Study of the sintering behaviour of MgB2 superconductor during hot-pressing

The densification behaviour of MgB₂ was studied when commercial powder was hot-pressed in the temperature range 1070–1190 °C. The mechanisms active during sintering were investigated by continuously recording the shrinkage vs. time and elaborating the data on the basis of Kingery’s model for liquid phase sintering. XRD and SEM analysis on final dense bodies were used to evaluate secondary phases formation during sintering and the effect of magnesium sublimation. AC magnetic susceptibility measurements were also performed to correlate the microstructural and morphological modifications induced by hot-pressing and the superconducting properties.     

Kinetic energy oscillations in annular regions of ultracold neutral plasmas

A study of ion equilibration in annular regions of ultracold strontium plasmas is reported. Plasmas are formed by photoionizing laser-cooled atoms with a pulsed dye laser. The experimental probe is spatially-resolved absorption spectroscopy using the ²S_1/2-²P_1/2 transition of the Sr⁺ ion. The kinetic energy of the ions is calculated from the Doppler broadening of the spectrum, and it displays clear oscillations during the first microsecond after plasma formation. The oscillations, which are a characteristic of strong coulomb coupling, are fit with a simple phenomenological model incorporating damping and density variation in the plasma.     

Effects of metallic vapor on the properties of an argon arc plasma

During thermal plasma processing of materials, vapor generated from injected particulate matter will enter the plasma. Even traces of metallic vapors may have a strong effect on the properties and the behavior of the plasma and on the associated heat flux to the injected particles. In this paper a model system is considered in which an argon plasma at atmospheric pressure is contaminated by small amounts of copper vapor. By using the Chapman-Enskog approximation for a multicomponent gas mixture the transport properties are calculated for such a contaminated argon plasma. The results show that there is a drastic effect on the electrical properties. For temperatures below 10⁴ K, the electrical conductivity, for example, increases by more than an order of magnitude if metallic vapor is present. The presence of metallic contaminants is also somewhat felt by the reactional thermal conductivity. In contrast, there is no effect on the heavy-particle properties as long as the percentage of the contaminants remains small.     

靶的厚度对激光产生的x射线输运到靶后能谱的影响

利用一维辐射流体动力学程序MULTI数值模拟研究了功率为10¹⁴W/cm²、脉冲宽度为1ns、波长为0.35μm的短脉冲强激光辐照不同厚度的平面Au靶时，靶厚度对靶背面x射线能谱结构和辐射强度的影响. 关键词： 激光等离子体 辐射流体力学 x射线转换     

热等静压对NbTi/Cu多芯超导线加工过程的影响

采用传统方法生产的NbTi/Cu多芯超导线在生产芯数较多的超导线时存在填充系数较大的问题,这直接影响了芯丝的整齐排布,所以组装完成后加入热等静压过程.研究了经过热等静压和未经过热等静压的NbTi/Cu多芯超导线的加工性能.经过试验证明,经过100～150MP,2小时热等静压处理的NbTi/Cu多芯超导线坯锭在加工过程中具有良好的加工性能,提高了超导线复合坯锭的成品率;而未经过热等静压处理的NbTi/Cu多芯超导线坯锭加工性能较差,坯锭内部缺陷较多.     

硅衬底上纳米晶金刚石生长

研究了蚀刻气体对生长在硅衬底上纳米晶金刚石合成的影响.合成方法为热丝化学气相沉积法,衬底温度为550 oC,反应压力为4 kPa. 其中甲烷和氢气分别作为源气体和稀释气体. 氮气、氢气和氨气用作蚀刻气体. 结果表明,仅氢气作为蚀刻气体可获得最佳工艺条件.     

Effects of N2 addition on nanocrystalline diamond films by HFCVD in Ar/CH4 gas mixture

Nanocrystalline diamond (NCD) films were grown on silicon substrates by hot filament chemical vapor deposition in Ar/N₂/CH₄ gas mixtures. The effects of seeding process prior to deposition, the total gas pressure, and concentration of nitrogen on the grain size, morphology and bonding nature in HFCVD technique were investigated. The results indicated that a low total gas pressure is favorable for nanosized diamond crystallites. Films micrograph obtained from scanning electron microscopy showed diamond nanograins elongated with the addition of nitrogen in the plasma. Crystal structure investigations were carried out by X-ray diffraction measurements for deposited films. An increase in the size of crystallite is also observed from XRD measurements in NCD film when nitrogen was added in plasma. From Raman spectra, it was observed that the relative intensity of G peak increases indicating more graphite content after nitrogen added in the plasma. The effects of the nitrogen incorporation in nanocrystalline films in HFCVD are discussed.     

Effect of progressive annealing on Silicon Nanostructures grown by Hot Wire Chemical Vapor Deposition

In this work, the evolution of Silicon Nanostructures with progressive annealing has been studied. Hot Wire CVD (HWCVD) process was used to deposit a Si_xN_y/a-Si structure on an n-type 〈100〉$〈100〉$ Silicon substrate with the Nitride acting as the buffer layer. The depositions were carried out at a low substrate temperature (250 °C) which is precisely why HWCVD was chosen over other processes for this work. The as-deposited sample was then annealed at 800 °C and 900 °C respectively. AFM studies revealed promising results hinting at the presence of Silicon Nanostructures. With progressive annealing the Nanostructures began to evolve, eventually turning into sharp Nanopillars upon annealing at 900 °C. In this paper, a growth model has been proposed which attempts to validate the experimental results. Though a lot of work is currently underway in this field, study of Silicon Nanostructures grown by HWCVD technique is relatively new.     

Unlike-particle collision operator for gyrokinetic particle simulations

Plasmas in modern tokamak experiments contain a significant fraction of impurity ion species in addition to main deuterium background. A new unlike-particle collision operator for δf particle simulation has been developed to self-consistently study the non-local effects of impurities on neoclassical transport in toroidal plasmas. A new algorithm for simulation of cross-collisions between different ion species includes test-particle and conserving field-particle operators. The field-particle operator is designed to enforce conservation of number, momentum and energy. It was shown that the new operator correctly simulates the thermal equilibration of different plasma components. It was verified that the ambipolar radial electric field reaches steady state when the total radial guiding center particle current vanishes.     

Photoionization of the excited He atom in Debye plasmas

We present theoretical photoionization cross sections for He 1s2s ¹S and He 1s2p ¹P states in a Debye plasma environment by the complex coordinate rotation method, using a finite L² basis set constructed from one electron Laguerre orbitals. The plasma environment is found to appreciably influence the photoionization cross sections near the ionization threshold. In this regard, the photoionization cross sections of isolated He are compared with other theoretical and experimental results. Our results are in good agreement with the previous results. A new minimum appears in the photoionization cross section curve for the metastable 1s2s ¹S state. Results are given for the S- and D-wave partial photoionization for the excited 1s2p ¹P state.