The objective of this research is to investigate the technical feasibility of producing solar-cell-quality sheet silicon to meet the DOE 1986 cost goal of 70 cents/watt. The silicon-on-ceramic approach is to coat a low-cost ceramic substrate with large-grain polycrystalline silicon by unidirectional solidification of molten silicon. Results are reported. A new silicon-coating system, SCIM-II, was designed and constructed. A design strategy to avoid buckling and breaking of substrates has been formulated, implemented, and verified. Detailed thermal modeling of the heating and cooling zones has been performed, and the results have been compared with experiment. A number of modifications have been made in SCIM-II to implement the strategy to minimize thermal stress and to improve reproducibility of coating conditions. Dip-coating has been continued in order to supply material for cell fabrication, since impure carbon parts have been used in the SCIM-coater while changes were still being made. The best cell had a total-area efficiency of 10.5% (AM1, AR) for a cell area of 5 cm/sup 2/. The highest efficiencies were produced with a PH/sub 3/ diffusion at 850/sup 0/C, followed by a slow cooldown at about 5/sup 0/C/min. Theoretical modeling of SOC solar cells shows that present cell performance is limited …

An important loss process in CTR plasmas is the process of dielectronic recombination, which proceeds via autoionizing states. At this date, however, this problem is not fully understood, largely because of the nearly complete lack of fundamental atomic data on high excited autoionizing states. In this document, we outline the continuation of a program to investigate the properties of autoionizing states of alkaline earth metals by means of a novel laser excitation technique developed at SRI. This approach will allow us to study, for the first time, autoionizing states of arbitrary n, and l in a controlled environment. Specifically, we plan to measure autoionization rates and branching ratios as a function of n and l and the effects of electric fields. These experiments should yield the basic atomic data, autoionization rates, required as inputs to sophisticated model calculations of dielectronic recombination rates.

Document issued by the Office of the Attorney General of Texas in Austin, Texas, providing an interpretation of Texas law. It provides the opinion of the Texas Attorney General, Mark White, regarding a legal question submitted for clarification;Whether a county may expend proceeds of the sale of bonds and other county funds to construct permanent improvements on leased land.

Publication of the University of Houston System describing campus events, academic programs and research, student and alumni activities, and other informatin of interest to the community.

Publication of the University of Houston System describing campus events, academic programs and research, student and alumni activities, and other informatin of interest to the community.