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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 163 records · Page 9
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2022

Development, construction and qualification tests of the mechanical structures of the electromagnetic calorimeter of the Mu2e experiment at Fermilab

The “muon-to-electron conversion” (Mu2e) experiment at Fermilab will search for the Charged Lepton Flavour Violating neutrino-less coherent conversion of a muon into an electron in the field of an aluminum nucleus. The observation of this process would be the unambiguous evidence of physics beyond the Standard Model. Mu2e detectors comprise a straw-tracker, an electromagnetic calorimeter and an external veto for cosmic rays. The calorimeter provides excellent electron identification, complementary information to aid pattern recognition and track reconstruction, and a fast calorimetric online trigger. The detector has been designed as a state-of-the-art crystal calorimeter and employs 1340 pure Cesium Iodide (CsI) crystals readout by UV-extended silicon photosensors and fast front-end and digitization electronics. A design consisting of two identical annular matrices (named “disks”) positioned at the relative distance of 70 cm downstream the aluminum target along the muon beamline satisfies the Mu2e physics requirements.The hostile Mu2e operational conditions, in terms of radiation levels (total ionizing dose of 12 krad and a neutron fluence of 5x1010 n/cm2 @ 1 MeVeq (Si)/y), magnetic field intensity (1 T) and vacuum level (10$^{-4}$ Torr) have posed tight constraints on the design of the detector mechanical structures and materials choice. The support structure of the two 670 crystal matrices employs two aluminum hollow rings and parts made of open-cell vacuum-compatible carbon fiber. The photosensors and service front-end electronics for each crystal are assembled in a unique mechanical unit inserted in a machined copper holder. The 670 units are supported by a machined plate made of vacuum-compatible plastic material. The plate also integrates the cooling system made of a network of copper lines flowing a low temperature radiation-hard fluid and placed in thermal contact with the copper holders to constitute a low resistance thermal bridge. The data acquisition electronics is hosted in aluminum custom crates positioned on the external lateral surface of the two disks. The crates also integrate the electronics cooling system as lines running in parallel to the front-end system.The constraints on the calorimeter mechanical structures design, the development from the conceptual design to the specifications of all the structural components, the status of components production and the components quality assurance tests are presented.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2022

Forward silicon vertex/tracking detector design and R$\&$D for the future Electron-Ion Collider

The proposed high-luminosity high-energy Electron-Ion Collider (EIC) will provide a clean environment to precisely study several fundamental questions in the fields of high-energy and nuclear physics . A low material budget and high granularity silicon vertex/tracking detector is critical to carry out a series of hadron and jet measurements at the future EIC especially for the heavy flavor product reconstruction or tagging. The conceptual design of a proposed forward silicon tracking detector with the pseudorapidity coverage from 1.2 to 3.5 has been developed in integration with different magnet options and the other EIC detector sub-systems. The tracking performance of this detector enables precise heavy flavor hadron and jet measurements in the hadron beam going direction. The detector R&D for the proposed silicon technology candidates: Low Gain Avalanche Diode (LGAD) and radiation hard depleted Monolithic Active Pixel Sensor (MALTA), which can provide good spatial and timing resolutions, is underway. Bench test results of the LGAD and MALTA prototype sensors will be discussed.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2025

SpinQuest Polarized Target System

The SpinQuest experiment at Fermilab uses a solid-state polarized ammonia target held at a magnetic field of 5 T, immersed in liquid helium-4, which is held at approximately 1K by the evaporation refrigerator. The refrigerator provides the required cooling power during the dynamic nuclear polarization (DNP) process and the high intensity interaction with the 120 GeV proton beam from the Fermilab main injector. The refrigerator was designed in compliance with the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) to operate safely at Fermilab. The high pumping capacity ($17,000 \:m^3/h$) roots stack provides the required pumping speed during DNP production data taking and a custom-made radiation hard flow control valve regulates the refrigerator temperature during the thermal equilibrium calibration measurements. The frequency of the microwave generator, an Extended Interaction Oscillator (EIO), is automated to keep the maximum polarization while the (Nuclear Magnetic Resonance) NMR system continuously measures the polarization of the target material. In this talk, an overview of the SpinQuest polarized target system will be presented as well as a brief report of recent commissioning activities and target performance during the early production runs in 2024.

Bandara, Vibodha [Colombo U.]↗
DOE OSTI2025

Crystal Calorimetry for Charged Lepton Flavor Violation Searches

The Mu2e experiment at Fermilab aims to search for Charged Lepton Flavor Violation (CLFV) through the coherent conversion of a muon into an electron in the field of an aluminum nucleus. This process, highly suppressed in the Standard Model, would clearly indicate new physics if observed. A crucial component of Mu2e is its electromagnetic calorimeter, which enhances the identification and measurement of conversion electrons. The calorimeter consists of two disks of undoped CsI crystals read out by custom-designed SiPMs and fast front-end electronics. This paper presents an overview of the calorimeter’s design, its custom SiPM technology, the readout and data acquisition system, and the results from commissioning tests.Building on the experience from Mu2e, the proposed Mu2e-II upgrade aims to enhance further the experiment’s sensitivity by an order of magnitude. This requires significant advancements in calorimeter technology, particularly in crystal materials and photodetector performance. Studies on BaF$_2$ and LYSO crystals, as well as the development of radiation-hard Silicon Photomultipliers (SiPMs), are currently underway. Test beam results demonstrate promising improvements in energy resolution and timing capabilities, ensuring the feasibility of next-generation calorimetry solutions for Mu2e-II.

Atanov, N. [Dubna, JINR]↗
DOE OSTI2025

Development of a Multi-Robot System for Autonomous Inspection of Nuclear Waste Tank Pits

This paper introduces the overall design plan, development timeline, and preliminary progress of the Autonomous Pit Exploration System project. This project aims to develop an advanced multi-robot system for the efficient inspection of nuclear waste-storage tank pits. The project is structured into three phases: Phase 1 involves data collection and interface definition in collaboration with Hanford Site experts and university partners, focusing on tank riser geometry and hardware solutions. Phase 2 includes the selection of sensors and robot components, detailed mechanical design, and prototyping. Phase 3 integrates all components into a cohesive system managed by a master control package which also incorporates digital twin and surrogate models, and culminates in comprehensive testing and validation at a simulated tank pit at the Idaho National Laboratory. Additionally, the system’s communication design ensures coordinated operation through shared data, power, and control signals. For transportation and deployment, an electric vehicle (EV) is chosen to support the system for a full 10 h shift with better regulatory compliance for field deployment. A telescopic arm design is selected for its simple configuration and superior reach capability and controllability. Preliminary testing utilizes an educational robot to demonstrate the feasibility of splitting computational tasks between edge and cloud computers. Successful simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) tasks validate our distributed computing approach. More design considerations are also discussed, including radiation hardness assurance, SLAM performance, software transferability, and digital twinning strategies.

Nuclear waste management↗
DOE OSTI2022

The (Un)reasonable Effectiveness of Neural Network in Cherenkov Calorimetry

We report a greater than factor of two improvement in the hadronic energy resolution of a simulated Cherenkov calorimeter by estimating the energy with machine learning over traditional techniques. The prompt signal formation and energy threshold properties of Cherenkov radiation provide identifiable features that machine learning techniques can exploit to produce a superior model for energy reconstruction. We simulated a quartz-fiber calorimeter via the GEANT4 framework to study the reconstruction techniques in single events. We compared the machine learning-based reconstruction performance to the traditional simple sum of signal and dual-readout techniques that use both Cherenkov and scintillation signals. We describe why this game-changing approach to Cherenkov hadron calorimetry excels and our plans for a dedicated beam test to validate these findings with a fast, radiation-hard hadron calorimeter prototype.

Akchurin, Nural↗
DOE OSTI2022

Novel Sensors for Particle Tracking: a Contribution to the Snowmass Community Planning Exercise of 2021

Five contemporary technologies are discussed in the context of their potential roles in particle tracking for future high energy physics applications. These include sensors of the 3D configuration, in both diamond and silicon, submicron-dimension pixels, thin film detectors, and scintillating quantum dots in gallium arsenide. Drivers of the technologies include radiation hardness, excellent position, vertex, and timing resolution, simplified integration, and optimized power, cost, and material.

Detectors↗
DOE OSTI2020

Neutral Pion Electroproduction and development of a Neutral Particle Spectrometer

Protons and neutrons, i.e. nucleons, are the basic building blocks of the matter in the visible universe. The strong force binds the nucleons to form nuclei. The electromagnetic force forms the atoms by binding the electrons with the nuclei. The electromagnetic interaction is well understood by Quantum Electrodynamics (QED), which shows the most precise predictability amongst all the theories in physics. In QED, charges interact with each other by exchanging photons. The Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) describes the strong interaction. Its degrees of freedom are quarks and gluons, the fundamental constituents of the nucleons. The quarks interact with each other by exchanging gluons. However, unlike QED, the gluons interact amongst themselves. This feature of self bindings of the gluons confines the quarks and gluons in the nucleons/hadrons, never to be seen as free. In order to study some of the features of QCD, such as confinement or the structure of the nucleon, one usually needs to rely on experiments. Electromagnetic probes, governed by the well-understood QED, are excellent tools to probe the nucleon. In general, different scales, e.g. electron beam energies, probe different regions of the nucleon. At low energy, of the order of a few GeV, the electron probes the nucleon in the valence quark region. As its energy increases, the electron probes the sea quark and gluon regions. The study of the nucleon structure in all these regions is needed to fully understand QCD. Form factors and parton distribution functions measured from elastic scattering and deep inelastic scattering of leptons off nucleons have provided a partial view of the internal structure of the nucleon. In the mid-1990s, Generalized Parton Distributions (GPDs) were developed. These new objects are a generalization of the form factors and parton distribution functions, but contain richer information on the nucleon internal structure. GPDs are accessible experimentally by deep exclusive reactions. Deeply virtual Compton scattering (DVCS) and deeply virtual meson production (DVMP) are some examples. The first dedicated DVCS/DVMP experiment took place in 2004 in Hall A at The Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility, i.e. Jefferson Lab, in Virginia, U.S.A. A new DVCS/DVMP experiment, after the beam energy upgrade of Jefferson Lab, was carried out in Hall A in a wider kinematic range. Its data were taken from 2014 to 2016. In Hall C at Jefferson Lab, the next DVCS/DVMP experiment will take place. The Hall C experiment will further exploit the kinematic range with higher precision. A Neutral Particle Spectrometer (NPS) is in development to measure DVCS/DVMP events under high background conditions. Jefferson Lab will provide the highest precision data in the valence quark region for various exclusive reactions. The Electron-Ion Collider (EIC) is a future experimental facility currently planned to start operations around 2030 in the U.S.A. Its high energy and high luminosity will probe the sea quark and gluon regions providing answers to the outstanding questions of QCD, in particular in the region where matter is dominated by gluons. First of all, this document describes the data analysis and results of the Hall A neutral pion electroproduction off the proton, from the data taken in 2014-2016. Later, some of the developments towards the construction of the electromagnetic calorimeter of the NPS for the upcoming DVCS/DVMP experiment in Hall C are presented. Finally, one of the candidate materials for the EIC calorimeter, a glass scintillator, will be briefly introduced. I have participated to all these projects, in collaboration with many colleagues. I present in this thesis my contributions to each of these projects. My contributions to the neutral pion data analysis were focused on background subtractions on the calorimeter, acceptance calculations, and the estimation of the systematic uncertainty associated to the event selection cuts. Some necessary information on calibrations of the detectors and data analysis methods are also described. In the NPS project, I performed background dose calculations and energy and position resolution studies of the calorimeter, all using Monte Carlo simulations, with realistic geometries of the experimental apparatus. Characterization of the crystals of the calorimeter was also done. Additionally, I measured the radiation hardness of some glass scintillator in its early stage of development. In order to have a future reference when the glass calorimeter prototype will be tested, I simulated the energy resolution of the prototype.

Ko, Ho-San↗
DOE OSTI2021

Multijunction solar cells with graded buffer Bragg reflectors

Distributed Bragg reflectors are incorporated into the compositionally graded buffers of metamorphic solar cells, adding functionality to the buffer without adding cost. The reflection aids in collection in subcells that are optically thin due to low diffusion length, high bulk recombination, radiation hardness, partially-absorbing quantum structures, or simply for cost savings. Performance enhancements are demonstrated in GaAs subcells with QWs, which is beneficial when GaAs is not the ideal bandgap.

France, Ryan Matthew↗
DOE OSTI2022

Novel Sensors for Particle Tracking: a Contribution to the Snowmass Community Planning Exercise of 2021

Five contemporary technologies are discussed in the context of their potential roles in particle tracking for future high energy physics applications. These include sensors of the 3D configuration, in both diamond and silicon, submicron-dimension pixels, thin film detectors, and scintillating quantum dots in gallium arsenide. Drivers of the technologies include radiation hardness, excellent position, vertex, and timing resolution, simplified integration, and optimized power, cost, and material.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2022

Triple-Junction III-V Solar Cells with 39.5% AM1.5G and 34.2% AM0 Efficiencies

III-V multijunction solar cells have the highest efficiencies of any PV technology. These devices are currently the dominant space PV technology, and are being investigated for a wide range of other applications where efficiency is a key metric. In this presentation, we describe a 3-junction cell with the highest 1-sun efficiency to date: 39.5% under the global spectrum, which is higher than previous 6-junction devices. When tuned for the space spectrum, the cell achieves 34.2% beginning-of-life efficiency, without consideration for radiation hardness. These efficiency improvements are enabled by combining advances in device architectures and extended-defect control strategies. This latest 3-junction device includes a high-performance front-junction GaInP top cell, an optically-thick strain-balanced quantum well middle cell, and a lattice-mismatched GaInAs bottom cell with record performance despite dislocations. These advances not only allow high efficiency photovoltaics for both space and terrestrial PV applications, but also help enable new applications of III-V materials.

GaInAs↗
DOE OSTI2024

Target Multiwire for the Fermilab Booster Neutrino Beamline

The Booster Neutrino Beamline experiment re-quested a new secondary electron emission multiwire profile monitor installation. The device had to be durable in high radiation conditions and mounted within a large 10-foot airtight steel fixture for installation near the beam target. Previous iterations of multiwire suffered radiation damage to both the connectors and wires. To ensure accurate horizontal and vertical beam profile measurements, an updated design was pro-posed, designed, and constructed. The new BNB multiwire utilizes 3 mil diameter gold-plated tungsten sense wires soldered to vertical and horizontal Alumi-na-96 ceramic planes, 50 wires per plane. Radiation hard Kapton insulated 30-gauge wires carry the output signals. Profiles are readout through charge integrator scanner electronics. This paper will detail the design and functionality of the BNB target multiwire and present relevant beam profile data.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Measuring 3D Chemistry at 1 nm Resolution with Fused Multi-Modal Electron Tomography

Measuring the three-dimensional (3D) distribution of chemistry in nanoscale matter is a longstanding challenge for metrological science. The inelastic scattering events required for 3D chemical imaging are too rare, requiring high beam exposure that destroys the specimen before an experiment is completed. Even larger doses are required to achieve high resolution. Thus, chemical mapping in 3D has been unachievable except at lower resolution with the most radiation-hard materials. Here, high-resolution 3D chemical imaging is achieved near or below one-nanometer resolution in an Au-Fe3O4 metamaterial within an organic ligand matrix, Co3O4-Mn3O4 core-shell nanocrystals, and ZnS-Cu0.64S0.36 nanomaterial using fused multi-modal electron tomography. Multi-modal data fusion enables high-resolution chemical tomography often with 99% less dose by linking information encoded within both elastic (HAADF) and inelastic (EDX/EELS) signals. We thus demonstrate that sub-nanometer 3D resolution of chemistry is measurable for a broad class of geometrically and compositionally complex materials.

Schwartz, Jonathan↗
DOE OSTI2025

Design and Construction of a High-Resolution Hodoscope for the GlueX Experiment with High-Statistics Analysis of the p0, ¿, and ¿1 Photoproduction Cross Sections from the RadPhi Experiment

Differential cross sections for forward-angle photoproduction of p0, ¿, and ¿ 1 pseudoscalar mesons were measured using data from the RadPhi experiment conducted in Hall B at Jef ferson Lab. RadPhi utilized a tagged bremsstrahlung photon beam incident on a stationary 9Be target, with a detector system configured to trigger on a recoil proton in coincidence with multiple neutral showers in the calorimeter. Events were reconstructed and subjected to kinematic constraints, with background suppressed via sideband subtraction guided by Monte Carlo modeling of background contributions. Cross sections were extracted over the photon energy range 4.4– 5.4 GeV and binned in invariant momentum transfer t, providing measurements from one of the first high-statistics experiments of forward ¿ and ¿1 pro duction from a nuclear target at these energies. Acceptance corrections were applied using a detailed GEANT-based simulation of the detector geometry and response. The resulting cross sections are consistent with 2020 CLAS results, when scaled by the number of protons in beryllium, and show broad agreement with other data and theoretical models. In parallel, a high-resolution photon tagger detector, the Tagger Microscope (TAGM), was designed, constructed, and commissioned for the GlueX experiment in Hall D at Jefferson Lab. The TAGM was developed to provide high-rate tagging capability in the coherent bremsstrahlung peak by detecting post-bremsstrahlung electrons across a one GeV range along the focal plane of the tagging spectrometer. The detector consists of a 5ˆ102 array of 2ˆ2 mm2 square BCF-20 plastic scintillating fibers thermally fused to BCF-98 light guide fibers optically coupled to silicon photomultipliers. These fibers are mounted in a precision machined framework enabling fine positional adjustments to maintain precise alignment with post-bremsstrahlung electron trajectories, while ensuring mechanical rigidity, thermal stability, optical isolation, minimal inactive area, and radiation shielding for electronics. The construction effort involved extensive testing of fiber quality, light transmission, thermal fusing, radiation hardness, and defect analysis using SEM and EDX techniques. Following its installation and commissioning, the TAGM became a critical component of the GlueX beamline, enabling high-rate tagging essential for studies of hybrid mesons and gluonic ex citations.

McIntyre, James [Univ. of Connecticut, Storrs, CT ↗
DOE OSTI2023

Radiation tolerance studies of the HV-mux GaNFETs for the HL-LHC ATLAS ITk Strip detector

For the High-Luminosity upgrade of the LHC, the current ATLAS inner detector will be replaced with a new silicon charged-particle tracker, the ITk, which consists of the ITk Pixel and the ITk Strip subdetector. The high voltage multiplexing (HV-Mux) GaNFETs are radiation-tolerant transistors that permit switching off high voltage to malfunctioning sensors on the ITk Strip modules. To ensure the reliability of the GaNFETs in the high radiation environment expected at the HL-LHC, a sample of the production batch was exposed to gamma radiation. Finally, the GaNFETs were characterized pre-irradiation and post-irradiation, and monitored during irradiation.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2020

Simulations of coherent scattering experiments at storage ring synchrotron radiation sources in the hard x-ray range

Detailed simulations of experiments carried out at modern light sources are directly related to the most efficient and productive use of these facilities for research in multiple branches of science and technology. The “Synchrotron Radiation Workshop” computer code with its Python interface, and Sirepo web-browser-based graphical user interface, currently supports physical optics simulations of coherent X-ray scattering and imaging experiments on user-defined virtual samples. We present examples of simulations of coherent scattering experiments that are typically performed at the Coherent Hard X-ray beamline at Brookhaven National Laboratory’s (BNL) National Synchrotron Light Source II. We also present several comparisons of the simulations with the results of actual coherent X-ray scattering experiments with nano-fabricated test samples produced at BNL’s Center for Functional Nanomaterials.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2020

A study of radiation tolerance in optical cements

We study the effect ionizing radiation has on light transmission in the wavelength range 190–1100 nm for a number of optically clear epoxies. We find that the transmittance of traditional, commercially available, optical epoxies show significant degradation for exposures of 1×10 12 MIPs/cm 2 . Degradation of light transmission progresses from the shortest wavelengths at low doses to longer wavelengths as the dose increases. In epoxy joints that are 0.1 mm thick, we observe that more than 5% of the light is lost for wavelengths less than 400 nm for traditional optical epoxies. Our studies have identified an optically clear epoxy that shows little degradation for radiation exposures up to 5.9× 10 14 MIPs/cm 2 (≈ 220 kGy).

Radiation-hard detectors↗
DOE OSTI2023

Cascaded hard X-ray self-seeded free-electron laser at megahertz repetition rate

High-resolution X-ray spectroscopy in the sub-nanosecond to femtosecond time range requires ultrashort X-ray pulses and a spectral X-ray flux considerably larger than that presently available. X-ray free-electron laser (XFEL) radiation from hard X-ray self-seeding (HXRSS) setups has been demonstrated in the past and offers the necessary peak flux properties. So far, these systems could not provide high repetition rates enabling a high average flux. We report the results for a cascaded HXRSS system installed at the European XFEL, currently the only operating high-repetition-rate hard X-ray XFEL facility worldwide. A high repetition rate, combined with HXRSS, allows the generation of millijoule-level pulses in the photon energy range of 6–14 keV with a bandwidth of around 1 eV (corresponding to about 1 mJ eV –1 peak spectral density) at the rate of ten trains per second, each train including hundreds of pulses arriving at a megahertz repetition rate. At 2.25 MHz repetition rate and photon energies in the 6–7 keV range, we observed and characterized the heat-load effects on the HXRSS crystals, substantially altering the spectra of subsequent X-ray pulses. We demonstrated that our cascaded self-seeding scheme reduces this detrimental effect to below the detection level. This opens up exciting new possibilities in a wide range of scientific fields employing ultrafast X-ray spectroscopy, scattering and imaging techniques.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗