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Results for “photo-absorption”

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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All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1978

On the dissociation of nitrogen by electron impact and by EUV photo-absorption

The dissociation of N2 by electron impact and by absorption of EUV photons was studied experimentally. It was shown that most of the N2 molecules excited to singlet states in the 12.5-14.86 eV range are depopulated by predissociation and not by the emission of EUV photons and that this is the principal mechanism by which N2 is dissociated by solar EUV absorption and by electron impact. The experiments provide a physical explanation for the near absence of N2 band radiation in airglow and auroral EUV spectra, and rule out the excitation of EUV radiation as a major factor in the overall energy economy of an auroral substorm.

Zipf, E. C.↗
DOE OSTI2025

Fe‐Triazolate Metal–Organic Frameworks as Water Oxidation Catalysts with Dual Photoanode Functionality

Artificial photosynthesis is an emerging technology that achieves renewable fuels, such as hydrogen, from sunlight. Its realization depends on finding highly active and stable catalysts of water splitting and photoactive materials for light absorption. To be scalable, these should contain only abundant elements. Here, for the first time, Fe-triazolate (Fe(ta) 2 ) and its metal substituted derivatives (Fe-Metal(ta) 2 ) Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are characterized as new dual-function materials for photo-absorption and water oxidation catalysis in acidic media. The materials were studied by a range of structural, spectroscopic, and computational density functional theory (DFT) techniques. Fe(ta) 2 and Fe-Mn(ta) 2 were found to be highly active and stable in chemical and photochemical water oxidation, and in addition function as photoanodes, with photo-electrocatalytic currents (∼2.00 x 10 −3 Acm −2 at + 1.4 V vs. Ag/AgCl) at pH = 1. The possibility of a unique catalytic mechanism where O─O bond formation is possible from the coupling of two adjacent Fe IV = O fragments was demonstrated by DFT analysis. Thus, Fe-triazolate MOF has been established as a new, stable, scalable, versatile, and efficient platform for sustainable energy conversion in the realm of artificial photosynthesis.

Artificial photosynthesis↗
DOE OSTI2024

Low-energy radiative backgrounds in CCD-based dark-matter detectors

The reach of sub-GeV dark-matter detectors is at present severely affected by low-energy events from various origins. We present the theoretical methods to compute the single- and few-electron events that arise from secondary radiation emitted by high-energy particles as they pass through detector materials and perform a detailed simulation to quantify them at (Skipper) CCD-based experiments, focusing on the SENSEI data collected at Fermilab near the MINOS cavern. The simulations account for the generation of secondaries from Cherenkov and luminescent recombination radiation; photo-absorption in the bulk, backside layer, pitch adapter, and epoxy; the photon reflection and refraction at interfaces; thin-film interference; the roughness of the interfaces; the dynamics of charges produced in the highly doped CCD-backside-layers; and the partial charge collection on the CCD backside. We consider several systematic uncertainties, notably those stemming from the backside modeling, which we estimate with a “fiducial” and an “extreme” charge-diffusion model, with the former model being preferred due to better agreement with partial-charge collection data. We find that Cherenkov photons constitute about 30% of the observed single-electron events for both diffusion models; radiative recombination contributes negligibly to the event rate for the fiducial model, although it can dominate over Cherenkov for the extreme model. We also estimate the fraction of 2-electron events that arise from 1-electron event coincidences in the same pixel, finding that the entire 2-electron rate can be explained by coincidences of radiative events and spurious charge. Accounting for both radiative and non-radiative backgrounds, we project the sensitivity of future Skipper-CCD-based experiments to different dark-matter models. For light-mediator models with dark-matter masses of 1, 5, and 10 MeV, we find that future experiments with 10-kg-year exposures and successful background mitigation could have a sensitivity that is larger by 9, 3, and 2 orders of magnitude, respectively, when compared to an experiment without background improvements.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2023

Quantum efficiency and lifetime study for negative electron affinity GaAs nanopillar array photocathode

Recent studies showed significant improvement in quantum efficiency (QE) by negative electron affinity (NEA) GaAs nanopillar array (NPA) photocathodes over their flat surface peers, particularly at 500 ─ 800 nm waveband. However, the underlying physics is yet to be well understood for further improvement in its performance. In this report, NEA GaAs NPA photocathodes with different dimensions were studied. The diameter of the nanopillars varied from 200 ─ 360 nm, the height varied from 230 ─ 1000 nm and the periodicity varied from 470 ─ 630 nm. The QE and photocathode lifetime were measured. Mie-resonance enhancement was observed at tunable resonance wavelengths. Simulations was also performed to understand the mechanism of photo-absorption and possible ways to further improve the photocathode performance to meet the stringent requirement of the electron sources in large scale electron accelerators. **Acknowledgement** Authored by Jefferson Science Associates, LLC under U.S. DOE contract no. DE-AC05-06OR23177. The U.S. Government retains a non-exclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, world-wide license to publish or reproduce this manuscript for U.S. Government purposes. *mrahm008@odu.edu

Rahman, M.↗
DOE OSTI2025

Lithium-like O 5+ Emission near 19 Å

Using a high-resolution grating spectrometer on the Livermore EBIT-I electron beam ion trap, we have measured three n = 3,4 → n = 1 K-shell emission lines in lithiumlike O 5+ , which are situated near the O VIII Lyman-α lines at 19 Å. Two of the resulting wavelengths agree well with the wavelengths of these lines we reported earlier, but the wavelength of the third line does not. In contrast, our new wavelengths now fully agree with those from resonant photo-absorption experiments on the PETRA III synchrotron facility.

74 ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS↗
NASA NTRS1984

Substituent effects on the electrical conductivities of the phenazine derivatives

The and/or photoconductivities of 16 substituted phenazines having methoxy, hydroxy, chloro, nitro, amino or t-butyl group at 1-, 2-, 1, 6- or 2,7- positions of the phenazine ring measured by using the surface type cells. The energy gaps of the dark conductivities in the range 2.0 to 2.3 were independent of the kinds and the positions of the substituent groups, although the photo-absorption wavelength of the evaporated films changed with them. No correlation between photoconductivity and fluorescence was observed. The photocurrent was affected by the position of the substituents; namely, the photocurrents of the 1,6-di-substituted phenazines. When the substituent at 1,6-positions was hydroxy or amino group, however, the photocurrents decreased. The photocurrents decreased drastically in the presence of oxygen.

Sugimoto, A.↗
DOE OSTI2022

A fast approximation to supershell partition functions

A formula for supershell partition functions, which play a major role in the Super Transition Array approach to radiative-opacity calculations, is derived as a functional of the distribution of energies within the supershell. It consists in an alternative expansion for an arbitrary number of electrons or holes which also allows for quick approximate evaluations with truncated number of terms in the expansion.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2023

Fast approximation to supershell partition functions: Explicit forms of the coefficients

In a previous work, we derived a formula for supershell partition functions, which are the cornerstone of the Super-Transition-Array approach to radiative-opacity calculations. The new expression takes the form of a functional of the distribution of energies within the supershell and allows for fast and accurate computations, truncating the number of terms in the expansion. The latter involves coefficients (denoted Γ $k$ ) for which we obtained a recursion relation. In the present short paper, as a complement of the previous one, we give an explicit formula for the coefficients Γ $k$ . Another recursion relation is also provided, as well as an alternative expression involving Bell polynomials. In conclusion, the connections with cycle indexes of permutation groups and with elementary symmetric polynomials are outlined.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2024

On the computation of moments in the Super-Transition-Arrays model for radiative opacity calculations

In the Super-Transition-Array statistical method for the computation of radiative opacity of hot dense matter, the moments of the absorption or emission features involve partition functions with reduced degeneracies, occurring through the calculation of averages of products of subshell populations. Here, in the present work, we discuss several aspects of the computation of such peculiar partition functions, insisting on the precautions that must be taken in order to avoid numerical difficulties. In a previous work, we derived a formula for supershell partition functions, which takes the form of a functional of the distribution of energies within the supershell and allows for fast and accurate computations, truncating the number of terms in the expansion. The latter involves coefficients for which we obtained a recursion relation and an explicit formula. We show that such an expansion can be combined with the recurrence relation for shifted partition functions. We also propose, neglecting the effect of fine structure as a first step, a positive-definite formula for the Super-Transition-Array moments of any order, providing an insight into the asymmetry and sharpness of the latter. The corresponding formulas are free of alternating sums. Several ways to speed up the calculations are also presented.

74 ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2025

A new approach to include electron interaction effects in super transition array opacity theory

A method is presented for the improved calculation of super-shell partition functions which include the repulsive electron–electron interaction energy terms in the Boltzmann factor. Heretofore these interaction terms were approximately treated via the use of Feynman–Jensen inequalities. Further, such investigations are of particular interest for the super-transition-array approach of hot-plasma radiative opacity.

74 ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS↗