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At least 577 records · Page 32

A fine pore-preserved deep neural network for porosity analytics of a high burnup U-10Zr metallic fuel

Abstract U-10 wt.% Zr (U-10Zr) metallic fuel is the leading candidate for next-generation sodium-cooled fast reactors. Porosity is one of the most important factors that impacts the performance of U-10Zr metallic fuel. The pores generated by the fission gas accumulation can lead to changes in thermal conductivity, fuel swelling, Fuel-Cladding Chemical Interaction (FCCI) and Fuel-Cladding Mechanical Interaction (FCMI). Therefore, it is crucial to accurately segment and analyze porosity to understand the U-10Zr fuel system to design future fast reactors. To address the above issues, we introduce a workflow to process and analyze multi-source Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) image data. Moreover, an encoder-decoder-based, deep fully convolutional network is proposed to segment pores accurately by integrating the residual unit and the densely-connected units. Two SEM 250 × field of view image datasets with different formats are utilized to evaluate the new proposed model’s performance. Sufficient comparison results demonstrate that our method quantitatively outperforms two popular deep fully convolutional networks. Furthermore, we conducted experiments on the third SEM 2500 × field of view image dataset, and the transfer learning results show the potential capability to transfer the knowledge from low-magnification images to high-magnification images. Finally, we use a pre-trained network to predict the pores of SEM images in the whole cross-sectional image and obtain quantitative porosity analysis. Our findings will guide the SEM microscopy data collection efficiently, provide a mechanistic understanding of the U-10Zr fuel system and bridge the gap between advanced characterization to fuel system design.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Use of a Mylar filter to eliminate vacuum ultraviolet pulse pileup in low-energy x-ray measurements

We describe a method to reduce vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) pulse pileup (PPU) in x-ray pulse-height Silicon Drift Detector (SDD) signals. An Amptek FAST SDD, with C1 (Si 3 N 4 ) window, measures bremsstrahlung emitted from PFRC-2 plasma to extract the electron temperature (T e ) and density (n e ). The C1 window has low transmissivity for photons with energy below 200 eV though will transmit some VUV and soft x-ray photons, which PFRC-2 plasmas abundantly emit. Multi-VUV-photon PPU contaminates the interpretation of x rays with energy > 100 eV, particularly in a low-energy exponential tail. The predicted low transmissivity of ~1 μm thick Mylar [polyethylene terephthalate (PET)] to photons of energy <100 eV led to the selection of Mylar as the candidate filter to reduce VUV PPU. Experiments were conducted on an x-ray tube with a graphite target and on a quasi-Maxwellian tenuous plasma (n e ~ 10 9 cm –3 ) with effective temperatures reaching 1500 eV. A Mylar filter thickness of 850 nm is consistent with the results. The Mylar-filter-equipped SDD was then used on the PFRC-2 plasma, showing a substantial reduction in the low-energy x-ray signal, supporting our hypothesis of the importance of VUV PPU. Here, we describe the modeling and experiments performed to characterize the effect of the Mylar filter on SDD measurements.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

Introduction to Special Section: Machine Learning for Image-based Geologic Interpretation

Image-based geological interpretation has been a labor-intensive and time-consuming process because it requires well-trained geoscientists to identify geological structures, features, and textures from various types of images. These images include scanning electron microscopic images, optical microscopic images, optical photos, resistivity images, seismic volumes, remote-sensing images, etc. With fast-evolving machine learning (ML) technology and computing power in recent decades, computers can achieve nearhuman-level to super-human-level performance with scalable high efficiency in the computer vision field. These technological revolutions facilitated image-based geological interpretation in petroleum exploration and production. For example, a fault picking method applied to 3-D seismic volume data using deep learning can achieve superior performance in comparison to conventional auto-picking methods. In addition, under the new normal of low oil prices, the petroleum industry seeks cost-effective strategies such as automating traditionally labor-intensive processes. Nevertheless, the potential of applying ML to geological image interpretation is still facing a few key challenges including data scarcity, data distribution, poor data and/or label quality, data leakage, learning algorithms, model architecture, training methodologies, testing and evaluation metrics, hyper-parameters optimization, model drift, production deployment, and the like.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗

AI-Driven Detector Design for the EIC (Final Technical Report)

We developed an optimization workflow based on DNN-based fast-simulation and reconstruction algorithms. We used these methods to advance the design of calorimeter systems for the Electron-Ion Collider (EIC). This DNN-driven optimization provides a blueprint for integrating gradient-based methods into detector-design workflows. All software pipelines and methods have been released publicly and incorporated into the EIC collaboration’s physics studies, broadening their impact. Three journal articles detailing the methods developed here serve as a reference for the design and optimal use of next generation high-granularity calorimeter systems in nuclear and particle physics.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗

The Complexity and Challenges of Irradiation-Induced Phase Instability Phenomenon in Nuclear Power Plant Components

High energy irradiation by neutrons or ions of metastable austenitic 300-series steels appears to initiate formation of bcc-phases with different morphology and elemental composition compared to that of retained ferrite. Extensive formation of specific Fe-rich ferrite was observed on the grain boundaries of annealed Russian steel 12Cr18Ni10Ti, an analog of AISI 321, after irradiation in the center-core region of sodium-cooled BN-350 fast reactor (SFR) doses up to 57 dpa at ~1×10-6dpa/sec. The ferrite fraction determined from scanning electron microscopy (SEM) closely matched the magnetic fraction determined using a ferritscope confirmed by X-ray diffraction analysis and selected area diffraction patterns. Chemical composition of the secondary phases was determined by energy dispersive X-ray analysis using transmission electron microscope, showing Fe-rich ferrite domains. Fe-ion irradiation (2.3 MeV) was used to study the accumulation of ferrite and martensite phases at higher dpa rates. The very high etchability of these ferrite particles in alcohol-based solutions may signal a very high etching in hot water, leading to accelerated intergranular cracking, especially upon long-term exposure during extended plant lifetimes.

D a, Merezhko↗

Neutrino fast flavor instability in three dimensions for a neutron star merger

The flavor evolution of neutrinos in core collapse supernovae and neutron star mergers is a critically important unsolved problem in astrophysics. Following the electron flavor evolution of the neutrino system is essential for calculating the thermodynamics of compact objects as well as the chemical elements they produce. Accurately accounting for flavor transformation in these environments is challenging for a number of reasons, including the large number of neutrinos involved, the small spatial scale of the oscillation, and the nonlinearity of the system. We take a step in addressing these issues by presenting a method which describes the neutrino fields in terms of angular moments. We apply our moment method to neutron star merger conditions and show it simulates fast flavor neutrino transformation in a region where this phenomenon is expected to occur. By comparing with particle-in-cell calculations we show that the moment method is able to capture the three phases of growth, saturation, and decoherence, and correctly predicts the lengthscale of the fastest growing fluctuations in the neutrino field.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Photofield electron emission from an optical fiber nanotip

In this work, we demonstrate a nanotip electron source based on a graded index multimode silica optical fiber, tapered at one end to a radius of curvature r ~50 nm and coated with a thin film of gold. We report observation of laser-induced electron photoemission at tip bias potentials below the onset of dark field emission. Single-photon photofield emission is identified as the emission mechanism that exhibits fast switching times with an upper limit on the order of 1 μ s. The explored fiber optic nanotips are flexible back-illuminated emitters, which can be operated in continuous wave and pulsed modes using lasers with photon energies in the visible range or higher. The mechanical flexibility of the source can facilitate externally controlled positioning. Multiple, individually addressable, nanotips may be assembled into a bundle for applications such as computational electron ghost imaging.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

"BAAE" instabilities observed without fast ion drive

The instability that was previously identified as a fast-ion driven beta-induced Alfv´en-acoustic eigenmode (BAAE) in DIII-D was misidentified. In a dedicated experiment, low frequency modes (LFM) with characteristic “Christmas light” patterns of brief instability linked to the safety factor evolution occur in plasmas with electron temperature T e ≳ 2.1 keV but modest beta. To isolate the importance of different driving gradients on these modes, the electron cyclotron heating power and 80 keV, sub-Alfv´enic neutral beams are altered for 50-100 ms durations in reproducible discharges. Although beta-induced Alfv´en eigenmodes and reversed-shear Alfv´en eigenmodes stabilize when beam injection ceases (as expected for a fast-ion driven instability), the low frequency modes that were called BAAEs persist. Data mining reveals that characteristic LFM instabilities can occur in discharges with no beam heating but strong electron cyclotron heating. A large database of over 1000 discharges shows that LFMs are only unstable in plasmas with hot electrons but modest overall beta. The experimental LFMs have low frequencies (comparable to diamagnetic drift frequencies) in the plasma frame, occur near the minimum of the safety factor q min , and appear when q min is close to rational values. In conclusion, theoretical analysis suggests that the LFMs are a low frequency reactive instability of predominately Alfv´enic polarization.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

Overview of the MAST Upgrade physics programme: testing novel concepts at low aspect ratio to inform future devices

The research programme performed on the Mega Amp Spherical Tokamak (MAST) Upgrade experiment has made significant advances in developing the physics understanding of low aspect ratio tokamaks in support of the operation of ITER and design of fusion powerplants. High performance plasma scenarios have been developed to facilitate a broad programme of experiments, in which confinement is constrained by the presence of m/n = 2/1 modes that cause substantial losses of fast ions. The onset of these modes coincides with the q = 2 surface residing in a local minimum in the toroidal current density profile. The maximum electron temperature at the pedestal top, T e,ped is limited with gas fuelling to ∼350 eV to maintain regular ELMs; higher T e,ped results in a transition to a non-stationary ELM-free regime. The operational space of spherical tokamaks has been expanded into small and ELM-free regimes. Strong shaping of the last closed flux surface can induce a transition from large to small ELMs, and ELM suppression with resonant magnetic perturbations has been observed for the first time in a low aspect ratio tokamak. Negative triangularity shaping has induced a transition from ELMy H-mode to a high-performance L-mode regime for the first time in a low aspect ratio tokamak. In studies of fast ion confinement, losses of fast particles due to Global Alfvén Eigenmodes have been identified. Interactions between fast ions generated by off-axis neutral beam injection and thermal neutrals can result in significant losses of fast ions. Experiments with on- and off-axis neutral beam injection exhibit a flux pumping mechanism, where the central safety factor is held to ∼1 in the absence of sawteeth. In studies of pedestal physics, it has been found that elevated main chamber neutral pressures result in an increase in the electron density and reduction in the temperature at the pedestal top. Advances in understanding plasma exhaust include the integration of a high-performance plasma core with detached outer divertors in the X-point target configuration. A newly commissioned lower divertor cryopump reduces the lower divertor neutral pressure by up to 50%, with minimal effect on the main chamber or upper divertor. New measurements and SOLPS-ITER simulations emphasise the importance of plasma–neutral interactions on divertor detachment in the conditions accessible in experiments. Real-time control of the ionisation front location in both divertor chambers independently has been demonstrated in double null experiments, enabled by the tightly baffled divertor chambers.

MAST Upgrade↗

Small Polarons and Surface Defects in Metal Oxide Photocatalysts Studied Using XUV Reflection–Absorption Spectroscopy

In photocatalytic transition metal oxides, the surface electronic structure and carrier kinetics are complicated by both charge trapping at defects and self-trapping by small polaron formation. These effects are specific to both the material and the type of defect or surface states involved. Here we review recent studies on ultrafast photoexcited charge carrier dynamics at the surfaces of alpha-Fe 2 O 3 (hematite) and NiO and at the interface of a alpha-Fe 2 O 3 /NiO heterojunction using extreme ultraviolet (XUV) reflection-absorption spectroscopy. We study dynamics of small polaron formation at hematite surfaces showing that the rate of carrier self-trapping is slower than in the bulk due to a greater lattice reorganization energy required for surface polaron formation. We also show that surface dynamics of hematite can be systematically tuned to control carrier transport properties through surface functionalization. To better understand the impact of defects on carrier events, we study charge carrier recombination of NiO. It is shown that O vacancies have no detrimental effect on carrier lifetime while grain boundaries cause fast recombination. Finally, we study a model heterojunction consisting of alpha-Fe 2 O 3 and NiO and find that interfacial charge transfer across these two materials occurs by a two-step mechanism where the interfacial electric field drives fast exciton dissociation followed by hole injection from alpha-Fe2O3 to NiO. Finally, these examples illustrate future opportunities to observe surface electron dynamics in photocatalytic materials with element and chemical state resolution using ultrafast XUV spectroscopy.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Side chain engineering in indacenodithiophene- co -benzothiadiazole and its impact on mixed ionic–electronic transport properties

Organic semiconductors are increasingly being decorated with hydrophilic solubilising chains to create materials that can function as mixed ionic–electronic conductors, which are promising candidates for interfacing biological systems with organic electronics. While numerous organic semiconductors, including p- and n-type materials, small molecules and polymers, have been successfully tailored to encompass mixed conduction properties, common to all these systems is that they have been semicrystalline materials. Here, we explore how side chain engineering in the nano-crystalline indacenodithiophene-co-benzothiadiazole (IDTBT) polymer can be used to instil ionic transport properties and how this in turn influences the electronic transport properties. This allows us to ultimately assess the mixed ionic–electronic transport properties of these new IDTBT polymers using the organic electrochemical transistor as the testing platform. Using a complementary experimental and computational approach, we find that polar IDTBT derivatives can be infiltrated by water and solvated ions, they can be electrochemically doped efficiently in aqueous electrolyte with fast doping kinetics, and upon aqueous swelling there is no deterioration of the close interchain contacts that are vital for efficient charge transport in the IDTBT system. Despite these promising attributes, mixed ionic–electronic charge transport properties are surprisingly poor in all the polar IDTBT derivatives. Albeit a “negative” result, this finding clearly contradicts established side chain engineering rules for mixed ionic–electronic conductors, which motivated our continued investigation of this system. We eventually find this anomalous behaviour to be caused by increasing energetic disorder in the polymers with increasing polar side chain content. We have investigated computationally how the polar side chain motifs contribute to this detrimental energetic inhomogeneity and ultimately use the learnings to propose new molecular design criteria for side chains that can facilitate ion transport without impeding electronic transport.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Phase Transformation Enables Stable Cycling and Fast Charging of Cation-Disordered Rocksalt Cathodes

Developing high-capacity, long-life cathodes is critical to overcome the energy limitations of current Li-ion batteries. In this work, we report a Li-excess cation-disordered rocksalt (DRX) cathode, Li 1.167 Mn0.7Ti 0.133 O 1.8 F 0.2 (M 0.7 F 0.2 ), which demonstrates excellent electrochemical performance. This cathode delivers a capacity approaching 250 mAh g –1 and maintains 200 mAh g –1 over 200 cycles with an average discharge voltage of 3.1 V at 2 V cutoff. The formation of a spinel-like phase during cycling enables fast charging, achieving over 240 mAh g –1 at 2C for 100 cycles. Combined X-ray absorption spectroscopy and transmission electron microscopy reveal reversible electrochemical redox processes and stable Mn local structures during 2 V discharge. These results highlight the potential of DRX cathodes for next-generation Li-ion batteries and provide insights into strategies to overcome kinetic limitations and optimize the cathode-electrolyte interface.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗

Characterization of carrier behavior in photonically excited 6H silicon carbide exhibiting fast, high voltage, bulk transconductance properties

Abstract Unabated, worldwide trends in CO 2 production project growth to > 43-BMT per year over the next two decades. Efficient power electronics are crucial to fully realizing the CO 2 mitigating benefits of a worldwide smart grid (~ 18% reduction for the United States alone). Even state-of-the-art SiC high voltage junction devices are inefficient because of slow transition times (~ 0.5-μs) and limited switching rates at high voltage (~ 20-kHz at ≥ 15-kV) resulting from the intrinsically limited charge carrier drift speed (< 2 × 10 7 -cm-s −1 ). Slow transition times and limited switch rates waste energy through transition loss and hysteresis loss in external magnetic components. Bulk conduction devices, where carriers are generated and controlled nearly simultaneously throughout the device volume, minimize this loss. Such devices are possible using below bandgap excitation of semi-insulating (SI) SiC single crystals. We explored carrier dynamics with a 75-fs single wavelength pump/supercontinuum probe and a modified transient spectroscopy technique and also demonstrated a new class of efficient, high-speed, high-gain, bi-directional, optically-controlled transistor-like power device. At a performance level six times that of existing devices, for the first time we demonstrated prototype operation at multi-10s of kW and 20-kV, 125-kHz in a bulk conduction transistor-like device using direct photon-carrier excitation with below bandgap light.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Multi-angle Precession Electron Diffraction (MAPED): A Versatile Approach to 4D-STEM Precession

Precession of a converged beam during acquisition of a 4D-STEM dataset improves strain, orientation, and phase mapping accuracy by averaging over continuous angles of illumination. Precession experiments usually rely on integrated systems, where automatic alignments lead to fast, high-quality results. The dependence of these experiments on specific hardware and software is evident even when switching to nonintegrated detectors on a precession tool, as experimental set-up becomes challenging and time-consuming. Here, we introduce multi-angle precession electron diffraction (MAPED): a method to perform electron diffraction by collecting sequential 4D-STEM scans at different incident beam tilts. The multiple diffraction datasets are averaged together postacquisition, resulting in a single dataset that minimizes the impact of the curvature and orientation of the Ewald sphere relative to the crystal under study. Our results demonstrate that even four additional tilts improved measurement of material properties, namely strain and orientation, as compared to single-tilt 4D-STEM experiments. We show the versatility and flexibility of our MAPED approach with data collected on a number of microscopes with different hardware configurations and a variety of detectors.

4D-STEM↗

Biexciton and trion dynamics in InP/ZnSe/ZnS quantum dots

Transient absorption (TA) and time-resolved photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopies have been used to elucidate the hole tunneling and Auger dynamics in biexcitons and negative trions in high-quality InP/ZnSe/ZnS quantum dots (QDs). In a previous paper [Nguyen et al., J. Phys. Chem. C 125, 15405–15414 (2021)], we showed that under high-intensity photoexcitation, two types of biexcitons are formed: those having two conduction band electrons and two valence band holes (designated as an XX state) and those having two conduction band electrons, one valence band hole, and an additional trapped hole (designated as an XT state). In the present paper, we show that both types of biexcitons can undergo Auger processes, with those of the XT state being a factor of four to five slower than those of the XX state. In addition, the trapped holes can undergo tunneling into the valence band, converting an XT state to an XX state. The relative amplitudes of the fast (XX) and slow (XT) components are different in the TA and PL kinetics, and these differences can be quantitatively understood in terms of oscillator strengths and electron–hole overlap integrals of each state. XT to XX hole tunneling rates are obtained from the comparison of the XT state lifetimes with those of the negative trions. This comparison shows that the tunneling times decrease with decreasing core size and shell thickness. Furthermore, these times are about 2 ns for the thinnest shell red-emitting QDs and decrease to 330 ps for QDs that luminesce in the yellow.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Low power implementation of high frequency SiPM readout for Cherenkov and scintillation detectors in TOF-PET

State-of-the-art (SoA) electronic readout for silicon photomultiplier (SiPM)-based scintillation detectors that demonstrate experimental limits in achievable coincidence time resolution (CTR) leverage low noise, high frequency signal processing to facilitate a single photon time response that is near the limit of the SiPMs architecture. This readout strategy can optimally exploit fast luminescence and prompt photon populations, and promising measurements show detector concepts employing this readout can greatly advance PET detector CTR, relative to SoA in clinical systems. However, the technique employs power hungry components which make the electronics chain impractical for channel-dense time-of-flight (TOF)-PET detectors. We have developed and tested a low noise and high frequency readout circuit which is performant at low power and consists of discrete elements with small footprints, making it feasible for integration into TOF-PET detector prototypes. A 3 × 3 mm 2 Broadcom SiPM with this readout chain exhibited sub-100 ps single photon time resolution at 10 mW of power consumption, with a relatively minor performance degradation to 120 ± 2 ps FWHM at 5 mW. CTR measurements with 3 × 3 × 20 mm 3 LYSO and fast LGSO scintillators demonstrated 127 ± 3 ps and 113 ± 2 ps FWHM at optimal power operation and 133 ± 2 ps and 121 ± 3 ps CTR at 5 mW. BGO crystals 3 × 3 × 20 mm 3 in size show 271 ± 5 ps FWHM CTR (1174 ± 14 ps full-width-at-tenth-maximum (FWTM)) at optimal power dissipation and 289 ± 8 ps (1296 ± 33 ps FWTM) at 5 mW. The compact and low power readout topology that achieves this performance thereby offers a platform to greatly advance PET system CTR and also opportunities to provide high performance TOF-PET at reduced material cost.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

Cation-Diffusive Carbon Interlayers Stabilize Na Metal and Double the Current in Na-S Redox-Flow Batteries for Grid-Scale Energy Storage

The sodium-sulfur nonaqueous redox-flow batteries (Na-S NARFBs) using earth-abundant elements are highly attractive due to the low material cost and improved energy density for grid-scale energy storage. However, the low current performance, poor Na0/Na+ redox kinetics, and Na dendrite growth pose severe challenges. We introduce cation-diffusive layers (CDLs): thin and Na+ affinitive interlayers at the Na anode that direct Na+ transport and stabilize Na deposition. Benchmarking three archetypal materials—carbon paper (CP), glass microfiber paper (GF), and foam—across Na-Na and Na-Cu, and Na-S cells identifies CP as the optimum. CP reduces symmetric cell overpotential by more than 70%, achieves 98% Na plating-stripping efficiency, and doubles the Na-S cell current density from 0.5 to 1.0 mA cm−2 without sacrificing capacity or efficiency. Ex situ electrochemical and SEM/XPS analysis, combined with molecular dynamics (MD) studies, reveal that electron-rich carbon fibers disperse supporting salt aggregates, enrich near-surface Na+ density, and create ion transport pathways for fast Na0/Na+ exchange while mitigating membrane degradation. Because of the ion-centric mechanism, CDLs can be generalized to other metal-anode designs. Further, this work establishes CDL design rules—cationic affinity and appropriate micro/nanostructure—as a simple, scalable route to high-current, durable metal-anode flow batteries.

Wu, Wenda [ORNL] (ORCID:000900033307687X)↗

Fast X-ray Nanotomography with Sub-10 nm Resolution as a Powerful Imaging Tool for Nanotechnology and Energy Storage Applications

In the last decade, transmission X-ray microscopes (TXMs) have come into operation in most of the synchrotrons worldwide. They have proven to be outstanding tools for non-invasive ex and in situ 3D characterization of materials at the nanoscale across varying range of scientific applications. However, their spatial resolution has not improved in many years, while newly developed functional materials and microdevices with enhanced performances exhibit nanostructures always finer. Here, optomechanical breakthroughs leading to fast 3D tomographic acquisitions (85 min) with sub-10 nm spatial resolution, narrowing the gap between X-ray and electron microscopy, are reported. These new achievements are first validated with 3D characterizations of nanolithography objects corresponding to ultrahigh-aspect-ratio hard X-ray zone plates. Then, this powerful technique is used to investigate the morphology and conformality of nanometer-thick film electrodes synthesized by atomic layer deposition and magnetron sputtering deposition methods on 3D silicon scaffolds for electrochemical energy storage applications.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗