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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 937 records · Page 52
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2015

Deviations from the Gutenberg–Richter law on account of a random distribution of block sizes

This paper studies properties of a continuum with structure. The characteristic size of the structure governs the fact that difference relations are nonautomatically transformed into differential ones. It is impossible to consider an infinitesimal volume of a body, to which the major conservation laws could be applied, because the minimum representative volume of the body must contain at least a few elementary microstructures. The corresponding equations of motion are equations of infinite order, solutions of which include, along with usual sound waves, unusual waves with abnormally low velocities without a lower limit. It is shown that in such media weak perturbations can increase or decrease outside the limits. The number of complex roots of the corresponding dispersion equation, which can be interpreted as the number of unstable solutions, depends on the specific surface of cracks and is an almost linear dependence on a logarithmic scale, as in the seismological Gutenberg–Richter law. If the distance between one pore (crack) to another one is a random value with some distribution, we must write another dispersion equation and examine different scenarios depending on the statistical characteristics of the random distribution. In this case, there are sufficient deviations from the Gutenberg–Richter law and this theoretical result corresponds to some field and laboratory observations.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2015

Dynamics of asymmetric non-polymeric binary glass formers—A nuclear magnetic resonance and dielectric spectroscopy study

We study a dynamically asymmetric binary glass former with the low-T{sub g} component m-tri-cresyl phosphate (m-TCP: T{sub g} = 206 K) and a spirobichroman derivative as a non-polymeric high-T{sub g} component (T{sub g} = 382 K) by means of {sup 1}H nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), {sup 31}P NMR, and dielectric spectroscopy which allow component-selectively probing the dynamics. The entire concentration range is covered, and two main relaxation processes with two T{sub g} are identified, T{sub g1} and T{sub g2}. The slower one is attributed to the high-T{sub g} component (α{sub 1}-process), and the faster one is related to the m-TCP molecules (α{sub 2}-process). Yet, there are indications that a small fraction of m-TCP is associated also with the α{sub 1}-process. While the α{sub 1}-relaxation only weakly broadens upon adding m-TCP, the α{sub 2}-relaxation becomes extremely stretched leading to quasi-logarithmic correlation functions at low m-TCP concentrations—as probed by {sup 31}P NMR stimulated echo experiments. Frequency-temperature superposition does not apply for the α{sub 2}-process and it reflects an isotropic, liquid-like motion which is observed even below T{sub g1}, i.e., in the matrix of the arrested high-T{sub g} molecules. As proven by 2D {sup 31}P NMR, the corresponding dynamic heterogeneities are of transient nature, i.e., exchange occurs within the distribution G(lnτ{sub α2}). At T{sub g1} a crossover is found for the temperature dependence of (mean) τ{sub α2}(T) from non-Arrhenius above to Arrhenius below T{sub g1} which is attributed to intrinsic confinement effects. This “fragile-to-strong” transition also leads to a re-decrease of T{sub g2}(c{sub m−TCP}) at low concentration c{sub m−TCP}, i.e., a maximum is observed in T{sub g2}(c{sub m−TCP}) while T{sub g1}(c{sub m−TCP}) displays the well-known plasticizer effect. Although only non-polymeric components are involved, we re-discover essentially all features previously reported for polymer-plasticizer systems.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2015

Low-temperature dynamics of ferroelectric domains in PbZr{sub 0.3}Ti{sub 0.7}O{sub 3} epitaxial thin films studied by piezoresponse force microscopy

Dynamics of domain boundaries is expected to change drastically at low absolute temperatures but direct experimental information for this temperature range is still lacking. To clarify the mechanism of low-temperature domain dynamics, we studied the growth of ferroelectric domains in the temperature range 4.2–295 K using the out-of-plane piezoresponse mode of a cryogenic atomic force microscope (AFM). Nanoscale 180° domains were created in epitaxial PbZr{sub 0.3}Ti{sub 0.7}O{sub 3} films by applying short voltage pulses between the conductive AFM tip brought into contact with the bare film surface and the bottom LaSr{sub 0.7}Mn{sub 0.3}O{sub 3} electrode. A quantitative analysis of acquired piezoresponse images enabled us to determine the in-plane domain size as a function of the writing voltage and pulse duration. It is found that at all studied temperatures the dependence of this size on the pulse duration can be fitted by a logarithmic function, which indicates that the domain-wall velocity exponentially depends on the driving electric field. The theoretical analysis of experimental data shows that the observed low-temperature domain dynamics is consistent with the creep of domain boundaries occurring in the presence of defects and structural nanoheterogeneities.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2015

Communication: Three-electron coalescence points in two and three dimensions

The form of the wave function at three-electron coalescence points is examined for several spin states using an alternative method to the usual Fock expansion. We find that, in two- and three-dimensional systems, the non-analytical nature of the wave function is characterized by the appearance of logarithmic terms, reminiscent of those that appear as both electrons approach the nucleus of the helium atom. The explicit form of these singularities is given in terms of the interelectronic distances for a doublet and two quartet states of three electrons in a harmonic well.

74 ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2015

Bulk ion heating with ICRF waves in tokamaks

Heating with ICRF waves is a well-established method on present-day tokamaks and one of the heating systems foreseen for ITER. However, further work is still needed to test and optimize its performance in fusion devices with metallic high-Z plasma facing components (PFCs) in preparation of ITER and DEMO operation. This is of particular importance for the bulk ion heating capabilities of ICRF waves. Efficient bulk ion heating with the standard ITER ICRF scheme, i.e. the second harmonic heating of tritium with or without {sup 3}He minority, was demonstrated in experiments carried out in deuterium-tritium plasmas on JET and TFTR and is confirmed by ICRF modelling. This paper focuses on recent experiments with {sup 3}He minority heating for bulk ion heating on the ASDEX Upgrade (AUG) tokamak with ITER-relevant all-tungsten PFCs. An increase of 80% in the central ion temperature T{sub i} from 3 to 5.5 keV was achieved when 3 MW of ICRF power tuned to the central {sup 3}He ion cyclotron resonance was added to 4.5 MW of deuterium NBI. The radial gradient of the T{sub i} profile reached locally values up to about 50 keV/m and the normalized logarithmic ion temperature gradients R/LT{sub i} of about 20, which are unusually large for AUG plasmas. The large changes in the T{sub i} profiles were accompanied by significant changes in measured plasma toroidal rotation, plasma impurity profiles and MHD activity, which indicate concomitant changes in plasma properties with the application of ICRF waves. When the {sup 3}He concentration was increased above the optimum range for bulk ion heating, a weaker peaking of the ion temperature profile was observed, in line with theoretical expectations.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2016

Status of chiral meson physics

This talk includes a short introduction to Chiral Perturbation Theory in the meson sector concentrating on a number of recent developments. I discuss the latest fit of the low-energy constants. Finite volume corrections are discussed for the case with twisted boundary conditions for form-factors and first results at two-loops for three flavours for masses. The last part discusses the extension to other symmetry breaking patterns relevant for technicolour and related theories as well as the calculation of leading logarithms to high loop orders.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2016

Corrections beyond the leading order in π{sup 0} → e{sup +}e{sup −} process

We briefly summarize experimental and theoretical results on the rare decay π{sup 0} → e{sup +}e{sup −}. Two-loop QED corrections are reviewed and the bremsstrahlung contribution beyond the soft-photon approximation is analytically calculated. Using the leading logarithm approximation, the possible contribution of QCD corrections is estimated. The complete result can be used to fit the value of the contact interaction coupling χ{sup (r)} to the recent KTeV experiment with the result χ{sup (r)}(M{sub ρ}) = 4.5±1.0.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2016

Image processing analysis of nuclear track parameters for CR-39 detector irradiated by thermal neutron

CR-39 detector which covered with boric acid (H{sub 3}Bo{sub 3}) pellet was irradiated by thermal neutrons from ({sup 241}Am - {sup 9}Be) source with activity 12Ci and neutron flux 10{sup 5} n. cm{sup −2}. s{sup −1}. The irradiation times -T{sub D} for detector were 4h, 8h, 16h and 24h. Chemical etching solution for detector was sodium hydroxide NaOH, 6.25N with 45 min etching time and 60 C° temperature. Images of CR-39 detector after chemical etching were taken from digital camera which connected from optical microscope. MATLAB software version 7.0 was used to image processing. The outputs of image processing of MATLAB software were analyzed and found the following relationships: (a) The irradiation time -T{sub D} has behavior linear relationships with following nuclear track parameters: i) total track number - N{sub T} ii) maximum track number - MRD (relative to track diameter - D{sub T}) at response region range 2.5 µm to 4 µm iii) maximum track number - M{sub D} (without depending on track diameter - D{sub T}). (b) The irradiation time -T{sub D} has behavior logarithmic relationship with maximum track number - M{sub A} (without depending on track area - A{sub T}). The image processing technique principally track diameter - D{sub T} can be take into account to classification of α-particle emitters, In addition to the contribution of these technique in preparation of nano- filters and nano-membrane in nanotechnology fields.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2016

Charge dependence of the plasma travel length in atmospheric-pressure plasma

Plasma plume is generated using a quartz tube, helium gas, and foil electrode by applying AC high voltage under the atmosphere. The plasma plume is released into the atmosphere from inside of the quartz tube and is seen as the continuous movement of the plasma bullet. The travel length of plasma bullet is defined from plasma energy and force due to electric field. The drift velocity of plasma bullet has the upper limit under atmospheric-pressure because the drift velocity is determined from the balance between electric field and resistive force due to collisions between plasma and air. The plasma plume charge depends on the drift velocity. Consequently, in the laminar flow of helium gas flow state, the travel length of the plasma plume logarithmically depends on the plasma plume charge which changes with both the electric field and the resistive force.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2016

On the geometry of mixed states and the Fisher information tensor

In this paper, we will review the co-adjoint orbit formulation of finite dimensional quantum mechanics, and in this framework, we will interpret the notion of quantum Fisher information index (and metric). Following previous work of part of the authors, who introduced the definition of Fisher information tensor, we will show how its antisymmetric part is the pullback of the natural Kostant–Kirillov–Souriau symplectic form along some natural diffeomorphism. In order to do this, we will need to understand the symmetric logarithmic derivative as a proper 1-form, settling the issues about its very definition and explicit computation. Moreover, the fibration of co-adjoint orbits, seen as spaces of mixed states, is also discussed.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2016

Interpreting anomalies observed in oxide semiconductor TFTs under negative and positive bias stress

Oxide semiconductor thin-film transistors can show anomalous behavior under bias stress. Two types of anomalies are discussed in this paper. The first is the shift in threshold voltage (V{sub TH}) in a direction opposite to the applied bias stress, and highly dependent on gate dielectric material. We attribute this to charge trapping/detrapping and charge migration within the gate dielectric. We emphasize the fundamental difference between trapping/detrapping events occurring at the semiconductor/dielectric interface and those occurring at gate/dielectric interface, and show that charge migration is essential to explain the first anomaly. We model charge migration in terms of the non-instantaneous polarization density. The second type of anomaly is negative V{sub TH} shift under high positive bias stress, with logarithmic evolution in time. This can be argued as electron-donating reactions involving H{sub 2}O molecules or derived species, with a reaction rate exponentially accelerated by positive gate bias and exponentially decreased by the number of reactions already occurred.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2017

Diffusion of copolymers composed of monomers with drastically different friction factors in copolymer/homopolymer blends

Copolymers are commonly used as interface modifiers that allow for the compatibilization of polymer components in a blend. For copolymers to function as a compatibilizer, they must diffuse through the matrix of the blend to the interface between the two blend components. The diffusivity of a copolymer in a blend matrix therefore becomes important in determining good candidates for use as compatibilizers. In this paper, coarse-grained Monte Carlo simulations using the bond fluctuation model modified with an overlap penalty have been developed to study the diffusive behavior of PS/PMMA random copolymers in a PMMA homopolymer blend. The simulations vary the connectivity between different monomers, the thermodynamic interactions between the monomers which manifest within a chain, and between copolymer and homopolymer matrix and define the monomer friction coefficient of each component independently, allowing for the determination of the combined effect of these parameters on copolymer chain diffusion. Finally, the results of this work indicate that PS-r-PMMA copolymer diffusion is not linearly dependent on the copolymer composition on a logarithmic scale, but its diffusion is a balance of the kinetics governed by the dominant motion of the faster styrene monomers and thermodynamics, which are governed by the concentration of styrene monomer within a given monomer’s local volume.

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

Rapid sampling of stochastic displacements in Brownian dynamics simulations

Here, we present a new method for sampling stochastic displacements in Brownian Dynamics (BD) simulations of colloidal scale particles. The method relies on a new formulation for Ewald summation of the Rotne-Prager-Yamakawa (RPY) tensor, which guarantees that the real-space and wave-space contributions to the tensor are independently symmetric and positive-definite for all possible particle configurations. Brownian displacements are drawn from a superposition of two independent samples: a wave-space (far-field or long-ranged) contribution, computed using techniques from fluctuating hydrodynamics and non-uniform fast Fourier transforms; and a real-space (near-field or short-ranged) correction, computed using a Krylov subspace method. The combined computational complexity of drawing these two independent samples scales linearly with the number of particles. The proposed method circumvents the super-linear scaling exhibited by all known iterative sampling methods applied directly to the RPY tensor that results from the power law growth of the condition number of tensor with the number of particles. For geometrically dense microstructures (fractal dimension equal three), the performance is independent of volume fraction, while for tenuous microstructures (fractal dimension less than three), such as gels and polymer solutions, the performance improves with decreasing volume fraction. This is in stark contrast with other related linear-scaling methods such as the force coupling method and the fluctuating immersed boundary method, for which performance degrades with decreasing volume fraction. Calculations for hard sphere dispersions and colloidal gels are illustrated and used to explore the role of microstructure on performance of the algorithm. In practice, the logarithmic part of the predicted scaling is not observed and the algorithm scales linearly for up to 4×10 6 particles, obtaining speed ups of over an order of magnitude over existing iterative methods, and making the cost of computing Brownian displacements comparable to the cost of computing deterministic displacements in BD simulations. Finally, a high-performance implementation employing non-uniform fast Fourier transforms implemented on graphics processing units and integrated with the software package HOOMD-blue is used for benchmarking.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2018

Thickness scaling of pyroelectric response in thin ferroelectric Hf 1- x Zr x O 2 films

In this study, the scaling of polarization and pyroelectric response across a thickness series (5–20 nm) of Hf 0.58 Zr 0.42 O 2 films with TaN electrodes was characterized. Reduction in thickness from 20 nm to 5 nm resulted in a decreased remanent polarization from 17 to 2.8 μC cm -2 . Accompanying the decreased remanent polarization was an increased absolute pyroelectric coefficient, from 30 to 58 μC m -2 K -1 . The pyroelectric response of the 5 nm film was unstable and decreased logarithmically with time, while that of 10 nm and thicker films was stable over a time scale of >300 h at room temperature. Finally, the sign of the pyroelectric response was irreversible with differing polarity of poling bias for the 5 nm thick film, indicating that the enhanced pyroelectric response was of electret origins, whereas the pyroelectric response in thicker films was consistent with a crystallographic origin.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2019

X-point ion orbit physics in scrape-off layer and generation of a localized electrostatic potential perturbation around X-point

It has been well-known that the logarithmically vanishing poloidal magnetic field strength Bθ near the magnetic X-point in a tokamak plasma yields the so-called ion X-loss or X-transport of ions when the ion temperature is high enough [C.S. Chang et al., Phys. Plasmas 9, 3884 (2002)], which has a notable impact on the physics just inside the magnetic separatrix surface; e.g., most prominently, to force a well-structure in the global negative radial electric field hence a pressure pedestal buildup. In this brief communication, we show that a similar effect exists in the scrape-off (SOL) layer near the X-point that can create a localized electrostatic potential structure around the X-point and have a significant impact on the near-SOL physics in the case when the ion dynamics are not collision-dominated.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2019

Decomposition of plasma kinetic entropy into position and velocity space and the use of kinetic entropy in particle-in-cell simulations

In this work, we describe a systematic development of kinetic entropy as a diagnostic in fully kinetic particle-in-cell (PIC) simulations and use it to interpret plasma physics processes in heliospheric, planetary, and astrophysical systems. In the beginning, we calculate kinetic entropy in two forms—the “combinatorial” form related to the logarithm of the number of microstates per macrostate and the “continuous” form related to flnf, where f is the particle distribution function. We discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each and discuss subtleties about implementing them in PIC codes. Using collisionless PIC simulations that are two-dimensional in position space and three-dimensional in velocity space, we verify the implementation of the kinetic entropy diagnostics and discuss how to optimize numerical parameters to ensure accurate results. We show the total kinetic entropy is conserved to three percent in an optimized simulation of antiparallel magnetic reconnection. Kinetic entropy can be decomposed into a sum of a position space entropy and a velocity space entropy, and we use this to investigate the nature of kinetic entropy transport during collisionless reconnection. We find the velocity space entropy of both electrons and ions increases in time due to plasma heating during magnetic reconnection, as the position space entropy decreases due to plasma compression. This project uses collisionless simulations, so it cannot address physical dissipation mechanisms; nonetheless, the infrastructure developed here should be useful for studies of collisional or weakly collisional heliospheric, planetary, and astrophysical systems. Beyond reconnection, the diagnostic is expected to be applicable to plasma turbulence and collisionless shocks.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2019

Scalings pertaining to current sheet disruption mediated by the plasmoid instability

Analytic scaling relations are derived for a phenomenological model of the plasmoid instability in an evolving current sheet, including the effects of reconnection outflow. Two scenarios are considered, where the plasmoid instability can be triggered either by an injected initial perturbation or by the natural noise of the system (here referred to as the system noise). The two scenarios lead to different scaling relations because the initial noise decays when the linear growth of the plasmoid instability is not sufficiently fast to overcome the advection loss caused by the reconnection outflow, whereas the system noise represents the lowest level of fluctuations in the system. The leading order approximation for the current sheet width at disruption takes the form of a power law multiplied by a logarithmic factor, and from that, the scaling relations for the wavenumber and the linear growth rate of the dominant mode are obtained. When the effects of the outflow are neglected, the scaling relations agree, up to the leading order approximation, with previously derived scaling relations based on a principle of least time. As a result, the analytical scaling relations are validated with numerical solutions of the model.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗