Article states that microneedles are highly sought after for medicinal and cosmetic applications. However, the current manufacturing process for microneedles remains complicated, hindering its applicability to a broader variety of applications. This experimental study enables the shapes and mechanical properties of the microneedles to be predicted in advance for mass production and wide practical use for biomedical or cosmetic applications.

This article analyzes public points of interconnection of Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple (GAFA) in the global North versus the global South to determine the degree to which their location preferences differ.

Article implements and tests the performances of several approximation algorithms for computing the minimum dominating set of a graph. This article belongs to the Special Issue: Algorithms for Hard Graph Problems.

In this article, a topic model was explored using unsupervised machine learning to summarized free-text narrative reports of 77,215 injuries that occurred in coal mines in the USA between 2000 and 2015. Latent Dirichlet Allocation modeling processes identified six topics from the free-text data. The modeling success enjoyed in this exploratory effort suggests that additional topic mining of these injury text narratives is justified, especially using a broad set of covariates to explain variations in topic emphasis and for comparison of surface mining injuries with injuries occurring during site preparation for construction.

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Examines the velocity distribution function (VDF) in dark matter halos from milky way to cluster mass scales.

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We propose a novel approach to measure short electron bunch profiles at micrometer level. Low energy electrons generated during beam-gas ionization are simultaneously modulated by the transverse electric field of a circularly-polarized laser, and then they are collected at a downstream screen where the angular modulation is converted to a circular shape. The longitudinal bunch profile is simply represented by the angular distribution of the electrons on the screen. We only need to know the laser wavelength for calibration and there is no phase synchronization problem. Meanwhile the required laser power is also relatively low in this setup. Some simulations examples and experimental consideration of this method are discussed. At Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS), an S-band RF transverse deflector (TCAV) is used to measure the bunch length with a resolution 10 femtosecond (fs) rms. An X-band deflector (wavelength 2.6cm) is proposed recently to improve the resolution. However, at the low charge operation mode (20pC), the pulse length can be as short as fs. It is very challenging to measure femtosecond and sub-femtosecond level bunch length. One of the methods is switching from RF to {mu}m level wavelength laser to deflect the bunch. A powerful laser ({approx}10s GW) is required …

Article discussing intraocular pressure changes and an important determinant of the biocompatibility of intravitreous implants.

Weak vertical coupled bunch instability with oscillation amplitude at {mu}m level has been observed in SPEAR3. The instability becomes stronger when there is a vacuum pressure rise by partially turning off vacuum pumps and it becomes weaker when the vertical beam emittance is increased by turning off the skew quadrupole magnets. These confirmed that the instability was driven by ions in the vacuum. The threshold of the beam ion instability when running with a single bunch train is just under 200 mA. This paper presents the comprehensive observations of the beam ion instability in SPEAR3. The effects of vacuum pressure, beam current, beam filling pattern, chromaticity, beam emittance and bunch-by-bunch feedback are investigated in great detail. In an electron accelerator, ions generated from the residual gas molecules can be trapped by the beam. Then these trapped ions interact resonantly with the beam and cause beam instability and emittance blow-up. Most existing light sources use a long single bunch train filling pattern, followed by a long gap to avoid multi-turn ion trapping. However, such a gap does not preclude ions from accumulating during one passage of the single bunch train beam, and those ions can still cause a Fast Ion Instability …

The measurement of the ultra-short electron bunch length on the femtosecond time scale constitutes a very challenging problem. In the x-ray free electron laser facilities such as the Linac Coherent Light Source, generation of a sub-ten femtoseconds electron beam with 20pC charge is possible, but direct measurements are very difficult due to the resolution limit of the present diagnostics. We propose a new method here based on the measurement of the electron beam energy modulation induced from laser-electron interaction in a short wiggler. A typical optical streaking method requires a laser wavelength much longer than the electron bunch length. In this paper a laser with its wavelength shorter than the electron bunch length has been adopted, while the slope on the laser intensity envelope is used to distinguish the different periods. With this technique it is possible to reconstruct the bunch longitudinal profile from a single shot measurement. Generation of ultrashort x-ray pulses at femtoseconds (fs) scale is of great interest within synchrotron radiation and free electron laser (FEL) user community. One of the simple methods is to operate the FEL facility at low charge. At the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS), we have demonstrated the capability of generating ultrashort …

The Linac Coherent Light Source is an x-ray free-electron laser at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, which is operating at x-ray wavelengths of 20-1.2 Angstrom with peak brightness nearly ten orders of magnitude beyond conventional synchrotron radiation sources. At the low charge operation mode (20 pC), the x-ray pulse length can be <10 fs. In this paper we report our numerical optimization and simulations to produce even shorter x-ray pulses by optimizing the machine and undulator setup at 20 pC charge. In the soft x-ray regime, with combination of slotted-foil or undulator taper, a single spike x-ray pulse is achievable with peak FEL power of a few 10s GW. Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS), the world's first hard x-ray Free electron laser (FEL), has started operation since 2009. With nominal operation charge of 250 pC, the generated x-ray pulse length is from 70 fs to a few hundred fs. This marks the beginning of a new era of ultrashort x-ray sciences. In addition, a low charge (20pC) operation mode has also been established. Since the collective effects are reduced at the low charge mode, we can increase the compression factor and still achieve a few kA peak current. The expected …

We propose to generate steady-state microbunching in a storage ring with a reversible seeding scheme. High gain harmonic generation (HGHG) and echo-enabled harmonic generation (EEHG) are two promising methods for microbunching linac electron beams. Because both schemes increase the energy spread of the seeded beam, they cannot drive a coherent radiator turn-by-turn in a storage ring. However, reversing the seeding process following the radiator minimizes the impact on the electron beam and may allow coherent radiation at or near the storage ring repetition rate. In this paper we describe the general idea and outline a proof-of-principle experiment. Electron storage rings can drive high average power light sources, and free-electron lasers (FELs) are now producing coherent light sources of unprecedented peak brightness While there is active research towards high repetition rate FELs (for example, using energy recovery linacs), at present there are still no convenient accelerator-based sources of high repetition rate, coherent radiation. As an alternative avenue, we recently proposed to establish steady-state microbunching (SSMB) in a storage ring. By maintaining steady-state coherent microbunching at one point in the storage ring, the beam generates coherent radiation at or close to the repetition rate of the storage ring. In this paper, we …

The SLAC Beam Physics group and other SLAC collaborators continue to study options for implementing a near diffraction-limited ring-based light source in the 2.2-km PEP-II tunnel that will serve the SSRL scientific program in the future. The study team has completed the baseline design for a 4.5-GeV storage ring having 160 pm-rad emittance with stored beam current of 1.5 A, providing >10{sup 22} brightness for multi-keV photon beams from 3.5-m undulator sources. The team has also investigated possible 5-GeV ERL configurations which, similar to the Cornell and KEK ERL plans, would have {approx}30 pm-rad emittance with 100 mA current, and {approx}10 pm-rad emittance with 25 mA or less. Now a 4.5-GeV 'ultimate' storage ring having emittance similar to the ERL and operating with {approx}200 mA is under study. An overview of the progress of the PEP-X design study and SSRL's plans for defining performance parameters that will guide the choice of ring options is presented.

The consequences of beam conditioning in four example cases [VISA, a soft x-ray free-electron laser (FEL), LCLS, and a 'Greenfield' FEL] are examined. It is shown that in emittance limited cases, proper conditioning reduces sensitivity to the transverse emittance and, furthermore, allows for stronger focusing in the undulator. Simulations show higher saturation power, with gain lengths reduced by a factor of 2 or more. The beam dynamics in a general conditioning system are studied, with 'matching conditions' derived for achieving conditioning without growth in the effective emittance. Various conditioning lattices are considered, and expressions derived for the amount of conditioning provided in each case when the matching conditions are satisfied. These results show that there is no fundamental obstacle to producing beam conditioning, and that the problem can be reduced to one of proper lattice design. Nevertheless, beam conditioning will not be easy to implement in practice.

For X-ray Free-Electron Lasers such as LCLS and TESLA FEL, a change in the electron energy while amplifying the FEL radiation can shift the resonance condition out of the bandwidth of the FEL. The largest sources of energy loss is the emission of incoherent undulator radiation. Because the loss per electron depends only on the undulator parameters and the beam energy, which are fixed for a given resonant wavelength, the average energy loss can be compensated for by a fixed taper of the undulator. Coherent radiation has a strong enhancement proportional to the number of electrons in the bunch for frequencies comparable to or longer than the bunch dimension. If the emitted coherent energy becomes comparable to that of the incoherent emission, it has to be included in the taper as well. However, the coherent loss depends on the bunch charge and the applied compression scheme and a change of these parameters would require a change of the taper. This imposes a limitation on the practical operation of Free-Electron Lasers, where the taper can only be adjusted manually. In this presentation we analyze the coherent emission of undulator radiation and transition undulator radiation for LCLS, and estimate whether the resulting …

Titanium is used as a low pressure tritium storage material. The absorption/desorption rates and temperature rise during air passivation have been reported previously for a 4400 gram prototype titanium hydride storage vessel (HSV). A desorption limit of roughly 0.25 Q/M was obtained when heating to 700 C which represents a significant residual tritium process vessel inventory. To prepare an HSV for disposal, batchwise isotopic exchange has been proposed to reduce the tritium content to acceptable levels. A prototype HSV was loaded with deuterium and exchanged with protium to determine the effectiveness of a batch-wise isotopic exchange process. A total of seven exchange cycles were performed. Gas samples were taken nominally at the beginning, middle, and end of each desorption cycle. Sample analyses showed the isotopic exchange process does not follow the standard dilution model commonly reported. Samples taken at the start of the desorption process were lower in deuterium (the gas to be removed) than those taken later in the desorption cycle. The results are explained in terms of incomplete mixing of the exchange gas in the low pressure hydride.

In this letter, we propose a scheme to generate tunable coherent X-ray radiation for future light source applications. This scheme uses an energy chirped electron beam, a laser modulators, a laser chirper and two bunch compressors to generate a prebunched kilo-Ampere current electron beam from a few tens Ampere electron beam out of a linac. The initial modulation energy wavelength can be compressed by a factor of 1 + h{sub b}R{sub 56}{sup a} phase space, where h{sub b} is the energy bunch length chirp introduced by the laser chirper, R{sub 56}{sup a} is the momentum compaction factor of the first bunch compressor. As an illustration, we present an example to generate more than 400 MW, 170 atto-seconds pulse, 1 nm coherent X-ray radiation using a 60 Ampere electron beam out. of the linac and 200 nm laser seed. Both the final wavelength and the radiation pulse length in the proposed scheme are tunable by adjusting the compression factor and the laser parameters.

National Ignition Facility (NIF) is a high-energy laser facility comprised of 192 laser beams focused with enough power and precision on a hydrogen-filled spherical, cryogenic target to initiate a fusion reaction. The target container, or hohlraum, must be accurately aligned to an x-ray imaging system to allow careful monitoring of the frozen fuel layer in the target. To achieve alignment, x-ray images are acquired through starburst-shaped windows cut into opposite sides of the hohlraum. When the hohlraum is in alignment, the starburst pattern pairs match nearly exactly and allow a clear view of the ice layer formation on the edge of the target capsule. During the alignment process, x-ray image analysis is applied to determine the direction and magnitude of adjustment required. X-ray detector and source are moved in concert during the alignment process. The automated pointing alignment system described here is both accurate and efficient. In this paper, we describe the control and associated image processing that enables automation of the starburst pointing alignment.

In this paper, we propose a masked photocathode inside the photoinjector for generating high brightness election beam. Instead of mounting the photocathode onto an electrode, an electrode with small hole is used as a mask to shield the photocathode from the accelerating vacuum chamber. Using such a masked photocathode will make the replacement of photocathode material easy by rotating the photocathode behind the electrode into the hole. Furthermore, this helps reduce the dark current or secondary electron emission from the photocathode material. The masked photocathode also provides transverse cut-off to a Gaussian laser beam that reduces electron beam emittance growth from nonlinear space-charge effects.