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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 739 records · Page 41
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2024

Deciphering Photoinduced Catalytic Reaction Mechanisms in Natural and Artificial Photosynthetic Systems on Multiple Temporal and Spatial Scales Using X-ray Probes

Utilization of renewable energies for catalytically generating value-added chemicals is highly desirable in this era of rising energy demands and climate change impacts. Artificial photosynthetic systems or photocatalysts utilize light to convert abundant CO 2 , H 2 O, and O 2 to fuels, such as carbohydrates and hydrogen, thus converting light energy to storable chemical resources. Here, the emergence of intense X-ray pulses from synchrotrons, ultrafast X-ray pulses from X-ray free electron lasers, and table-top laser-driven sources over the past decades opens new frontiers in deciphering photoinduced catalytic reaction mechanisms on the multiple temporal and spatial scales. Operando X-ray spectroscopic methods offer a new set of electronic transitions in probing the oxidation states, coordinating geometry, and spin states of the metal catalytic center and photosensitizers with unprecedented energy and time resolution. Operando X-ray scattering methods enable previously elusive reaction steps to be characterized on different length scales and time scales. The methodological progress and their application examples collected in this review will offer a glimpse into the accomplishments and current state in deciphering reaction mechanisms for both natural and synthetic systems. Looking forward, there are still many challenges and opportunities at the frontier of catalytic research that will require further advancement of the characterization techniques.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2017

Ultrafast light-induced symmetry changes in single BaTiO 3 nanowires

The coupling of light to nanoscale ferroelectric materials enables novel means of controlling their coupled degrees of freedom and engineering new functionality. Here we present femtosecond time-resolution nonlinear-optical measurements of light-induced dynamics within single ferroelectric barium titanate nanowires. By analyzing the time-dependent and polarization-dependent second harmonic intensity generated by the nanowire, we identify its crystallographic orientation and then make use of this information in order to probe its dynamic structural response and change in symmetry. Here, we show that photo-excitation leads to ultrafast, non-uniform modulations in the second order nonlinear susceptibility tensor, indicative of changes in the local symmetry of the nanostructure occurring on sub-picosecond time-scales.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2015

Photon-counting 1.0 GHz-phase-modulation fluorometer

We have constructed an improved version of a photon-counting phase-modulation fluorometer (PC-PMF) with a maximum modulation frequency of 1.0 GHz, where a phase domain measurement is conducted with a time-correlated single-photon-counting electronics. While the basic concept of the PC-PMF has been reported previously by one of the authors, little attention has been paid to its significance, other than its weak fluorescence measurement capability. Recently, we have recognized the importance of the PC-PMF and its potential for fluorescence lifetime measurements. One important aspect of the PC-PMF is that it enables us to perform high-speed measurements that exceed the frequency bandwidths of the photomultiplier tubes that are commonly used as fluorescence detectors. We describe the advantages of the PC-PMF and demonstrate its usefulness based on fundamental performance tests. In our new version of the PC-PMF, we have used a laser diode (LD) as an excitation light source rather than the light-emitting diode that was used in the primary version. We have also designed a simple and stable LD driver to modulate the device. Additionally, we have obtained a sinusoidal histogram waveform that has multiple cycles within a time span to be measured, which is indispensable for precise phase measurements. With focus on the fluorescence intensity and the resolution time, we have compared the performance of the PC-PMF with that of a conventional PMF using the analogue light detection method.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2021

Two-dimensional correlation analysis for x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy

Abstract X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) measures the binding energy of core-level electrons, which are well-localised to specific atomic sites in a molecular system, providing valuable information on the local chemical environment. The technique relies on measuring the photoelectron spectrum upon x-ray photoionisation, and the resolution is often limited by the bandwidth of the ionising x-ray pulse. This is particularly problematic for time-resolved XPS, where the desired time resolution enforces a fundamental lower limit on the bandwidth of the x-ray source. In this work, we report a novel correlation analysis which exploits the correlation between the x-ray and photoelectron spectra to improve the resolution of XPS measurements. We show that with this correlation-based spectral-domain ghost imaging method we can achieve sub-bandwidth resolution in XPS measurements. This analysis method enables XPS for sources with large bandwidth or spectral jitter, previously considered unfeasible for XPS measurements.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗
DOE OSTI2021

Spatiotemporal characterization of the field-induced insulator-to-metal transition

Watching a metal filament grow Resistive switching is a process in which the electrical resistance of a sample changes abruptly in response to a voltage pulse, often by orders of magnitude. This process is at the heart of many neuromorphic computing approaches but visualizing it in both space and time is tricky. del Valle et al . monitored the resistive switching in three different vanadium oxide compounds by measuring time- and space-resolved optical reflectivity (see the Perspective by Hilgenkamp and Gao). A characteristic conducting filament was quickly nucleated on the inhomogeneities in the sample and then propagated due to Joule heating. —JS

Science & Technology - Other Topics↗
DOE OSTI2024

Decoupling of the onset of anharmonicity between a protein and its surface water around 200 K

The protein dynamical transition at ~200 K, where the biomolecule transforms from a harmonic, non-functional form to an anharmonic, functional state, has been thought to be slaved to the thermal activation of dynamics in its surface hydration water. Here, by selectively probing the dynamics of protein and hydration water using elastic neutron scattering and isotopic labeling, we found that the onset of anharmonicity in the two components around 200 K is decoupled. The one in protein is an intrinsic transition, whose characteristic temperature is independent of the instrumental resolution time, but varies with the biomolecular structure and the amount of hydration, while the one of water is merely a resolution effect.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
NASA NTRS1994

System for locating the sources of wideband dE/dt from lightning

A system has been developed to measure wideband electic field derivatives (dE/dt) at five ground stations in a 15 km x 15 km network at Kennedy Space Center. Individual station responses are normalized using digital filters. Pulse-timing resolution is improved to much less than 50-ns sample interval by interpolation using packing in the frequency domain. A time tag for each pulse is defined as the mean of the times of the rising-edge half peak, peak, and falling-edge half peak. The standard deviation in these times defines the timing error and is shown to be a function of noise and bandwidth rather than digitization rate. Each of the four unknowns for a pulse source location (x,y,z) and time of occurrence (t) is found from the five time-tag measurements using different weightings for all five combinations of the four-station hyperbolic equations. Weighting factors and errors in x,y,z and t are estimated using error propagation techniques.

Thomson, E. M.↗
NASA NTRS1992

Studying cataclysmic variables with the Hubble Space Telescope

The Hubble Space Telescope with its UV and imaging capabilities will allow new methods of investigating cataclysmic variables to be used. It provides the first opportunity to obtain high-time-resolution UV observations of cataclysmic variables, both spectroscopically and photometrically. Phase-resolved observations of eclipses can now be obtained which will allow the UV surface-brightness distributions in accretion disks to be studied. Eclipses of white dwarfs that were not visible in optical light will be detected in some systems. Other variations such as dips (in dwarf novae, intermediate polars, and polars), flickering, and oscillations can also be resolved for the first time in the UV. High-spatial-resolution, long-slit spectroscopy, and imaging with the FOC and WF/PC can be used to study the physical condition and morphology of ejected material around novae, recurrent novae, and precataclysmic variables. The UV and H-alpha imaging capabilities will also enable searches for cataclysmic variables in globular clusters to be carried out further into their cores than has been possible before.

Wood, Janet H.↗
NASA NTRS1993

Dynamic measurements of thermophysical properties of metals and alloys at high temperatures by subsecond pulse heating techniques

Rapid (subsecond) heating techniques developed at the National Institute of Standards and Technology for the measurements of selected thermophysical and related properties of metals and alloys at high temperatures (above 1000 C) are described. The techniques are based on rapid resistive self-heating of the specimen from room temperature to the desired high temperature in short times and measuring the relevant experimental quantities, such as electrical current through the specimen, voltage across the specimen, specimen temperature, length, etc., with appropriate time resolution. The first technique, referred to as the millisecond-resolution technique, is for measurements on solid metals and alloys in the temperature range 1000 C to the melting temperature of the specimen. It utilizes a heavy battery bank for the energy source, and the total heating time of the specimen is typically in the range of 100-1000 ms. Data are recorded digitally every 0.5 ms with a full-scale resolution of about one part in 8000. The properties that can be measured with this system are as follows: specific heat, enthalpy, thermal expansion, electrical resistivity, normal spectral emissivity, hemispherical total emissivity, temperature and energy of solid-solid phase transformations, and melting temperature (solidus). The second technique, referred to as the microsecond-resolution technique, is for measurements on liquid metals and alloys in the temperature range 1200 to 6000 C. It utilizes a capacitor bank for the energy source, and the total heating time of the specimen is typically in the range 50-500 micro-s. Data are recorded digitally every 0.5 micro-s with a full-scale resolution of about one part in 4000. The properties that can be measured with this system are: melting temperature (solidus and liquidus), heat of fusion, specific heat, enthalpy, and electrical resistivity. The third technique is for measurements of the surface tension of liquid metals and alloys at their melting temperature. It utilizes a modified millisecond-resolution heating system designed for use in a microgravity environment.

Cezairliyan, Ared↗
DOE OSTI2016

Dynamics from noisy data with extreme timing uncertainty

Imperfect knowledge of the times at which ‘snapshots’ of a system are recorded degrades our ability to recover dynamical information, and can scramble the sequence of events. In X-ray free-electron lasers, for example, the uncertainty—the so-called timing jitter—between the arrival of an optical trigger (‘pump’) pulse and a probing X-ray pulse can exceed the length of the X-ray pulse by up to two orders of magnitude, marring the otherwise precise time-resolution capabilities of this class of instruments. The widespread notion that little dynamical information is available on timescales shorter than the timing uncertainty has led to various hardware schemes to reduce timing uncertainty. These schemes are expensive, tend to be specific to one experimental approach and cannot be used when the record was created under ill-defined or uncontrolled conditions such as during geological events. Here we present a data-analytical approach, based on singular-value decomposition and nonlinear Laplacian spectral analysis, that can recover the history and dynamics of a system from a dense collection of noisy snapshots spanning a sufficiently large multiple of the timing uncertainty. In this work, the power of the algorithm is demonstrated by extracting the underlying dynamics on the few-femtosecond timescale from noisy experimental X-ray free-electron laser data recorded with 300-femtosecond timing uncertainty. Using a noisy dataset from a pump-probe experiment on the Coulomb explosion of nitrogen molecules, our analysis reveals vibrational wave-packets consisting of components with periods as short as 15 femtoseconds, as well as more rapid changes, which have yet to be fully explored. Our approach can potentially be applied whenever dynamical or historical information is tainted by timing uncertainty.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗
DOE OSTI2020

White-light interferometry for early-stage metal oxide growth characterization

Oxidation of metals can provide a functional oxide film or an oxide layer that can lead to material degradation causing performance limiting concerns. Because of the technological and economic impacts of oxidation, understanding early-stage oxidation growth and its mechanisms is of high importance. Unfortunately, poor empirical data during early-stage oxidation has left our current understanding of oxidation incomplete and woefully inadequate. Measurement techniques previously used for oxidation kinetics characterization include microbalance, x-ray diffraction, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, and spectroscopic ellipsometry. However, these techniques lack the necessary time-resolution or vertical resolution in addition to not providing any spatial data, which is essential to early-stage oxidation studies to understand both oxidation kinetics and mechanisms. Here, a novel rapid and surface-sensitive data collection technique that provides three-dimensional spatial data of a growing oxide layer with sub-nanometer thickness resolution using white-light interferometry has been developed. This technique will be the first technique capable of providing real-time spatial results of early-stage oxidation growth. The effectiveness of this characterization tool is shown by observing the early-stage oxidation kinetics and film cracking of uranium heated to 90 °C under 500 torr of pure O 2 . Initially a parabolic oxidation growth is observed. Once the oxide layer reaches ≈ 30 nm, the epitaxial stresses between the uranium substrate and oxide film layer causes localized cracking in addition to the observed transition of the parabolic growth rate to a linear growth rate. The results of the white-light interferometry are verified by glancing incidence x-ray diffraction.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗
DOE OSTI2016

First experimental feasibility study of VIPIC: a custom-made detector for X-ray speckle measurements

The Vertically Integrated Photon Imaging Chip (VIPIC) was custom-designed for X-ray photon correlation spectroscopy, an application in which occupancy per pixel is low but high time resolution is needed. VIPIC operates in a sparsified streaming mode in which each detected photon is immediately read out as a time- and position-stamped event. This event stream can be fed directly to an autocorrelation engine or accumulated to form a conventional image. The detector only delivers non-zero data (sparsified readout), greatly reducing the communications overhead typical of conventional frame-oriented detectors such as charge-coupled devices or conventional hybrid pixel detectors. This feature allows continuous acquisition of data with timescales from microseconds to hours. In this work VIPIC has been used to measure X-ray photon correlation spectroscopy data on polystyrene latex nano-colliodal suspensions in glycerol and on colloidal suspensions of silica spheres in water. Relaxation times of the nano-colloids have been measured for different temperatures. These results demonstrate that VIPIC can operate continuously in the microsecond time frame, while at the same time probing longer timescales.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2025

MicroBooNE NS Timing Corrections

MicroBooNE has achieved a neutrino interaction timing resolution of O(1 ns), enabling improved background rejection and new physics searches. We identify a systematic bias in the reconstructed times of NCpi0 and nueCC events, which appear earlier than numuCC events, with a strong dependence on drift distance (reco_nuvtxX). An empirical correction, applied to high-energy showers, removes this spatial bias and aligns timing across topologies. The correction is validated across data runs and event selections, though the root cause remains under investigation.

Chan, Andrew [Michigan U.]↗
DOE OSTI2023

Spatially coordinated airborne data and complementary products for aerosol, gas, cloud, and meteorological studies: the NASA ACTIVATE dataset

The NASA Aerosol Cloud meTeorology Interactions oVer the western ATlantic Experiment (ACTIVATE) produced a unique dataset for research into aerosol–cloud–meteorology interactions, with applications extending from process-based studies to multi-scale model intercomparison and improvement as well as to remote-sensing algorithm assessments and advancements. ACTIVATE used two NASA Langley Research Center aircraft, a HU-25 Falcon and King Air, to conduct systematic and spatially coordinated flights over the northwest Atlantic Ocean, resulting in 162 joint flights and 17 other single-aircraft flights between 2020 and 2022 across all seasons. Data cover 574 and 592 cumulative flights hours for the HU-25 Falcon and King Air, respectively. The HU-25 Falcon conducted profiling at different level legs below, in, and just above boundary layer clouds (< 3 km) and obtained in situ measurements of trace gases, aerosol particles, clouds, and atmospheric state parameters. Under cloud-free conditions, the HU-25 Falcon similarly conducted profiling at different level legs within and immediately above the boundary layer. The King Air (the high-flying aircraft) flew at approximately ~ 9 km and conducted remote sensing with a lidar and polarimeter while also launching dropsondes (785 in total). Collectively, simultaneous data from both aircraft help to characterize the same vertical column of the atmosphere. In addition to individual instrument files, data from the HU-25 Falcon aircraft are combined into “merge files” on the publicly available data archive that are created at different time resolutions of interest (e.g., 1, 5, 10, 15, 30, 60 s, or matching an individual data product's start and stop times). This paper describes the ACTIVATE flight strategy, instrument and complementary dataset products, data access and usage details, and data application notes. The data are publicly accessible through https://doi.org/10.5067/SUBORBITAL/ACTIVATE/DATA001 (ACTIVATE Science Team, 2020).

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
NASA NTRS1975

Statistical properties of the interplanetary microscale fluctuations

Results are reported for a statistical study of short-period fluctuations in the interplanetary plasma velocity and magnetic field. The data base used consists of measurements of the interplanetary plasma and magnetic field by Pioneer 6 with a time resolution of 72 sec and by Mariner 5 with a resolution of 5 min. The analysis is conducted to characterize the parent population from which all individual microscale events on these time scales are drawn. The microscale changes are grouped according to their energy densities relative to the energy density of the background magnetic field, and it is found that each grouping exhibits certain statistical properties within the limits of observational uncertainty. It is noted that these statistical properties are purely observational and independent of any physical model which may be used to interpret them. The results are discussed in the context of MHD discontinuity theory for a thermally anisotropic plasma.

Belcher, J. W.↗
NASA NTRS2016

Steepening of Waves at the Duskside Magnetopause

Surface waves at the magnetopause flanks typically feature steeper, i.e., more inclined leading (antisunward facing) than trailing (sunward facing) edges. This is expected for Kelvin-Helmholtz instability (KHI) amplified waves. Very rarely, during northward interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) conditions, anomalous inverse steepening has been observed. The small-scale tetrahedral configuration of the Magnetospheric Multiscale spacecraft and their high time resolution measurements enable us to routinely ascertain magnetopause boundary inclinations during surface wave passage with high accuracy by four-spacecraft timing analysis. At the dusk flank magnetopause, 77%/23% of the analyzed wave intervals exhibit regular inverse steepening. Inverse steepening happens during northward IMF conditions, as previously reported and, in addition, during intervals of dominant equatorial IMF. Inverse steepening observed under the latter conditions may be due to the absence of KHI or due to instabilities arising from the alignment of flow and magnetic fields in the magnetosheath.

Plaschke, F.↗
NASA NTRS2023

Spatially-Coordinated Airborne Data and Complementary Products for Aerosol, Gas, Cloud, and Meteorological Studies: the Nasa Activate Dataset

The NASA Aerosol Cloud meTeorology Interactions oVer the western ATlantic Experiment (ACTIVATE) produced a unique dataset for research into aerosol–cloud–meteorology interactions, with applications extending from process-based studies to multi-scale model intercomparison and improvement as well as to remote-sensing algorithm assessments and advancements. ACTIVATE used two NASA Langley Research Center aircraft, a HU-25 Falcon and King Air, to conduct systematic and spatially coordinated flights over the northwest Atlantic Ocean, resulting in 162 joint flights and 17 other single-aircraft flights between 2020 and 2022 across all seasons. Data cover 574 and 592 cumulative flights hours for the HU-25 Falcon and King Air, respectively. The HU-25 Falcon conducted profiling at different level legs below, in, and just above boundary layer clouds (< 3 km) and obtained in situ measurements of trace gases, aerosol particles, clouds, and atmospheric state parameters. Under cloud-free conditions, the HU-25 Falcon similarly conducted profiling at different level legs within and immediately above the boundary layer. The King Air (the high-flying aircraft) flew at approximately ∼ 9 km and conducted remote sensing with a lidar and polarimeter while also launching dropsondes (785 in total). Collectively, simultaneous data from both aircraft help to characterize the same vertical column of the atmosphere. In addition to individual instrument files, data from the HU-25 Falcon aircraft are combined into “merge files” on the publicly available data archive that are created at different time resolutions of interest (e.g., 1, 5, 10, 15, 30, 60 s, or matching an individual data product's start and stop times). This paper describes the ACTIVATE flight strategy, instrument and complementary dataset products, data access and usage details, and data application notes. The data are publicly accessible through https://doi.org/10.5067/SUBORBITAL/ACTIVATE/DATA001 (ACTIVATE Science Team, 2020).

Aerosol Cloud meTeorology Interactions oVer the we↗
DOE OSTI2025

Capturing Ring Opening in Photoexcited Enolic Acetylacetone upon Hydrogen Bond Dissociation by Ultrafast Electron Diffraction

Photoinduced biological and chemical reactions are often based on key structural transformations of a molecule driven across multiple electronic states. Acetylacetone (AcAc) is a prototypical system for complex chemical pathways involving several conical intersections (CI) and singlet–triplet intersystem crossings (ISC) characterized by distinct geometries. In the gas phase, AcAc is predominantly in a planar ring-like enolic form stabilized by a strong intramolecular O–H···O hydrogen bond. Following excitation into the S 2 (ππ*) state at 266 nm, acetylacetone undergoes rapid internal conversion followed by intersystem crossing. Such relaxation pathways are associated with structural changes including ring opening, deplanarization, and bond elongation. In this work, ultrafast electron diffraction (UED) at the SLAC MeV-UED setup is employed as a direct structural probe with a time resolution of 160 fs. Together with trajectory surface hopping simulations, analysis of the UED data provides a new perspective on the early time nuclear dynamics in acetylacetone. Specifically, AcAc is observed to undergo ring opening, deplanarization, and bond elongation all within the first 700 fs after photoexcitation. The monitored dynamics is associated mainly with the nuclear motion on the S 1 potential energy surface, formed after very rapid transfer from S 2 to S 1 , allowing AcAc to reach the conical intersection to intersystem crossing. Such time scales of nuclear motion are contrasted with the time scales of electronic transitions in AcAc that were previously characterized with spectroscopic methods, specifically internal conversion (<100 fs) and intersystem crossing (∼1.5 ps).

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗