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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 127 records · Page 7
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2023

Tomographic optical emission spectroscopy of atmospheric pressure plasma interacting with complex surfaces

Plasma distribution in 3D space is heavily influenced by complex surfaces and the coupling interactions between plasma properties and interfacing material properties. For example, guided streamers that transition to surface ionization waves (SIWs) and propagate over structured dielectrics experience field enhancements that can lead to localized increases in ionization rates and complex 3D configurations that are difficult to analyze. Investigating these configurations requires techniques than can provide a more complete 3D picture. To help address this capability gap, a tomographic optical emission spectroscopy (tomo-OES) diagnostic system has been developed at Sandia National Laboratories that can resolve SIWs. The system includes four intensified cameras that measure the angular projections of the plasma light emission through bandpass filters. A dot calibration target co-registers each angular projection to the same voxel grid and an algebraic reconstruction technique (ART) recovers the light intensity at each voxel. An atmospheric pressure plasma jet (APPJ), provided by Peter Bruggeman, has been investigated and representative results are shown in Figure 1. Here, a bandpass filter was used to isolate emission from the N 2 second positive system (SPS) at 337.1 nm to capture the transition of the streamer to SIW on a planar dielectric surface (relative permittivity 3.3) located 3 mm below the APPJ [3]. The surface wave velocity was 3.5x10 4 (m/s), consistent with measurements made by Steven Shannon. Characterization of this APPJ will support the group effort of standing up a reproducible APPJ across institutions for applications such as liquid treatment, catalysis, and plasma aided combustion. Future work will investigate non-planar surfaces and eventually develop tomographic laser-induced fluorescence (tomo-LIF) approaches.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2021

Demonstration of a 20‐W membrane‐external‐cavity surface‐emitting laser for sodium guide star applications

Abstract We present a record 20‐W continuous‐wave output power membrane‐external‐cavity surface‐emitting laser (MECSEL) double‐bonded to silicon carbide (SiC) heat spreaders emitting around 1178 nm. We achieved a maximum slope efficiency of 27.7% and an optical‐to‐optical efficiency of 26.7%. By utilising an intracavity birefringent filtre, the wavelength was tuned over 75 nm and maximum output power of 12.7 W was recorded at 1178 nm. This study shows the potential of MECSELs to achieve high‐performance and cost‐effective optically pumped semiconductor disk lasers targeting applications in sodium guide stars.

Priante, D.↗
DOE OSTI2022

Effects of Coulomb collisions on lower hybrid drift waves inside a laboratory reconnection current sheet

We have developed a local, linear theoretical model for lower hybrid drift waves that can be used for plasmas in the weakly collisional regime. Two cases with typical plasma and field parameters for the current sheet of the magnetic reconnection experiment have been studied. For a case with a low electron beta (β e =0.25, high guide field case), the quasi-electrostatic lower hybrid drift wave is unstable, while the electromagnetic lower hybrid drift wave has a positive growth rate for a high-β e case (β e =8.9, low guide field case). For both cases, including the effects of Coulomb collisions reduces the growth rate but collisional impacts on the dispersion and growth rate are limited (≲20%).

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2026

Interpretation of high-harmonic fast-wave propagation in the scrape-off layer of NSTX-U as a geometrically bounded-waveguide mode

This paper revisits the onset of high-harmonic fast-wave (HHFW) propagation in the scrape-off layer (SOL) plasma of the NSTX/NSTX-U spherical tokamak, motivated by past HHFW heating and current drive experiments and modelling. Previously, the fast-wave propagation in the SOL was correlated with the opening (suppression) of the fast-wave right-hand cutoff layer in front of the antenna. In this work, the SOL propagation is interpreted as a geometric waveguide mode guided by the SOL geometry, whose radial width can be comparable to the wave’s perpendicular wavelength in the HHFW regime. A two-dimensional circular model is first employed using full-wave solvers to characterise the poloidal eigenmode structures and to clarify their relationship to annulus resonance. By progressively adding a tokamak-like magnetic-field configuration, starting from a uniform axial field, the effects of magnetic-field gradients and pitch on the SOL waveguide mode are characterised. The poloidal mode numbers supported by the SOL plasma agree well with analytic estimates, indicating that an anisotropic plasma in a bounded geometry selectively supports and amplifies the resonant poloidal mode number. Additionally, two-dimensional axisymmetric NSTX-U simulations demonstrate that the SOL eigenmode features identified in the circular model persist in the experimentally relevant configurations. A control approach based on lengthening the wave perpendicular wavelength relative to the SOL width, including a higher magnetic (B)-field operation, is discussed. The analysis here shows the key role of a bounded geometry in interpreting HHFW eigenmode coupling and propagation in the NSTX-U SOL plasma.

plasma heating↗
DOE OSTI2021

On the Effect of Beating during Nonlinear Frequency Chirping

Spectroscopic analyses of energetic particle (EP) driven bursts of MHD fluctuations in magnetically confined plasmas often exhibit chirps that occur simultaneously in groups of two or more. While the superposition of oscillations at multiple frequencies necessarily causes beating in the signal acquired by a localized external probe, self-consistent hybrid simulations of chirping EP modes in a JT-60U tokamak plasma have demonstrated the possibility of global beating, where the mode's electromagnetic field vanishes globally between beats and reappears with opposite phase [Bierwage et al., Nucl. Fusion 57, 016036 (2017)]. This implies that there can be a single coherent field mode that oscillates at multiple frequencies simultaneously when it is resonantly driven by multiple density waves in EP phase space. Conversely, this means that the EP density waves are mutually coupled and interfere with each other via the jointly driven field, a mechanism ignored in some theories of chirping. In this thesis-style treatise, we study the role of field pulsations in general and beating in particular using the Hamiltonian guiding center orbit-following code ORBIT with a reduced wave-particle interaction model in realistic geometry. Beating is found to drive the evolution of EP phase space structures. Additionally, a key mechanism is the pulsation of effective phase space islands combined with the alternation of their effective O- and X-points due to phase jumps between each beat. Observations: (1) Beating causes density wave fronts to advance radially in a pulsed manner and the resulting chirps become staircase-like. (2) The pulsations facilitate convective transfer of material between neighboring layers of phase space density waves. On the one hand, this may inhibit the early detachment of solitary phase space vortices. On the other hand, it facilitates the accumulation of hole and clump fragments into larger structures. (3) Long-range chirping is observed when massive holes or clumps detach and drift away from the turbulent belt around the seed resonance. It is remarkable that the detached vortices remain robust and,on average, maintain their concentric nested layers while being visibly perturbed by the field's continued beating.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2022

Integrated Solar-Driven Device with a Front Surface Semitransparent Catalysts for Unassisted CO 2 Reduction

Monolithic integrated photovoltaic-driven electrochemical (PV-EC) artificial photosynthesis is reported for unassisted CO 2 reduction. The PV-EC structures employ triple junction photoelectrodes with a front mounted semitransparent catalyst layer as a photocathode. The catalyst layer is comprised of an array of microscale triangular metallic prisms that redirect incoming light toward open areas of the photoelectrode to reduce shadow losses. Full wave electromagnetic simulations of the prism array (PA) structure guide optimization of geometries and length scales. An integrated device is constructed with Ag catalyst prisms covering 35% of the surface area. The experimental device has close to 80% of the transmittance with a catalytic surface area equivalent 144% of the glass substrate area. Experimentally this photocathode demonstrates a direct solar-to-CO conversion efficiency of 5.9% with 50 h stability. Selective electrodeposition of Cu catalysts onto the surface of the Ag triangular prisms allows CO2 conversion to higher value products enabling demonstration of a solar-to-C 2+ product efficiency of 3.1%. This design featuring structures that have a semitransparent catalyst layer on a PV-EC cell is a general solution to light loss by shadowing for front surface mounted metal catalysts, and opens a route for the development of artificial photosynthesis based on this scalable design approach.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2024

Flowing plasma rearrangement in the presence of static perturbing fields

Charged particles interacting with electromagnetic waves have a portion of their energy tied up in wave-driven oscillations. When these waves are localized to the exhaust of linear magnetic confinement systems, this ponderomotive effect can be utilized to enhance particle confinement. The same effect can be derived for particles moving via an E×B drift into a region of a static perturbation to the electromagnetic fields which has a large wave vector component in the direction of the motion. In this work, we use a simplified slab model to self-consistently solve for the electromagnetic fields within the fluid flowing plasma of a static flute-like (k∥=0) perturbation and evaluate the resulting ponderomotive potential. We find that two types of perturbations can exist within the flowing plasma, which are an O wave and an X wave in the frame moving with the fluid. In the case of tenuous plasma, these perturbations are magnetostatic or electrostatic multipole-analog perpendicular to the guiding magnetic field in the lab frame, respectfully. For denser plasmas, the O wave-like perturbation is screened at the electron skin depth scale, and the X wave-like perturbation is a combination of a similar perpendicular electric perturbation and parallel magnetic perturbation. The ponderomotive potential generated in the X wave-like case is gyrofrequency-dependent and can be used as either potential barriers or potential wells, depending on the direction of the flow velocity.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2026

Optical nanofiber testbeds for benchmarking membrane-waveguide photonic integrated circuit platforms toward on-chip quantum inertial sensing

Recent advances in cold atom interferometry with optical and magnetic atom guides have set the stage for quantum inertial sensors capable of operating in dynamic environments. In this work, we present three key innovations—evanescent-field (EF) atom guides, optical nanofiber testbeds, and membrane-waveguide photonic integrated circuit (PIC) platforms—to advance EF-guided atom interferometry. First, we demonstrate EF atom guides on optical nanofiber testbeds, which serve as performance benchmarks for our membrane-waveguide PIC platforms. Second, we achieve low-power (⁠ ~ 5 mW) guiding of freely moving, laser-cooled 133 Cs atoms in two-color, traveling-wave EF optical dipole traps at the novel, heat-efficient magic wavelengths of 793 and 937 nm (i.e., “793/937-nm EF atom guides”). Concurrently, we design and fabricate membrane-waveguide PIC platforms for these EF atom guides; in our prior work, we showed that these structures safely accommodate 4–6 times the required optical trap power under vacuum and enable dense cold atom generation via magneto-optical trapping in the vicinity of the optical wavguide for efficient loading. Third, we verify preserved atomic coherence via microwave fields and EF-coupled Doppler-free Raman beams; to our knowledge, this is the first report of coherence fringes driven by co-propagating EF-coupled Raman beams with only 150 nW of total optical power. By providing a direct comparison between optical nanofiber testbeds and membrane-waveguide PIC platforms, our results lay critical groundwork for the on-chip realization of EF-guided atom interferometry and the development of fully integrated, compact, lightweight, and low-power quantum accelerometers and gyroscopes.

Orozco, Adrian [Sandia National Laboratories (SNL-↗
DOE OSTI2023

Tomographic optical emission spectroscopy of an atmospheric pressure plasma jet and surface ionization waves on planar and structured surfaces

Here in this paper, an approach for 3D plasma structure diagnostics using tomographic optical emission spectroscopy (Tomo-OES) of a nanosecond pulsed atmospheric pressure plasma jet (APPJ) is presented. In contrast to the well-known Abel inversion, Tomo-OES does not require cylindrical symmetry to recover 3D distributions of plasma light emission. Instead, many 2D angular projections are measured with intensified cameras and the multiplicative algebraic reconstruction technique is used to recover the 3D distribution of light emission. This approach solves the line-of-sight integration problem inherent to optical diagnostics, allowing recovery of localized OES information within the plasma that can be used to better infer plasma parameters within complex plasma structures. Here, Tomo-OES was applied to investigate an APPJ operated with helium in ambient air and impinging on planar and structured dielectric surfaces. Surface charging caused the guided streamer from the APPJ to transition to a surface ionization wave (SIW) that propagated along the surface. The SIW experienced variable geometrical and electrical material properties as it propagated, leading to 3D configurations that were non-symmetric and spatially complex. Light emission from He, N$_2^+$, and N2 were imaged at ten angular projections and the respective time-resolved 3D emission distributions in the plasma were then reconstructed. The spatial resolution of each tomographic reconstruction was 7.4 µm and the temporal resolution was 5 ns, sufficient to observe the guided streamer and the effects of the structured surface on the SIW. Emission from He showed the core of the jet and emission from N$_2^+$ and N2 indicated effects of entrainment of ambient air. Penning ionization of N2 created a ring or outer layer of N$_2^+$ that spatially converged to form the 'plasma bullet' or spatially diverged across a surface as part of a SIW. The SIW entered trenches of size 150 µm, leading to decreases in plasma light emission in regions above the trenches. The plasma light emission was higher in some regions with trenches, possibly due to effects of field enhancement.

plasma interactions with complex surfaces↗
DOE OSTI2023

Quasilinear theory of Brillouin resonances in rotating magnetized plasmas

Both spin and orbital angular momentum can be exchanged between a rotating wave and a rotating magnetized plasma. Through resonances the spin and orbital angular momentum of the wave can be coupled to both the cyclotron rotation and the drift rotation of the particles. It is, however, shown that the Landau and cyclotron resonance conditions which classically describe resonant energy–momentum exchange between waves and particles are no longer valid in a rotating magnetized plasma column. In this case a new resonance condition which involves a resonant matching between the wave frequency, the cyclotron frequency modified by inertial effects and the harmonics of the guiding centre rotation is identified. A new quasilinear equation describing orbital and spin angular momentum exchanges through these new Brillouin resonances is then derived, and used to expose the wave-driven radial current responsible for angular momentum absorption.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2026

Controlled expansion for pairing in a polarized band with strong repulsion

Can strong repulsive interactions be shown to give rise to pairing in a controlled way? We find that for a single flavor polarized band, there is a small expansion parameter in the low density limit, once the Bloch wavefunction form factor is taken into account. A perturbative expansion is possible, even if the interaction is much stronger than the Fermi energy ε F . As a matter of principle, our work shows analytically how strong pairing can emerge from strong repulsion. Here, we illustrate our method with two examples: a 2D Dirac model and a 1D tight binding model with two orbitals. In the latter case, using density matrix renormalization group, we show that the analytical theory indeed guided us to discover the parameter regime where p-wave pairing with order-1 strength is dominant.

Ferromagnetic superconductors↗
DOE OSTI2026

Concept of Dynamic Heat Insulation for Rotating Detonation Engines

This work introduces a new class of materials concept to dynamically reduce instantaneous heat fluxes in Rotating Detonation Engine (RDE) combustor chamber walls. The high-frequency and high-amplitude surface heat fluxes observed in RDEs arise from large instantaneous temperature differences between the detonation shockwave and chamber wall surface. These temperature gradients drive substantial energy loss and reduce the chamber gas pressure, ultimately limiting the cycle’s thermodynamic efficiency. This work introduces a concept for dynamically insulating the combustion chamber surfaces using surface layers or coatings with low thermal time scale. With such coatings, the surface temperature may follow the fluctuations of the cyclic detonation wave temperature, thus reducing the instantaneous heat flux therefore cycle-mean heat flux. To analyze these cyclic thermal phenomena, a one-dimensional analytical conduction solver was utilized with the capability to handle multilayered structures. Parametric modeling was performed using transient heat flux boundary conditions representative of a hydrogen–air RDE across a broad range of coating thermal properties and engine conditions. The coating effectiveness scaled with the product of thermal time constant and detonation wave frequency and the results were non-dimensionalized to guide future materials development. This strategy may offer benefits in increasing material survivability, reducing cooling requirements, and enhancing pressure gain.

heat transfer↗
DOE OSTI2021

An Ab Initio Multiple Cloning Method for Non-Adiabatic Excited-State Molecular Dynamics in NWChem

The recently developed ab-initio multiple cloning (AIMC) approach based on the multicongurational Ehrenfest (MCE) method provides a powerful and accurate way of describing the excited-state dynamics of molecular systems. The AIMC method is a controlled approximation to non-adiabatic dynamics with a particular strength in the proper description of decoherence effects due to branching of vibrational wavepackets at a level crossing. In this work, we report a new implementation of the AIMC algorithm in the open source NWChem computational chemistry program. The framework combines linear-response time-dependent density functional theory with Ehrenfest mean-eld theory to determine the equations of motion for classical trajectories. The multi-dimensional wave function is decomposed into a superposition of Gaussian coherent states guided by Ehrenfest trajectories (i.e., MCE approach), which can clone with fully quantum mechanical amplitudes and phases. By using an efficient time-derivative based non-adiabatic coupling approach within the AIMC method, all observable are calculated on-the-y in the non-adiabatic molecular dynamics process. As a representative example, we apply our implementation to study the ultrafast photoinduced electronic and vibrational energy transfer in a pyridine molecule. The effects of the cloning procedure on electronic and vibrational coherence, relaxation and unidirectional energy transfer are discussed. This new AIMC implementation provides a high-level non-adiabatic molecular dynamics framework for simulating photoexcited dynamics in complex molecular systems and experimentally relevant ultrafast spectroscopic probes, such as nonlinear coherent optical and X-ray signals.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2021

Roadmap on Atomtronics: State of the art and perspective

Atomtronics deals with matter-wave circuits of ultracold atoms manipulated through magnetic or laser-generated guides with different shapes and intensities. In this way, new types of quantum networks can be constructed in which coherent fluids are controlled with the know-how developed in the atomic and molecular physics community. In particular, quantum devices with enhanced precision, control, and flexibility of their operating conditions can be accessed. Concomitantly, new quantum simulators and emulators harnessing on the coherent current flows can also be developed. Here, the authors survey the landscape of atomtronics-enabled quantum technology and draw a roadmap for the field in the near future. The authors review some of the latest progress achieved in matter-wave circuits' design and atom-chips. Atomtronic networks are deployed as promising platforms for probing many-body physics with a new angle and a new twist. The latter can be done at the level of both equilibrium and nonequilibrium situations. Numerous relevant problems in mesoscopic physics, such as persistent currents and quantum transport in circuits of fermionic or bosonic atoms, are studied through a new lens. The authors summarize some of the atomtronics quantum devices and sensors. Finally, the authors discuss alkali-earth and Rydberg atoms as potential platforms for the realization of atomtronic circuits with special features.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2021

Alpha particle channeling in ITER

Alpha particle channeling, the attempt to extract energy from high-energy fusion alpha particles using a combination of high- and low-frequency waves introduced in the plasma with antennae, is studied using a guiding center code. We examine the effect of the combination of cooling caused by a cyclotron mode, particle diffusion due to Alfvén modes introduced for ash removal, the inclusion of microturbulent diffusion, and the slowing down of the alpha particles on electrons. Induced cooling is achieved with a cyclotron resonance, producing additional losses of particles above 3.5 MeV in an amount about equal to the prompt loss. The removal of the low-energy cooled particles by additional modes or by microturbulent diffusion is the hardest challenge for alpha channeling. The cooled alpha particles remain deep in the plasma center, so for this removal, the method used must be capable of providing transport from the plasma center to the edge without also causing losses of high-energy particles.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2025

Improved laser-plasma accelerator stability via high-bandwidth longitudinal focal position stabilization of a 100 TW-class laser system

Laser-plasma accelerators (LPAs) offer an attractive alternative to conventional accelerators for the development of compact electron sources and next-generation light sources. Due to orders-of-magnitude larger accelerating gradients, LPAs enable the acceleration of high-brightness electron beams to ultrarelativistic energies in millimeter- to centimeter-scale distances. However, LPA stability is limited by shot-to-shot fluctuations of the driving laser system. Specifically, fluctuations in the final-focus longitudinal position result in correlated instability in LPA electron beam qualities, including total beam charge, average beam energy, and energy spread. We demonstrate active stabilization of the longitudinal focal position for a 100 TW-class laser system. This repetition-rate scalable stabilization system leverages noninvasive wave front monitoring of a copropagating, unamplified kHz pulse train to guide corrective adjustments to the focal position of a 1 Hz amplified drive laser via an upstream telescope on millisecond timescales. In this demonstration, the approach limits standard deviation fluctuations of the amplified drive beam’s longitudinal focal position to ±0.22⁢ mm (representing at least a 53% reduction), achieved with a correction bandwidth that reaches the Nyquist frequency limit. Consequently, we observe marked improvements in both long-term and shot-to-shot LPA stability in terms of charge and spectrum.

Beam control↗
DOE OSTI2025

Linking the subseasonal variability of the East Asia winter monsoon and the Madden-Julian Oscillation through wave disturbances along the subtropical jet

Despite an urgent demand for reliable subseasonal-to-seasonal (S2S) predictions to guide disaster preparedness, our current climate models show limited S2S prediction skill, particularly for precipitation, due to an inadequate understanding of the key processes that drive regional S2S variability. Here we demonstrate that the leading subseasonal variability mode of precipitation over the East Asian Winter Monsoon (EAWM) region is not only closely tied to the activity of the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO), but also linked to precipitation and temperature extremes worldwide, influenced by a circumglobal Rossby wave-train along the subtropical westerly jet. Despite a close phase-lock relationship between the MJO and subseasonal EAWM precipitation, our findings indicate that the MJO itself may only play a minor role in the subseasonal EAWM variability. Given its significant impact on the S2S variability of global weather extremes, we call for coordinated community efforts to enhance the understanding and prediction of the circumglobal Rossby wave-train.

Atmospheric science↗
DOE OSTI2026

Comparison between Alcator C-Mod ICRF experiments and 3D full wave simulations

Reliable modeling of ion cyclotron range of frequencies (ICRF) antenna performance is essential for interpreting present experiments and guiding the design of future reactors. In this work, a 3D model of the Alcator C-Mod field-aligned antenna is implemented in the Petra-M finite-element framework [S. Shiraiwa et al 2023 Nucl. Fusion 63 026024] and benchmarked against experimental results. Four experimental cases are examined. First, the simulated rectified sheath potentials on the antenna limiters are compared with measurements from a power tapering experiment. Second, proof-of-principle far-field sheath simulations are performed. In scenarios with low single-pass absorption, simulations predict enhanced sheath potentials on a distant poloidal limiter in the far field of the antenna, consistent with experimental observations. Third, the simulated antenna loading during edge localized modes follows experimental trends and appears to be dominated by the density gradient at the pedestal. Finally, Petra-M predicts the unintended excitation of high-$k$ ∥ modes during monopole phasing operation, in agreement with experimental evidence of poor wave coupling and accessibility to the plasma core. Overall, reasonable agreement is found between the simulations and experiments. At the same time, areas of imperfect agreement are identified. These provide important guidance on the limits of the current state-of-the-art modeling, which should be kept in mind when using it as a predictive tool for future reactors.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗