Neutron induced light-ion production from iron and bismuth at 175 MeV

We have measured light-ion (p, d, t, ³He and α) production in the interaction of 175 MeV neutrons with iron and bismuth with low-energy thresholds and for a wide angular range (from 20° to 160°, in steps of 20°). Measurements have been performed with the Medley setup, semi-permanently installed at the The Svedberg Laboratory, Uppsala (Sweden), where a quasi-monoenergetic neutron beam is available and well characterized. Medley is a conventional spectrometer system and consists of eight telescopes, each of them composed of two silicon surface barrier detectors, to perform particle identification, and a CsI(Tl) scintillator to fully measure the kinetic energy of the produced light-ions. We report preliminary double-differential cross sections for production of protons, deuterons and tritons in comparison with model calculations using TALYS-1.0 code. These show better agreement for the production of protons, while the theoretical calculations seem to overestimate the experimental production of deuterons and tritons.     

Material characterization of superconducting T′-Nd2CuO4 films synthesized by metal organic decomposition

Recently we have achieved superconductivity in T′-RE₂CuO₄ (RE = Pr, Nd, Sm, Eu, and Gd), films by metal organic decomposition (MOD). In this article, we first report the cation off-stoichiometry effect, which aims at screening out the possibility of hole doping by cation deficiencies. We also investigated the structure and microstructure of superconducting T′-Nd₂CuO₄ films synthesized by MOD. This investigation aims at elucidating why MOD-grown Nd₂CuO₄ films become superconducting whereas our previous Nd₂CuO₄ films grown by molecular beam epitaxy were not superconducting.