Search NASA⌕ Search

SEARCH · Search NASA

Results for “electronics analysis”

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.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 91 records · Page 5

Tutorial on In Situ and Operando (Scanning) Transmission Electron Microscopy for Analysis of Nanoscale Structure–Property Relationships

In situ and operando (scanning) transmission electron microscopy [(S)TEM] is a powerful characterization technique that uses imaging, diffraction, and spectroscopy to gain nano-to-atomic scale insights into the structure–property relationships in materials. This technique is both customizable and complex because many factors impact the ability to collect structural, compositional, and bonding information from a sample during environmental exposure or under application of an external stimulus. In the past two decades, in situ and operando (S)TEM methods have diversified and grown to encompass additional capabilities, higher degrees of precision, dynamic tracking abilities, enhanced reproducibility, and improved analytical tools. Much of this growth has been shared through the community and within commercialized products that enable rapid adoption and training in this approach. This tutorial aims to serve as a guide for students, collaborators, and nonspecialists to learn the important factors that impact the success of in situ and operando (S)TEM experiments and assess the value of the results obtained. As this is not a step-by-step guide, readers are encouraged to seek out the many comprehensive resources available for gaining a deeper understanding of in situ and operando (S)TEM methods, property measurements, data acquisition, reproducibility, and data analytics.

(S)TEM↗

Use of Transmission Electron Microscopy for Analysis of Aerosol Particles and Strategies for Imaging Fragile Particles

For over 25 years, transmission electron microscopy (TEM) has provided a method for the study of aerosol particles with sizes from below the optical diffraction limit to several microns, resolving the particles as well as smaller features. The wide use of this technique to study aerosol particles has contributed important insights about environmental aerosol particle samples and model atmospheric systems. TEM produces an image that is a 2D projection of aerosol particles that have been impacted onto grids and, through associated techniques and spectroscopies, can contribute additional information such as the determination of elemental composition, crystal structure, and 3D particle structures. Soot, mineral dust, and organic/inorganic particles have all been analyzed using TEM and spectroscopic techniques. TEM, however, has limitations that are important to understand when interpreting data including the ability of the electron beam to damage and thereby change the structure and shape of particles, especially in the case of particles composed of organic compounds and salts. In this paper, we concentrate on the breadth of studies that have used TEM as the primary analysis technique. Another focus is on common issues with TEM and cryogenic-TEM. Insights for new users on best practices for fragile particles, that is, particles that are easily susceptible to damage from the electron beam, with this technique are discussed. Tips for readers on interpreting and evaluating the quality and accuracy of TEM data in the literature are also provided and explained.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Structure retrieval from four-dimensional scanning transmission electron microscopy: Statistical analysis of potential pitfalls in high-dimensional data

Four-dimensional (4D) scanning transmission electron microscopy is one of the most rapidly growing modes of electron microscopy imaging. The advent of fast pixelated cameras and the associated data infrastructure have greatly accelerated this process. Yet conversion of the 4D datasets into physically meaningful structure images in real space remains an open issue. In this work, we demonstrate that it is possible to systematically create filters that will affect the apparent resolution or even qualitative features of the real-space structure image, reconstructing artificially generated patterns. As initial efforts, we explore statistical model selection algorithms, aiming for robustness and reliability of estimated filters. This statistical model selection analysis demonstrates the need for regularization and cross validation of inversion methods to robustly recover structure from high-dimensional diffraction datasets.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Energetic Electron Precipitation: Multievent Analysis of Its Spatial Extent During EMIC Wave Activity

Electromagnetic ion cyclotron (EMIC) waves can drive precipitation of tens of keV protons and relativistic electrons, and are a potential candidate for causing radiation belt flux dropouts. In this study, we quantitatively analyze three cases of EMIC-driven precipitation, which occurred near the dusk sector observed by multiple Low-Earth-Orbiting (LEO) Polar Operational Environmental Satellites/Meteorological Operational satellite programme (POES/MetOp) satellites. During EMIC wave activity, the proton precipitation occurred from few tens of keV up to hundreds of keV, while the electron precipitation was mainly at relativistic energies. We compare observations of electron precipitation with calculations using quasi-linear theory. For all cases, we consider the effects of other magnetospheric waves observed simultaneously with EMIC waves, namely, plasmaspheric hiss and magnetosonic waves, and find that the electron precipitation at MeV energies was predominantly caused by EMIC-driven pitch angle scattering. Interestingly, each precipitation event observed by a LEO satellite extended over a limited L shell region (ΔL ~ 0.3 on average), suggesting that the pitch angle scattering caused by EMIC waves occurs only when favorable conditions are met, likely in a localized region. Furthermore, we take advantage of the LEO constellation to explore the occurrence of precipitation at different L shells and magnetic local time sectors, simultaneously with EMIC wave observations near the equator (detected by Van Allen Probes) or at the ground (measured by magnetometers). Our analysis shows that although EMIC waves drove precipitation only in a narrow ΔL, electron precipitation was triggered at various locations as identified by POES/MetOp over a rather broad region (up to ~4.4 hr MLT and ~1.4 L shells) with similar patterns between satellites.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Analysis of Organic Electron Materials using Neutron Scattering (Final Report)

Neutron scattering is a powerful suite of measurement techniques that enable unique analysis of structure and dynamics of a wide variety of materials. Specifically, neutrons interact strongly with protons, which enables excellent contrast in light element organic materials that cannot be obtained with any other measurements. This series of three proposals focused on using inelastic neutron scattering (INS) to study the vibrations (dynamics) of the organic molecules involved in organic electronic devices. Our main goals were to demonstrate that INS is capable of elucidating new, useful, and unique knowledge about organic electronic samples that could be used to improve the function of devices or to solve outstanding problems that could not be solved using other measurement techniques. Since all of the goal involved using INS or other neutron techniques to do something “new” a large part of the effort was focused on complex data interpretation and development of modeling workflows that could be used by other members of the organic electronics community to study their materials. To facilitate the goal of making INS measurements more accessible to a broader community and for a wider range of materials, we optimized and engineered the computational workflows to be well documented, publicly available, and user friendly. The individual titles of the three sequential DOE-BES awards are: (1) Engineering doping profiles in organic semiconducting materials, (2) Measurement and modeling of molecular dopant structure and dynamics, and (3) Quantification of Dynamic Disorder in Electronic and Excitonic Organic Materials. For readability, this report is organized to highlight the progress of the research thematically. Many of the ideas started in one grant period and then spilled over into later awards and collaborative research.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Three-dimensional analysis of microbunched electron cooling

Microbunched electron cooling (MBEC, Ratner, ), a special category of coherent electron cooling, has been under consideration as a candidate method for the strong hadron cooling component of the Electron Ion Collider (EIC) at BNL. Most of the theoretical treatments of this scheme so far have been based on simplified models for the key space charge effect in which electrons and/or hadrons are approximated by charged disks. Although such disk-based models provide a flexible tool that captures a good part of the underlying physics, they lack the fidelity and robustness of a rigorous analysis that explicitly treats the hadron and cooler electron beams as collections of point charges. In this paper, we present such a rigorous, three-dimensional (3D) model, both from a theory-based and a simulation perspective. Specifically, we calculate the generalized wakefield (or Green’s function) of the cooling system—a crucial quantity that determines the overall performance—paying special attention to the dependence of the wake on the hadron transverse positions. Additionally, our treatment takes into account previously neglected 3D effects that can cause damping of the plasma oscillations in the amplification section of the cooler, such as focusing and the angular spread of the electron beam. Published by the American Physical Society 2025

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗

Flexible, cluster-based analysis of the electronic medical record of sepsis with composite mixture models

The widespread adoption of electronic medical records (EMRs) in healthcare has provided vast new amounts of data for statistical machine learning researchers in their efforts to model and predict patient health status, potentially enabling novel advances in treatment. In the case of sepsis, a debilitating, dysregulated host response to infection, extracting subtle, uncataloged clinical phenotypes from the EMR with statistical machine learning methods has the potential to impact patient diagnosis and treatment early in the course of their hospitalization. However, there are significant barriers that must be overcome to extract these insights from EMR data. First, EMR datasets consist of both static and dynamic observations of discrete and continuous-valued variables, many of which may be missing, precluding the application of standard multivariate analysis techniques. Second, clinical populations observed via EMRs and relevant to the study and management of conditions like sepsis are often heterogeneous; properly accounting for this heterogeneity is critical. Here, we describe an unsupervised, probabilistic framework called a composite mixture model that can simultaneously accommodate the wide variety of observations frequently observed in EMR datasets, characterize heterogeneous clinical populations, and handle missing observations. In conclusion, we demonstrate the efficacy of our approach on a large-scale sepsis cohort, developing novel techniques built on our model-based clusters to track patient mortality risk over time and identify physiological trends and distinct subgroups of the dataset associated with elevated risk of mortality during hospitalization.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

Reshaping of Truncated Pd Nanocubes: Energetic and Kinetic Analysis Integrating Transmission Electron Microscopy with Atomistic-Level and Coarse-Grained Modeling

Stability against reshaping of metallic fcc nanocrystals synthesized with tailored far-from-equilibrium shapes is key to maintaining optimal properties for applications such as catalysis. Yet Arrhenius analysis of experimental reshaping kinetics, and appropriate theory and simulation, is lacking. As such, we use TEM to monitor the reshaping of Pd nanocubes of ~25 nm side length between 410 °C (over ~4.5 h) and 440 °C (over ~0.25 h), extracting a high effective energy barrier of E eff ≈ 4.6 eV. We also provide an analytic determination of the energy variation along the optimal pathway for reshaping that involves transfer of atoms across the nanocube surface from edges or corners to form new layers on side {100} facets. The effective barrier from this analysis is shown to increase strongly with the degree of truncation of edges and corners in the synthesized nanocube. Theory matches experiment for the appropriate degree of truncation. In addition, we perform simulations of a stochastic atomistic-level model incorporating a realistic description of diffusive hopping for undercoordinated surface atoms, thereby providing a visualization of the initial reshaping process.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

First-principles mode-by-mode analysis for electron-phonon scattering channels and mean free path spectra in GaAs

We present a first-principles framework to investigate the electron scattering channels and transport properties for polar materials by combining the exact solution of the linearized electron-phonon (e-ph) Boltzmann transport equation in its integral-differential form associated with the e-ph coupling matrices obtained from the polar Wannier interpolation scheme. No ad hoc parameter is required throughout this calculation, and GaAs, a well-studied polar material, is used as an example to demonstrate this method. In this work, the long-range and short-range contributions as well as the intravalley and intervalley transitions in the e-ph interactions (EPIs) have been quantitatively addressed. Promoted by such mode-by-mode analysis, we find that in GaAs, the piezoelectric scattering is comparable to deformation-potential scattering for electron scatterings by acoustic phonons in EPI even at room temperature, and it makes a significant contribution to mobility. Furthermore, we achieved good agreement with experimental data for the mobility, and we identified that electrons with mean free paths between 130 and 210 nm provide the dominant contribution to the electron transport at 300 K. As a result, such information provides a deeper understanding of the electron transport in GaAs, and the presented framework can be readily applied to other polar materials.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Applying shot boundary detection for automated crystal growth analysis during in situ transmission electron microscope experiments

In-situ (scanning) transmission electron microscopy (S/TEM) is being developed for numerous applications in the study of nucleation and growth under electrochemical driving forces. For this type of experiment, one of the key parameters is to identify when nucleation initiates. Typically the process of identifying the moment that crystals begin to form is a manual process requiring the user to perform an observation and respond accordingly (adjust focus, magnification, translate the stage etc.). However, as the speed of the cameras being used to perform these observations increases, the ability of a user to “catch” the important initial stage of nucleation decreases (there is more information that is available in the first few milliseconds of the process). Here we show that video shot boundary detection (SBD) can automatically detect frames where a change in the image occurs. We show that this method can be applied to quickly and accurately identify points of change during crystal growth. This technique allows for automated segmentation of a digital stream for further analysis and the assignment of arbitrary time stamps for the initiation of processes that are independent of the user’s ability to observe and react.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Analysis of runaway electron driven whistler wave instability experiments

Data acquired on the DIII-D tokamak were analyzed. The data are from experiments that were conducted to study an instability that is driven unstable by intense populations of electrons with MeV energies that are known as runaway electrons. The instability is a type of plasma wave called a whistler wave that occurs at frequencies above the ion cyclotron frequency but well below the electron cyclotron frequency. The waves were measured by magnetic fluctuation coils that are embedded in the DIII-D vacuum vessel wall. After upgrades to this diagnostic were completed, new experiments were conducted on July 13, 2020 in order to measure the toroidal mode number of the whistler waves and to extend the frequency of the detected waves. Through the use of mixers, instability between 600-700 MHz was detected. (The initial experiments only measured up to 200 MHz.) Analysis of the data was led by Hari Choudhury, a PhD student at Columbia University. Mr. Choudhury has submitted two papers for publication that include contributions by UC Irvine (UCI) Professor Heidbrink and his graduated PhD student Genevieve DeGrandchamp: “Detailed Characterization of Runaway Electron Driven Whistler Waves in Low-Density DIII-D Discharges” and “First Demonstration of Resonant Pitch-Angle Scattering of Relativistic Electrons by Externally-Launched Helicon Waves.” The first paper, which has been submitted to Physics of Plasmas, has significant contributions to both the data and the interpretation by UCI scientists. In contrast, UCI contributions to the second paper, which has been submitted to Physical Review Letters, are relatively minor.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

Electromagnetic Analysis of ITER Electron Cyclotron Emission Model

The ITER electron cyclotron emission (ECE) diagnostic system is located at diagnostics shielding module 2 (DSM2), equatorial port 9 (EP9), to measure electron temperature profile and electron temperature fluctuations, and also assess nonthermal electron distributions via the oblique view. Therefore, ECE has both radial and oblique views with two hot sources for calibration and two couples of mirrors for two different optical views. It shall receive that the large electromagnetic (EM) loads up to 100-MN/m3 force density due to the eddy currents on the copper mirrors generated by the short transient plasma disruption. The simplified EM analysis model using magnetic field ( B ) data and flux variations (dB/dt) method based on the worst case of plasma disruption, MD_DW_EXP16MS_CATIII, has been developed to calculate the force and moments for each ECE component and support structure for EP9 DSM2 Bay2 and Bay3. The B and dB/dt methods use the constant B and dB/dt assumed for each local bay space, but the real B and dB/dt are basically varied along the radial direction of each bay. The complex global model with the local ECE components and support structure using Maxwell transient has been developed to do EM analysis to compare the results of the B and dB/dt models. The volumetric EM force density of the whole ECE components and support structure can be used for the subsequent structural analysis. In conclusion, combined with the thermal and nuclear loads and seismic and initial loads, the ECE integration analysis can be finalized for the operation case.

Fang, J. [Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPP↗

Inclusive and exclusive electron scattering data analysis from Jefferson Lab experiment E12-14-012

Since the first observations of neutrino oscillation, neutrino experiments have come a long way toward precise measurements of the neutrino oscillation parameters, but some obstacles still remain. The next generation of oscillation experiments, including the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE), will be using the Liquid Argon Time Projection Chambers (LArTPCs) with natural argon as the neutrino target material. A precise model of the neutrino cross section on argon does not exist, which is a source of significant uncertainty in such experiments. The E12-14-012 experiment at Jefferson Lab seeks to help remedy this via electron scattering measurements on argon and titanium targets. The experiment collected both inclusive (e,e') and exclusive (e,e'p) data at a wide range of kinematics with the intent to measure the electron-nucleus cross section and thus derive a spectral function for argon that can be used with neutrino experiments. The use of titanium in this experiment stems from the equivalent shell structure that its protons share with the neutrons in argon, which will be crucial in oscillation experiments but cannot be measured directly in electron scattering. This thesis collects several papers which present results from the E12-14-012 experiment. These results include the inclusive (e,e') cross sections for carbon, titanium, argon, and aluminum at a beam energy of 2.22 GeV and a scattering angle of 15.54 deg with uncertainty of less than 5%. Also included are the first results of the exclusive (e,e'p) cross section on argon and titanium.

Murphy, Matthew D.↗

In Situ Analysis of Electron-Induced Chemical Transformations in Vapor-Phase-Synthesized Al-Based Inorganic–Organic Hybrid Thin Films for EUV Resist Platform

The rapid advancement and stringent requirements of extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography technology necessitate the development of advanced photoresist systems for next-generation microelectronics. Recent studies have demonstrated that inorganic-based hybrid photoresists offer notable improvements in EUV sensitivity, etch resistance, and greater insusceptibility to pattern collapse compared to their purely organic counterparts. However, variations in the synthesis/coating approaches and chemistry of inorganic–organic photoresists can result in distinct exposure mechanisms. In this work, an Al-based hybrid thin film resist system synthesized via molecular (atomic) layer deposition (MLD or MALD) is explored, focusing on its electron-beam and EUV patterning mechanisms. The Al-based hybrid thin films are deposited using trimethylaluminum (TMA) and the organic precursor hydroquinone, exhibiting a saturated growth rate within the temperature range of 150–200°C. In diluted tetramethylammonium hydroxide (TMAH)-based developer solutions, the electron-irradiated Al-based hybrid thin film system behaves as a negative tone resist, achieving a sensitivity of 10.4 mC/cm 2 at 0.1 kV electron beam lithography (EBL). Chemical changes induced by electron exposure are also analyzed in this study using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), Raman spectroscopy, and a unique infrared spectroscopy setup, revealing the potential cross-linking pathways. To further correlate the electron-induced chemical transformations with those mediated by EUV irradiations, a combination of X-ray photoemission electron microscopy/low-energy electron microscopy (XPEEM/LEEM) system is also employed. In conclusion, this study provides critical insights into the mechanisms underlying solubility switching and contributes to the design of advanced resist materials for EUV lithography.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

An Electron Backscatter Diffraction Analysis of Grain Boundary Initiated Discontinuous Precipitation in U-10Mo

The effect of varied thermomechanical processing on discontinuous precipitation (DP) in U-10Mo was investigated, with specific emphasis on understanding the role of grain boundary misorientation in DP. Varied prior homogenization heat treatment and thermomechanical processing resulted in differences in both the fraction of DP and the colony width, and was attributed to variations in the grain boundary misorientation distribution. Regardless of the degree of DP-based transformation, extensive growth of DP colonies was dominant on 30°–45° misorientation boundaries. Interestingly, misorientation histograms of the deformed and annealed specimens suggest the processing steps involved may have inhibited DP colony growth along a small fraction of these high angle boundaries. Large-area electron backscatter diffraction montages coupled with high resolution mapping suggest symmetric {110}-type interfaces may be important considerations for mitigating extensive DP growth in this alloy system.

Discontinuous Precipitation, Uranium, Electron Bac↗