as laser ablation in He II. Furthermore we present a numerical study on the evolution of the thermodynamic state of the He II in front of a planar heater by solving the He II two-fluid equations of motion. For an applied heat flux, we determine the heating time beyond which the He II near the heater transits to the vapor phase. As such, a curve correlating $q^*$ and $t_h$ can be obtained, which nicely reproduces some relevant experimental data. Surprisingly, we find that there exists a critical peak heat flux $q^*_c$, above which boiling occurs nearly instantaneously regardless of $t_h$. We reveal that the boiling in this regime is essentially cavitation caused by the combined effects of the first-sound and the second-sound waves in He II. Based on this physical picture, an analytical model for $q^*_c$ is developed, which reproduces the simulated $q^*_c$ values at various He II bath temperatures and hydrostatic head pressures. This work represents a major progress in our understanding of transient heat transfer in He II.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2020

2 H(p,γ) 3 He cross section measurement using high-energy-density plasmas

An absolute cross section for the radiative capture reaction 2 H(p,γ) 3 He has been measured at the OMEGA laser facility using inertially confined plasmas. These high-temperature plasmas are created by imploding a fuel-containing capsule using laser ablation, and are advantageous in that they better mimic astrophysical systems. We measure an S factor for this reaction of 0.429 ± 0.026 stat ± 0.072 sys eV b at E c.m . = 16.35 ± 0.40 keV, which is higher than the adopted evaluations. Furthermore, this reaction is important as a source of nuclear energy in protostars and brown dwarfs. It is also a critical reaction during big-bang nucleosynthesis, and an accurate cross section can be used as a constraint on cosmology.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2021

Symmetric Set of Transport Coefficients for Collisional Magnetized Plasma

Braginskii extended magnetohydrodynamics is used to model transport in collisional astrophysical and high energy density plasmas. We show that commonly used approximations to the α ⊥ and β ⊥ transport coefficients [e.g., Epperlein and Haines, Phys. Fluids 29 , 1029 (1986) ] have a subtle inaccuracy that causes significant artificial magnetic dissipation and discontinuities. This is because magnetic transport actually relies on β ∥ - β ⊥ and α ⊥ - α ∥ , rather than α ⊥ and β ⊥ themselves. We provide fit functions that rectify this problem and thus resolve the discrepancies with kinetic simulations in the literature. Furthermore, then implemented in the g orgon code, they reduce the predicted density asymmetry amplitude at laser ablation fronts. Recognizing the importance of α ⊥ - α ∥ and β ∥ - β ⊥ , we recast the set of coefficients. This makes explicit the symmetry of the magnetic and thermal transport, as well as the symmetry of the coefficients themselves.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2025

Laboratory Demonstration of Collisionless Blob Formation via Laser-Produced Plasma Self-Focusing

Strongly localized, propagating plasma density structures that are capable of crossing magnetic field lines are known as “blobs.” Here we demonstrate a novel mechanism for the formation and propagation of an ion gyroradius-scale blob-cavity structure at the interface between a super-Alfvénic laser-produced plasma (LPP) and an ambient magnetized plasma. The LPP self-focuses along the edge of the diamagnetic cavity which results in a dense, jetlike structure as compared to ballistic motion. This collimated flow couples momentum to the ambient plasma through a collisionless process known as Larmor coupling. The Larmor electric fields locally displace the ambient ions forming a blob above the LPP flow. In the region between a gyrating blob and collimated LPP flow, a secondary cavity of expelled magnetic field forms. In conclusion, these findings are supported by particle-in-cell simulations that replicate the blob formation mechanism and provide insight to similar processes in space, astrophysical, and laboratory settings characterized by ion kinetic scales.

Fluorescence spectroscopy↗
DOE OSTI2022

In-Situ Nanoscale Focusing of Extreme Ultraviolet Solid-State High Harmonics

Extreme ultraviolet light delivering radiation with a wavelength shorter than approximately 100 nm is now available from solid-state sources. However, despite exceptional progress, efficient focusing of extreme ultraviolet photons to their ultimate diffraction limit remains a formidable challenge because of the precision of the focusing by curved, optical surfaces. Here we integrate coherent short-wavelength high-order harmonics from a MgO crystal, with a high-numerical-aperture, nanostructured, focusing element etched onto the surface of the crystal itself. We focus extreme ultraviolet light, seventh harmonic of an 800-nm laser, with a zone plate of numerical aperture 0.35, down to a waist radius of 150 nm, with 18% focusing efficiency. The estimated intensity approaches 10 7 W/cm 2 . Future developments may demonstrate nanoscale laser ablation and miniaturization of extreme ultraviolet coherent sources on a chip.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2022

Polished diamond X-ray lenses

High-quality bi-concave 2D focusing diamond X-ray lenses of apex-radius R = 100 µm produced via laser-ablation and improved via mechanical polishing are presented here. Both for polished and unpolished individual lenses and for stacks of ten lenses, the remaining figure errors determined using X-ray speckle tracking are shown and these results are compared with those of commercial R = 50 µm beryllium lenses that have similar focusing strength and physical aperture. For two stacks of ten diamond lenses (polished and unpolished) and a stack of eleven beryllium lenses, this paper presents measured 2D beam profiles out of focus and wire scans to obtain the beam size in the focal plane. These results are complemented with small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) measurements of a polished and an unpolished diamond lens. Again, this is compared with the SAXS of a beryllium lens. The polished X-ray lenses show similar figure errors to commercially available beryllium lenses. While the beam size in the focal plane is comparable to that of the beryllium lenses, the SAXS signal of the polished diamond lenses is considerably lower.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗
DOE OSTI2021

Steam-created grain boundaries for methane C–H activation in palladium catalysts

Defects may display high reactivity because the specific arrangement of atoms differs from crystalline surfaces. We demonstrate that high-temperature steam pretreatment of palladium catalysts provides a 12-fold increase in the mass-specific reaction rate for carbon-hydrogen (C–H) activation in methane oxidation compared with conventional pretreatments. Through a combination of experimental and theoretical methods, we demonstrate that an increase in the grain boundary density through crystal twinning is achieved during the steam pretreatment and oxidation and is responsible for the increased reactivity. The grain boundaries are highly stable during reaction and show specific rates at least two orders of magnitude higher than other sites on the palladium on alumina (Pd/Al 2 O 3 ) catalysts. Theoretical calculations show that strain introduced by the defective structure can enhance C–H bond activation. Introduction of grain boundaries through laser ablation led to further rate increases.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2025

Mid-day photomixotrophy by Roseiflexus spp. and implications for the 13 C content of hot spring cyanobacterial mats

Microbial mats inhabiting extreme environments have been studied as modern analogs of stromatolites. Mats in Octopus Spring and Mushroom Spring, Yellowstone National Park, are predominated by unicellular photoautotrophic cyanobacteria (Synechococcus spp.), which are thought to cross-feed filamentous photoheterotrophic bacteria (mainly Roseiflexus spp.), except under early morning anoxic conditions when Roseiflexus spp. have been shown to fix dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC). Transcription patterns, however, suggest that Roseiflexus spp. may perform photomixotrophy, in which DIC is incorporated together with organic compounds during the daytime. We investigated the roles played by Synechococcus spp. and Roseiflexus spp. in DIC and organic matter uptake in mid-day light and oxic mats. Mass spectrometry was used to show that 13 C-bicarbonate uptake under infrared (IR) light (utilized by anoxygenic phototrophs) or visible-minus-blue light (V-B) (used by cyanobacteria) was about two-thirds and one-third, respectively, of that incorporated in full light. Laser-ablation mass spectrometry analysis demonstrated that 13 C incorporation under V-B light was restricted to the uppermost portion of the mat, whereas 13 C incorporation under IR light was maximal in deeper mat layers. 13 C-acetate, -propionate, -lactate, and -glycolate were incorporated to an equal or greater extent under IR and full light. Incorporation of 13 C into peptides showed that both Synechococcus spp. and Roseiflexus spp. were active in DIC uptake, whereas Roseiflexus spp. exhibited greater uptake of 13 C-organic acids, especially glycolate and lactate, into peptides. Peptides of proteins of the 3-hydroxypropionate pathway were labeled. Thus, Roseiflexus spp. appears to exhibit photomixotrophy throughout the day.

Roseiflexus↗
DOE OSTI2022

Nanoscale trace-element zoning in pyrite framboids and implications for paleoproxy applications

Pyrite framboids (spherical masses of nanoscale pyrite) are among the earliest textures of pyrite to form in sediments. It has been proposed that their trace-element (TE) contents can be used to track the TE composition of the water column in which they formed. However, it is not clear how these TEs are associated with the framboidal pyrite grains. For instance, it is important to know whether they are incorporated uniformly or are enriched in different regions of the framboid. Here, we used high-resolution scanning transmission electron microscopy to identify chemical zoning within pyrite framboids. We found that initial, nanoscale pyrite euhedral crystals, which make up the volumetric majority of the framboids, are covered/infilled by later pyrite that templates on the earlier pyrite. Further, this later pyrite is enriched in TEs, suggesting that many TEs are incorporated in pyrite relatively late (during early diagenesis; not in the water column). This observation suggests that although chemical analyses of pyrite framboids may provide ocean-water chemistry trends through time, the details are complex. Specifically, the TEs found in pyrite may be linked to adsorption onto organic matter, detrital material, and authigenic minerals such as Fe- and Mn-oxide phases followed by desorption in the sediments or release via dissolution and incorporation into pyrite as overgrowths on the initial nanoscale euhedral crystals that make up framboids. While the use of pyrite chemistry to understand past ocean conditions remains promising, and even diagenetic additions may not preclude the utility of pyrite for reconstructing ancient ocean conditions, care must be taken in interpretations because the end concentration may be influenced by diagenesis.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2021

Intense quasi-monochromatic resonant harmonic generation in the multiphoton ionization regime

Resonant high-order harmonics, which result in quasimonochromatic extreme ultraviolet light with coherent intensity enhancement involving autoionizing resonances, have been demonstrated from laser-ablated plumes in the tunnel-ionization regime. Here, we demonstrate resonant harmonics in the previously unexplored multiphoton-ionization regime. We demonstrate an intense resonant harmonic from gallium with an intensity enhancement ratio of 714 relative to the neighboring harmonics, achieved without the need for extreme ultraviolet filtering methods, thus preventing a typical photon flux loss of more than 70%. Three-dimensional time-dependent Schrödinger equation calculations reveal that this increase in the enhancement ratio is due to the lowelectron wave packet spreading in the multiphoton-ionization regime. These results reveal a method for increasing the intensity and monochromaticity of intense multimicrojoule femtosecond extreme ultraviolet light and will also facilitate understanding of the involvement of autoionizing resonances in generating resonant harmonics in the multiphoton-ionization regime.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2020

The Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies (CINT)

The Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies (CINT) offers world-leading scientific expertise and specialized capabilities to create, characterize, and integrate nanostructured materials at a range of length scales, from nano- to meso-scale. CINT helps scientists perform cutting-edge research in the areas of nanoscience and nanotechnology, providing FREE ACCESS for nonproprietary research. CINT facilities are open to the international research community, including government, academic, and industry researchers. One of CINT's core research areas is in-situ S/TEM experiments. Early capabilities focused on electrical and electrochemical property measurements of materials during high-resolution imaging. More recently, the staff has expanded the available techniques to include gaseous environments (ETEM), liquid-cell, mechanics, ion irradiation, laser ablation, cryogenic, heating, and air-free transfer. In-situ investigations have focused on coupled structure-property measurements on real materials, with the CINT user community expanding many of the in-situ method developments.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2020

Rapid Patterning and Advanced Device Structures for Low Cost Manufacturable Crystalline Si IBC Cells

Recent record efficiency Si cells have had an interdigitated back contact (IBC) design where both positive and negative contacts are fabricated on the back side of the Si wafer. Many industry groups have investigated IBC cells but used photolithography to pattern the rear contacts although it is considered impractical for low cost, high volume manufacturing. Alternative patterning methods using lasers and mechanical masking have been utilized in fabrication of patterned regions in IBC Si solar cells to replace photolithography. Another exciting advance in Si solar cell technology has been replacing the high temperature diffusion of doped regions inside the crystalline Si wafer with low temperature deposition of very thin layers of doped amorphous hydrogenated Si (a-Si:H) on the Si wafer. This is called a Si heterojunction (HJ) device. The a-Si:H provides excellent passivation of surface defects and has produced the highest open circuit voltages (VOC) of any Si solar cell device structure. The Institute of Energy Conversion (IEC) demonstrated the first IBC-HJ solar cell combining these two strategies in 2007 and has fabricated IBC-HJ cells with 20% efficiency using three photolithography steps. Despite the demonstrated efficiency potential of this device by industry groups (>26%) there is no commercial production because of the challenges of patterning and processing the structure in an industrial environment. Our work sought to address that challenge. The objective of this 3 year project was to develop the processing for the IBC-HJ Si solar cell using lasers for patterning and contact formation instead of photolithography. Laser patterning enables rapid, contactless manufacturing of patterned regions. We intensively studied laser fired contacts, laser patterning of the a-Si multi-layer stacks and metal layers and the use of plasma shadow masks. After an exhaustive focus in the first year on the laser fired emitter (LFE) and contact (LFC), we were unable to achieve VOC greater than 660 mV, compared to the 720 mV required to meet our milestones. We discovered that an additional issue with our original IBC structure was the presence of an inversion layer at the back surface connecting the p and n regions which reduced the VOC and fill factor (FF). We developed innovative methods for characterizing the inversion layer. These two limitations in the original design lead to development of a new IBC-HJ process sequence and device structure which we called Plasma Masked Laser Processed (PMLP). It retained the original high efficiency features including manufacturability. The LFC was replaced with a standard n-type a-Si HJ contact. The inversion layer was eliminated by replacing the previous p-type stack in the gap with an n-type or SiN stack. The PMLP used laser ablation of a multi-layer a-Si stack followed by chemical etching to open the n-contact. It required deposition of a patterned stack through a mask in the plasma deposition chamber. This turned out to be a source of significant problems due to inevitable unwanted deposition ‘leakage’ under the mask. This formed a blocking contact on the emitter which significantly reduced Voc and FF. Several iterations in PMLP device structure and chemical etching steps resulted in a large improvements, e.g. the efficiency increasing from 3 to 15% and Voc from 450 to 660 mV but they were unable to completely eliminate it. The best IBC-HJ device we fabricated had only 15% efficiency. For perspective, our standard FHJ devices had 20% efficiency.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2021

Production-Ready CsPbBr3 Module Fabrication

The purpose of this SBIR was to work on evaluation, development, and testing of CsPbBr3 semiconductors for use in commercial gamma-ray detection. The overarching goal was to demonstrate the capability to fabricate functional detectors through resources available to H3D, Inc in pursuit of an alternative to CdZnTe for room-temperature semiconductor detectors. Throughout the project, CdZnTe crystals from Redlen were used as a control group to demonstrate whether the fabrication processes could produce reasonable results. The CdZnTe crystals were diced into roughly 6 mm x 6 mm x 4.5 mm pieces and electrodes were evaporated onto planar faces. In one case, pixels were patterned through a laser ablation method; in the other, a rudimentary pixel shadow-mask was fabricated, and the pixels were generated in the evaporation process. A 16 mm x 16 mm x 14 mm CsPbBr3 crystal was diced into four smaller crystals. These CsPbBr3 had electrodes applied in a similar way to the CdZnTe samples with a rudimentary mask used for pixels on the cathode. Tested CdZnTe pieces were found to generally function with reasonable, low-energy performance. CsPbBr3 crystals were found to be non-functional under forward bias with a large dark-current. A separate attempt, using reverse bias in a non-H3D, Inc test system, observed a dark current similar to previous observations, and some active pixels but no waveforms were observed.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2022

Reduced diffusion and enhanced retention of multiple radionuclides from pore structure characterization of barrier materials for enhanced repository performance

Fluid flow and chemical transport in porous media are the macroscopic consequences of pore structure, which integrates geometry (e.g., pore size and surface area, pore-size distribution) and topology (e.g., pore connectivity). Low-permeability geological media whose pores are poorly interconnected will exhibit the characteristics of anomalous diffusion and sample size-dependent effective porosity, which will strongly impact long-term net diffusion and retention of radionuclides in geological repository settings involving different host rocks and barrier materials. A suite of innovative and complementary experimental approaches is utilized to study the microscopic pore structure and macroscopic fluid flow & chemical transport for a range of host rocks and barrier materials, in addition to standard clay minerals and reference rocks. With a particular focus on quantifying the presence and magnitude of “isolated” pores for a reduced effective porosity in low-permeability geomedia, the integrated methodologies for basic properties and pore structure characterization of these geomedia include X-ray diffraction, thin section petrography, grain size distribution, water immersion porosimetry after vacuum-pulling for full saturation, mercury intrusion porosimetry, nitrogen physisorption, scanning electron microscopy, X-ray computed tomography, and (ultra-)small angle neutron (X-ray) scattering. In addition, custom-designed gas diffusion, tracer recipe involving a range of anionic and cationic chemicals with subsequent analyses by laser ablation and inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry, along with batch sorption, column transport, and imbibition tests were conducted for coupled effects of pore structure and chemical retention/transport. From the perspectives of pore structure in conjunction with multiple and complementary approaches to examining a range of sample sizes under different observational scales, we find that the poor pore connectivity is prevalent in low-permeability media (mudstone and crystalline rock) that is related to geological processes (e.g., compaction, diagenesis and thermal maturation). For example, the deep and organic matter-rich mudstones have a much smaller effective porosity than the total porosity (as a result of poor pore connectivity) and associated diffusion coefficient, and the effective porosity & diffusion coefficients are also dependent upon the sample sizes used in the measurement. Similarly, most of the pore space in the shallow mudstone is also controlled by pore-throat diameters in the 5-50 nm range of intergranular pore types from its fine-grained nature, but with an overall good pore connectivity. However, the nm-sized pore space (physically pore-network architecture) and strong sorption capacities (chemical retention from clay minerals) of both shallow and deep mudstones lead to the synergistic retention of cationic radionuclides and their utilities as effective host rocks and barrier materials. Our unique approaches of studying how the micro-scale pore structure affect macro-scale fluid flow, diffusion & retention, and chemical transport produce improved mechanistic understanding, and realistic quantification, of diffusion and retention of typical radionuclides in a range of generic host rocks and barrier materials (clay/shale, salt, crystalline rock, and tuff), with the overall results leading to scientifically-based understanding of enhanced isolation (from both diffusion and retention) of radionuclides and improved confidence on the long-term performance of geological repository to store high-level radioactive wastes. In addition to the training of 25 undergraduates, graduates, and postdocs of UTA, the scientists (organizations) involved in performing this work (e.g., discussion, sample sharing, and operation of SANS and SAXS instruments) include Ed Matteo, Yifeng Wang, and Kristopher Kuhlman (Sandia National Laboratories), Jens Birkholzer, Liange Zheng, Tim Kneafsey, and Sharon Borglin (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory), Mavrik Zavarin (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory), Yukio Tachi and Yuta Fukatsu (Japan Atomic Energy Agency), Mieke de Craen (Euridice, Belgium), Markus Bleuel (NIST), Wei-Ren Chen, Gergely Nagy, Changwoo Do, William Heller, Larry Anovitz, and Kenneth Littrell (ORNL), as well as Jan Illvsky, Ivan Kuzmenko, Ju-Sang Park and Jon Almers (ANL). Key deliverables include a total of 13 peer-reviewed journal articles (nine published and three under review), 23 presentations at scientific conferences (AAPG, AAPG Southwest Section, AGU, Asian Clay Conference, GSA, GSA South-Central Section, IHLRWM, InterPore, International Conference on Chemistry and Migration Behavior of Actinides and Fission Products in the Geosphere, International Conference on Coupled Processes in Fractured Geological Media: Observation, Modeling and Application), and academic institutions (UTA, New Mexico State University; University of Poitiers, France; University of Helsinki, Finland; Uppsala University, Sweden; Istanbul Technical University, Turkey) and other organizations (Andra, France; Posiva Oy, Finland).

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗
DOE OSTI2021

Oak Ridge National Laboratory Official TM Cover: Development and Qualification of Tungsten Reference Materials for LA-ICP-MS

Reference materials have been developed to provide areal density measurements of tungsten that is deposited on graphite when using laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS). Several reference materials of varying areal densities have been produced using a magnetron sputtering, thin film deposition technique. With multiple reference materials that have varying areal densities, a calibration curve has been developed for translating the detector response of an ICP-MS into a quantitative measurement. These results provide the opportunity to make calibrated comparisons across graphite samples that were exposed to tungsten transport experiments for nuclear fusion research. In addition, these methods may be applied to provide individual areal density measurements for the five unique isotopes of tungsten. It is found that areal density measurements via LA-ICP-MS agree with characterization for the same samples when using the more traditional Rutherford backscattering ion beam technique. Qualification of these reference materials was completed using ion beam laboratories at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Sandia National Laboratory.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗