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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 1,045 records · Page 58
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2022

Feasibility study of Mg storage in a bilayer silicene anode via application of an external electric field

With the goal of developing a Si-based anode for Mg-ion batteries (MIBs) that is both efficient and compatible with the current semiconductor industry, the current research utilized classical Molecular Dynamics (MD) simulation in investigating the intercalation of a Mg 2+ ion under an external electric field (E-field) in a 2D bilayer silicene anode (BSA). First principles density functional theory calculations were used to validate the implemented EDIP potentials. Our simulation shows that there exists an optimum E-field value in the range of 0.2–0.4 V Å –1 for Mg 2+ intercalation in BSA. To study the effect of the E-field on Mg 2+ ions, an exhaustive spread of investigations was carried out under different boundary conditions, including calculations of mean square displacement (MSD), interaction energy, radial distribution function (RDF), and trajectory of ions. Our results show that the Mg 2+ ions form a stable bond with Si in BSA. The effects of E-field direction and operating temperature were also investigated. In the X–Y plane in the 0°–45° range, 15° from the X-direction was found to be the optimum direction for intercalation. The results of this work also suggest that BSA does not undergo drastic structural changes during the charging cycles with the highest operating temperature being ~300 K

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗
DOE OSTI2017

SCALA: In situ calibration for integral field spectrographs

The scientific yield of current and future optical surveys is increasingly limited by systematic uncertainties in the flux calibration. This is the case for type Ia supernova (SN Ia) cosmology programs, where an improved calibration directly translates into improved cosmological constraints. Current methodology rests on models of stars. Here we aim to obtain flux calibration that is traceable to state-of-the-art detector-based calibration. Methods. We present the SNIFS Calibration Apparatus (SCALA), a color (relative) flux calibration system developed for the SuperNova integral field spectrograph (SNIFS), operating at the University of Hawaii 2.2 m (UH 88) telescope. Results. By comparing the color trend of the illumination generated by SCALA during two commissioning runs, and to previous laboratory measurements, we show that we can determine the light emitted by SCALA with a long-term repeatability better than 1%. We describe the calibration procedure necessary to control for system aging. We present measurements of the SNIFS throughput as estimated by SCALA observations. Conclusions. The SCALA calibration unit is now fully deployed at the UH 88 telescope, and with it color-calibration between 4000 Å and 9000 Å is stable at the percent level over a one-year baseline.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2014

Superfluid helium cryogenic systems for superconducting RF cavities at KEK

Recent accelerator projects at KEK, such as the Superconducting RF Test Facility (STF) for R and D of the International Linear Collider (ILC) project and the compact Energy Recovery Linac (cERL), employ superconducting RF cavities made of pure niobium, which can generate high gradient acceleration field. Since the operation temperature of these cavities is selected to be 2 K, we have developed two 2 K superfluid helium cryogenic systems for stable operation of superconducting RF cavities for each of STF and cERL. These two 2 K superfluid helium cryogenic systems are identical in principle. Since the operation mode of the cavities is different for STF and cERL, i.e. the pulse mode for STF and the continuous wave mode for cERL, the heat loads from the cavities are quite different. The 2 K superfluid helium cryogenic systems mainly consists of ordinary helium liquefiers/refrigerators, 2 K refrigerator cold boxes, helium gas pumping systems and high-performance transfer lines. The 2 K refrigerators and the high-performance transfer lines are designed by KEK. Some superconducting RF cavity cryomodules have been already connected to the 2 K superfluid helium cryogenic systems for STF and cERL respectively, and cooled down to 2 K successfully.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2014

A compact micro-wave synthesizer for transportable cold-atom interferometers

We present the realization of a compact micro-wave frequency synthesizer for an atom interferometer based on stimulated Raman transitions, applied to transportable inertial sensing. Our set-up is intended to address the hyperfine transitions of {sup 87}Rb at 6.8 GHz. The prototype is evaluated both in the time and the frequency domain by comparison with state-of-the-art frequency references developed at Laboratoire national de métrologie et d'essais−Systémes de référence temps espace (LNE-SYRTE). In free-running mode, it features a residual phase noise level of −65 dB rad{sup 2} Hz{sup −1} at 10 Hz offset frequency and a white phase noise level in the order of −120 dB rad{sup 2} Hz{sup −1} for Fourier frequencies above 10 kHz. The phase noise effect on the sensitivity of the atomic interferometer is evaluated for diverse values of cycling time, interrogation time, and Raman pulse duration. To our knowledge, the resulting contribution is well below the sensitivity of any demonstrated cold atom inertial sensors based on stimulated Raman transitions. The drastic improvement in terms of size, simplicity, and power consumption paves the way towards field and mobile operations.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2014

A multi-species exchange model for fully fluctuating polymer field theory simulations

Field-theoretic models have been used extensively to study the phase behavior of inhomogeneous polymer melts and solutions, both in self-consistent mean-field calculations and in numerical simulations of the full theory capturing composition fluctuations. The models commonly used can be grouped into two categories, namely, species models and exchange models. Species models involve integrations of functionals that explicitly depend on fields originating both from species density operators and their conjugate chemical potential fields. In contrast, exchange models retain only linear combinations of the chemical potential fields. In the two-component case, development of exchange models has been instrumental in enabling stable complex Langevin (CL) simulations of the full complex-valued theory. No comparable stable CL approach has yet been established for field theories of the species type. Here, we introduce an extension of the exchange model to an arbitrary number of components, namely, the multi-species exchange (MSE) model, which greatly expands the classes of soft material systems that can be accessed by the complex Langevin simulation technique. We demonstrate the stability and accuracy of the MSE-CL sampling approach using numerical simulations of triblock and tetrablock terpolymer melts, and tetrablock quaterpolymer melts. This method should enable studies of a wide range of fluctuation phenomena in multiblock/multi-species polymer blends and composites.

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

Improving microwave antenna gain and bandwidth with phase compensation metasurface

Metasurface, as a planar version of artificial metamaterial, provide an effective way to manipulate electromagnetic wave propagation. Here, we present a transparent metasurface for compensating the out-of-phase radiation from a microstrip patch antenna to improve its radiation gain and bandwidth. Based on the equivalence principle of Huygens’ surface, we propose metasurface composed of both inductive and capacitive resonant elements which could produce high transmission with variable phase characteristics. Such metasurface mounted on a patch antenna can transform the spherical-like phase profile generated from the patch into an in-phase planar one. A prototype antenna has been fabricated and validated the squeezed radiation pattern with suppressed sidelobes as well as enhanced impedance bandwidth due to strong near-field coupling. As operating at around 5.7 GHz, the proposed antenna may have potential application in wireless communication systems especially for point-to-point data transmission. It is believed that the design methodology could also be scaled to other frequency bands such as millimeter or terahertz wave.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2015

Vectorial near-field imaging of a GaN based photonic crystal cavity

We report a full optical deep sub-wavelength imaging of the vectorial components of the electric local density of states for the confined modes of a modified GaN L3 photonic crystal nanocavity. The mode mapping is obtained with a scanning near-field optical microscope operating in a resonant forward scattering configuration, allowing the vectorial characterization of optical passive samples. The optical modes of the investigated cavity emerge as Fano resonances and can be probed without the need of embedded light emitters or evanescent light coupling into the nanocavity. The experimental maps, independently measured in the two in-plane polarizations, turn out to be in excellent agreement with numerical predictions.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2016

Experimental generation of tripartite polarization entangled states of bright optical beams

The multipartite polarization entangled states of bright optical beams directly associating with the spin states of atomic ensembles are one of the essential resources in the future quantum information networks, which can be conveniently utilized to transfer and convert quantum states across a network composed of many atomic nodes. In this letter, we present the experimental demonstration of tripartite polarization entanglement described by Stokes operators of optical field. The tripartite entangled states of light at the frequency resonant with D1 line of Rubidium atoms are transformed into the continuous variable polarization entanglement among three bright optical beams via an optical beam splitter network. The obtained entanglement is confirmed by the extended criterion for polarization entanglement of multipartite quantized optical modes.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2016

Cherenkov detectors for spatial imaging applications using discrete-energy photons

Cherenkov detectors can offer a significant advantage in spatial imaging applications when excellent timing response, low noise and cross talk, large area coverage, and the ability to operate in magnetic fields are required. We show that an array of Cherenkov detectors with crude energy resolution coupled with monochromatic photons resulting from a low-energy nuclear reaction can be used to produce a sharp image of material while providing large and inexpensive detector coverage. The analysis of the detector response to relative transmission of photons with various energies allows for reconstruction of material's effective atomic number further aiding in high-Z material identification.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2020

Nb 3 Sn multicell cavity coating system at Jefferson Lab

Superconducting radio frequency niobium cavities are the building blocks of modern accelerators for scientific applications. Lower surface resistance, higher fields, and high operating temperatures advance the reach of the future accelerators for scientific discovery as well as potentially enabling cost-effective industrial solutions. We describe the design and performance of an Nb 3 Sn coating system that converts the inner surface of niobium cavities to an Nb 3 Sn film. The niobium surface, heated by radiation from the niobium retort, is exposed to Sn and SnCl 2 vapor during the heat cycle, which results in about 2 μm Nb 3 Sn film on the niobium surface. Film composition and structure as well as radio frequency properties with 1-cell R&D cavities and 5-cell practical accelerator cavities are presented.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗
DOE OSTI2024

Lower hybrid drift instability in nonthermal plasmas

Lower hybrid drift instability (LHDI) is driven by the cross-field current and operates in the vicinity of the lower-hybrid frequency, between the ion- and electron-gyro frequencies, and with wavelengths between the electron and ion thermal gyro radii. The free energy source that drives this instability resides in the density gradient associated with an inhomogeneous plasma. The existing literature on LHDI assumes that the charged particle distribution function is given by a Maxwellian form, but the space plasma is pervasively observed to feature nonthermal characteristics. This paper extends the theory of LHDI to nonthermal plasmas. The generalized theory of LHDI is, thus, applicable to various space plasma environments characterized by nonthermal plasma velocity distribution functions.

Arya, Neetasha (ORCID:0009000236075605)↗
DOE OSTI2013

Astrophysical tests of modified gravity: Constraints from distance indicators in the nearby universe

We use distance measurements in the nearby universe to carry out new tests of gravity, surpassing other astrophysical tests by over two orders of magnitude for chameleon theories. The three nearby distance indicators—cepheids, tip of the red giant branch (TRGB) stars, and water masers—operate in gravitational fields of widely different strengths. This enables tests of scalar-tensor gravity theories because they are screened from enhanced forces to different extents. Inferred distances from cepheids and TRGB stars are altered (in opposite directions) over a range of chameleon gravity theory parameters well below the sensitivity of cosmological probes. Using published data, we have compared cepheid and TRGB distances in a sample of unscreened dwarf galaxies within 10 Mpc. We use a comparable set of screened galaxies as a control sample. We find no evidence for the order unity force enhancements expected in these theories. Using a two-parameter description of the models (the coupling strength and background field value), we obtain constraints on both the chameleon and symmetron screening scenarios. In particular we show that f(R) models with background field values f {sub R0} above 5 × 10{sup –7} are ruled out at the 95% confidence level. We also compare TRGB and maser distances to the galaxy NGC 4258 as a second test for larger field values. While there are several approximations and caveats in our study, our analysis demonstrates the power of gravity tests in the local universe. We discuss the prospects for additional improved tests with future observations.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2023

Isotope dependence of transport in ST40 hot ion mode plasmas

The ST40 compact, high-field spherical tokamak, operating at 2.1 T and with 1.8 MW of neutral beam heating, achieved central carbon impurity ion temperatures in excess of 10 keV, surpassing their business milestone of 100 M °C (8.6 keV). The high temperature discharges were in the hot ion mode, with $T_i \gg T_e$, and they were achieved in both hydrogen and deuterium plasmas with deuterium neutral beam injection. In order to achieve the high temperature scenarios, careful wall conditioning and scenario optimization was carried out in $H^0 \rightarrow H^+$, $D^0 \rightarrow H^+$, and finally in $D^0 \rightarrow D^+$ plasmas. The TRANSP transport code was employed to study the dependence of confinement and transport on isotopic mass, and the conditions that led to the high measured central ion temperatures in the $D^0 \rightarrow H^+$ and $D^0 \rightarrow D^+$ plasmas. The kinetic profiles input into TRANSP were inferred from line-of-sight and limited radial measurements as well as consistency with a number of other experimental constraints. The TRANSP results first showed that the main species central ion temperature was only 0.5–1 keV lower than the measured carbon impurity temperature, and thus in the high performance plasmas also surpassed the 100 M °C level. TRANSP also showed that while the electron thermal conduction loss was dominant, reductions in central ion transport, and an effective decoupling of the ions from the electrons, led to an increase in central ion temperatures with increasing plasma mass. In fact, the associated confinement times exhibited a strong dependence on the isotopic mass of the thermal plasma. These preliminary results are foundations for dedicated experiments with full kinetic profile measurements on ST40 in the next run campaign.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2019

First experimental tests of a new small angle slot divertor on DIII-D

A new small angle slot (SAS) divertor concept has been developed to enhance neutral cooling across the divertor target by coupling a closed slot structure with appropriate target shaping. Initial tests on DIII-D find a strong interplay between such anticipated ‘SAS’ effects and cross-field drifts, favouring operation with the ion B×∇B drift away from the X-point, as currently employed for advanced tokamaks. This offers the following key improvements relative to DIII-D’s open lower divertor or partially-closed upper divertor: (i) SAS allows for transition to low temperature moderately detached divertor conditions with T_e≲10eV at very low main plasma densities, lower than are usually attainable at all in DIII-D high confinement (H-mode) plasmas as used in these tests; (ii) Pedestal performance and core confinement are significantly improved with SAS. The final confinement collapse associated with the onset of X-point MARFE (multifaceted asymmetric radiation from the edge) following deep detachment occurs at significantly higher pedestal densities, thus widening the window of H-mode operation compatible with a dissipative divertor. For operation with the ion B×∇B drift toward the X-point, the divertor plasma transitions to a bifurcative detached state at much higher densities, similar to other divertor configurations in DIII-D. These results highlight the strong interplay between divertor closure and drifts, and point to an interesting divertor optimization path to explore that offers potential for future fusion reactors.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2016

MCP-PMT studies at the High-B test facility at Jefferson Lab

Here we present preliminary results for the gain performance of commercially available 3- mum and 6- mum pore-size single-anode microchannel-plate photomultipliers (MCP PMTs) in magnetic fields up to 5 T and for various orientations of the sensor relative to the field direction. The measurements were performed at Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility in Newport News, VA. Our results show that smaller-pore-size PMTs have better gain performance in magnetic fields. At various angles, the shape of the gain dependence on the strength of the magnetic field strongly depends on the type of the sensor. Also, for each sensor, the azimuthal dependence is strongly correlated with the polar angle. Overall, the sensors exhibit a reasonable performance up to 2 T, although that upper limit depends on the sensor, the applied high voltage, and the orientation of the sensor relative to the field. To optimize the operational and design parameters of MCP PMTs for performance in high magnetic fields, further measurements and simulation studies will be pursued. Furthermore, our studies are part of an R&D for development of a Detector of Internally Reflected Cherenkov Light for the central detector of a future U.S. Electron Ion Collider.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2018

The Higgs Factory muon collider superconducting magnets and their protection against beam decay radiation

We report a low-energy medium-luminosity Muon Collider (MC) is being studied as a possible Higgs Factory (HF). Electrons from muon decays will deposit more than 300 kW in superconducting (SC) magnets of the HF collider ring. This imposes significant challenges to SC magnets used in the HF storage ring (SR) and interaction regions (IR). Conceptual designs of SC dipole and quadrupole magnets are described which provide high operating gradient and field in a large aperture to accommodate the large size of muon beams (due to low β*), as well as a cooling system to intercept the large heat deposition from the showers induced by decay electrons. The distribution of heat deposition in the main elements of HF SR lattice requires large-aperture magnets to accommodate thick high-Z absorbers to protect the SC coils. Based on the developed MARS15 model and intensive simulations, a sophisticated protection system from radiation was designed for the collider SR and IR to bring the peak power density in the SC coils well below the quench limit and reduce the dynamic heat deposition in the cold mass of SC magnets by a factor of 100. The radiation protection system consists of tight tungsten masks in the magnet interconnect regions and elliptical tungsten liners in the magnet aperture optimized for each magnet. Lastly, these elements reduce also the background particle fluxes in the collider detector.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2017

Induced Radioactivity in Lead Shielding at the National Synchrotron Light Source

The National Synchrotron Light Source (NSLS) at Brookhaven National Laboratory was shut down in September 2014. Lead bricks used as radiological shadow shielding within the accelerator were exposed to stray radiation fields during normal operations. The FLUKA code, a fully integrated Monte Carlo simulation package for the interaction and transport of particles and nuclei in matter, was used to estimate induced radioactivity in this shielding and stainless steel beam pipe from known beam losses. The FLUKA output was processed using MICROSHIELD® to estimate on-contact exposure rates with individually exposed bricks to help design and optimize the radiological survey process. This entire process can be modeled using FLUKA, but use of MICROSHIELD® as a secondary method was chosen because of the project’s resource constraints. Due to the compressed schedule and lack of shielding configuration data, simple FLUKA models were developed in this paper. FLUKA activity estimates for stainless steel were compared with sampling data to validate results, which show that simple FLUKA models and irradiation geometries can be used to predict radioactivity inventories accurately in exposed materials. During decommissioning 0.1% of the lead bricks were found to have measurable levels of induced radioactivity. Finally, post-processing with MICROSHIELD® provides an acceptable secondary method of estimating residual exposure rates.

98 NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT, SAFEGUARDS, AND PHYSICAL P↗