The possibility of using thermal-neutron radiography for inspecting heavy metals and hydrogenous materials was examined. The data include exposure curves, contrast sensitivities, and an assessment of the influence of higher energy neutrons and interfering gamma radiation on image quality. It is shown that, in the case of homogeneous materials, neutron radiography presents definite advantages for the inspection of heavier metals such as uranium, bismuth, and lead, and that the images obtained in such inspections are influenced very little by other radiation in the thermal-neutron beam. This is somewhat less true for intermediate metals such as steel and tungsten, although in these cases too, some exposure time advantage can usually be gained. Nevertheless, neutron radiographic inspection of these intermediate materials may be limited to those cases in which some complication, such as radioactivity of the sample, is involved. Thermal-neutron inspection of hydrogenous materials having a thickness greater than about an inch is not recommended and may be useful primarily in special cases such as one in which the light material is in some combination with a heavier, x-ray absorbing material. (auth)

None

None

Two numerical models used for studying collisional multispecies plasmas are described. The mathematical model is the Boltzmann kinetic equation with Fokker-Planck collision terms. A one-dimensional code and a two-dimensional code, used for the solution of the time-dependent Fokker-Planck equations for ion and electron distribution functions in velocity space, are described. The required equations and boundary conditions are derived and numerical techniques for their solution are given.

The Steam Generator Few Tube Test (FTT) was part of an extensive testing program carried out in support of the Clinch River Breeder Reactor Plant (CRBRP) steam generator design. The testing of full-length seven-tube evaporator and three-tube superheater models of the CRBRP design was conducted to provide steady-state thermal/hydraulic performance data to full power per tube and to verify the absence of multi-year endurance problems. This paper describes the problems encountered with the mechanical features of the FTT model design which led to premature test termination, and the results of the post-test examination. Conditions of tube bowing and significant tube and tube support gouging was observed. An interpretation of the visual and metallurgical observations is also presented. The CRBRP steam generator has undergone design evaluations to resolve observed deficiences found in the FFTM.

This paper summarizes the basis for the present optimism in the magnetic fusion program, and describes some of the remaining tasks leading to a demonstration power reactor and the primary technologies necessary for that endeavor.

During the past several years a rapid increase has occurred in compact torus (CT) research in the United States, reflecting renewed interest in this simplified reactor consequences of this configuration. This paper reviews early approaches to CT formation and results and summarizes present experimental studies. Recent experiments have demonstrated a number of macroscopic aspects of the CT, including the conditions under which a macroscopically stable CT can be formed and maintained. Scaling experiments and more detailed studies of plasma transport in progress are discussed along with experiments under construction.

Among Dirac's many contributions to modern physics is the idea that charge quantization is natural in a theory with magnetic monopoles. The existence of magnetic monopoles would have drastic effects on the evolution of the universe, on galactic magnetic fields, and perhaps on the x-ray luminosity of neutron stars. Some astrophysical implications of massive magnetic monopoles are reviewed here.

This report contains lecture notes on beam dynamics and acceleration concepts in particle accelerators. (LSP)

Imagery from coresident sensor platforms, such as unmanned aerial vehicles, can be combined using, multiresolution decomposition of the sensor images by means of the two-dimensional wavelet transform. The wavelet approach uses the combination of spatial/spectral information at multiple scales to create a fused image. This can be done in both an ad hoc or model-based approach. We compare results from commercial ``fusion`` software and the ad hoc, wavelet approach. Results show the wavelet approach outperforms the commercial algorithms and also supports efficient compression of the fused image.

Underground spills of volatile hydrocarbons are often difficult to clean up, especially if the contaminants are present in or below the water table as a separate liquid-organic phase. Excavating and treating the contaminated soil may not be practical or even possible if the affected zone is relatively deep. Merely pumping groundwater has proven to be ineffective because huge amounts of water must be flushed through the contaminated area to clean it; even then the contaminants may not be completely removed. Due to the low solubility of most common contaminants, such pump and treat systems can be expected to take decades to centuries to actually clean a site. Today, many sites are required to pump and treat contaminated groundwater even though there is no expectation that the site will be cleaned. In these cases, the pumps simply control the spread of the contaminant, while requiring a continuous flow of money, paperwork, and management attention. Although pump and treat systems are relatively inexpensive to operate, they represent along term cost. Most importantly, they rarely remove enough contaminant to change the property`s status. Although a pump and treat system can offer compliance in a regulatory sense, it doesn`t solve the site`s liability problem. …

Experimental work with organic solvents at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has suggested that in situ thermal oxidation of these compounds via hydrous pyrolysis forms the basis for a whole new remediation method, called hydrous pyrolysis oxidation. Preliminary results of hydrothermal oxidation using both dissolved 0{sub 2} gas and mineral oxidants present naturally in soils (e.g., MnO{sub 2}) demonstrate that TCE, TCA, and even PCE can be rapidly and completely degraded to benign products at moderate conditions, easily achieved in thermal remediation. Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHS) have an even larger thermodynamic driving force favoring oxidation, and they are also amenable to in situ destruction. Today, the principal treatment methods for chlorinated solvent- and PAH-contaminated soil are to remove it to landfills, or incinerate it on site. The most effective method for treating ground water, Dynamic Underground Stripping (Newmark et al., 1995), still involves removing the contaminant for destruction elsewhere. Hydrous pyrolysis/oxidation would eliminate the need for long-term use of expensive treatment facilities by converting all remaining contaminant to benign products (e.g., carbon dioxide, water, and chloride ion). The technique is expected to be applicable to dense non-aqueous phase liquids (DNAPLS) and dissolved organic components. Soil and ground water would be polished …

Recent simulations and experiments on Nova indicate that some level of smoothing may be required to suppress filamentation in plasmas on the National Ignition Facility (NIF), resulting in the addition of 1-D smoothing capability to the current baseline design. Control of stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) and filamentation is considered essential to the success of laser fusion because they affect the amount and location of laser energy delivered to the x-ray conversion region (hohlraum wall) for indirect drive and to the absorptive region for direct drive, Smoothing by spectral dispersion (SSD)[1], reduces these instabilities by reducing nonuniformities in the focal irradiance when averaged over a finite time interval. We have installed SSD on Nova to produce beam smoothing on all 10 beam lines. A single dispersion grating is located in a position common to all 10 beam lines early in the preamplifier chain. This location limits the 1{omega} bandwidth to 2.2 {angstrom} with sufficient dispersion to displace the speckle field of each frequency component at the target plane by one half speckle diameter. Several beam lines were modified to allow orientation of the dispersion on each arm relative to the hohlraum wall. After conversion to the third harmonic the beam passes …

We recently demonstrated the production of over a petawatt of peak power in the Nova/Petawatt Laser Facility, generating > 600 J in {approximately} 440 fs. The Petawatt Laser Project was initiated to develop the capability to test the fast ignitor concept for inertial confinement fusion (ICF), and to provide a unique capability in high energy density physics. The laser was designed to produce near kJ pulses with a pulse duration adjustable between 0.5 and 20 ps. At the shortest pulse lengths, this laser is expected to surpass 10 21 W/cm 2 when focused later this year. Currently, this system is limited to 600 J pulses in a 46.3-cm beam. Expansion of the beam to 58 cm, with the installation of 94-cm gratings, will enable 1 kJ operation. Target experiments with petawatt pulses will be possible either integrated with Nova in the 10 beam target chamber or as a stand alone system in an independent, dedicated chamber. Focusing the beam onto a target will be accomplished using an on axis parabolic mirror. The design of a novel targeting system enabling the production of ultrahigh contrast pulses and an easily variable effective focal length is also described.

Over the past several years much concern has been voiced about the lack of trained technologists to support high-technology industry and manufacturing in the United States. Attracting and training both new members and upgrading and retraining current members of this area of the workforce has many challenges to address before adequate numbers of well trained individuals will be available to fill the growing demand and help secure our nation`s economic industrial edge. Among the concerns are the lack of effective training programs, available funding, career image, and vehicles to educate the public on the availability of positions and excellent rate of compensation. These concems which effect many areas of industrial manufacturing have been highlighted by government organizations, such as the Department of Labor statistics, and professional journals and publications. In the specific area of optical fabrication, journals such as ``Laser Focus: and Photon& Spectra`` have dedicated articles and editorials discussing the lack of optical fabrication training resources in the United States. Examples of other vocational areas lacking skilled workers, such as precision machinists, are reflected in articles in other publications such as ``Manufacturing Engineering``. The rising concern by both industry and educational institutions has given rise to examining new and …

This paper describes the use of a ''mesh potential'' function for automatic coarsening of meshes in discrete ordinates neutral particle transport codes. For many transport calculations, a user may find it helpful to have the code determine a ''good'' neutronics mesh. The complexity of a problem involving millions of mesh cells, dozens of materials, and many energy groups makes it difficult to determine an adequate level of mesh refinement with a minimum number of cells. A method has been implemented in PARTISN (Parallel Time-dependent SN) to calculate a ''mesh potential'' in each original cell of a problem, and use this information to determine the maximum coarseness allowed in the mesh while maintaining accuracy in the solution. Results are presented for a simple x-y-z fuel/control/reflector problem.

Our study reveals that supplying gasoline-equivalent demand for the low-market-share scenario requires a capital investment of less than $40 billion for all fuels except H{sub 2}, which will require a total cumulative investment of $150 billion. By contrast, cumulative capital investments under the high-market-share scenario are $50 billion for LNG, $90 billion for ethanol, $100 billion for methanol, $160 billion for CNG and DME, and $560 billion for H{sub 2}. Although these substantial capital requirements are spread over many years, their magnitude could pose a challenge to the widespread introduction of 3X vehicles. Fossil fuel use by US light-duty vehicles declines significantly with introduction of 3X vehicles because of fuel-efficiency improvements for 3X vehicles and because of fuel substitution (which applies to the nonpetroleum-fueled alternatives). Petroleum use for light-duty vehicles in 2030 is reduced by as much as 45% relative to the reference scenario. GHG emissions follow a similar pattern. Total GHG emissions decline by 25-30% with most of the propulsion system/fuel alternatives. For those using renewable fuels (i.e., ethanol and H{sub 2} from solar energy), GHG emissions drop by 33% (H{sub 2}) and 45% (ethanol). Among urban air pollutants, urban NOX emissions decline slightly for 3X vehicles using CIDI …

Recent attention has been given to the deployment of an adaptable sensor array realized by multi-robotic systems. Our group has been studying the collective behavior of autonomous, multi-agent systems and their applications in the area of remote-sensing and emerging threats. To accomplish such tasks, an interdisciplinary research effort at Sandia National Laboratories are conducting tests in the fields of sensor technology, robotics, and multi-robotic and multi-agents architectures. Our goal is to coordinate a constellation of point sensors that optimizes spatial coverage and multivariate signal analysis using unmanned robotic vehicles (e.g., RATLERs, Robotic All-ten-sin Lunar Exploration Rover-class vehicles). Overall design methodology is to evolve complex collective behaviors realized through simple interaction (kinetic) physics and artificial intelligence to enable real-time operational responses to emerging threats. This paper focuses on our recent work understanding the dynamics of many-body systems using the physics-based hydrodynamic model of lattice gas automata. Three design features are investigated. One, for single-speed robots, a hexagonal nearest-neighbor interaction topology is necessary to preserve standard hydrodynamic flow. Two, adaptability, defined by the swarm's deformation rate, can be controlled through the hydrodynamic viscosity term, which, in turn, is defined by the local robotic interaction rules. Three, due to the inherent non-linearity of …

Extreme Ultraviolet Lithgraphy (EUVL) is an emerging technology for fabrication of sub-100 nm feature sizes on silicon, following the SIA roadmap well into the 21st century. The specific EUVL system described is a scanned, projection lithography system with a 4:1 reduction, using a laser plasma EUV source. The mask and all of the system optics are reflective, multilayer mirrors which function in the extreme ultraviolet at 13.4 nm wavelength. Since the masks are imaged to the wafer exposure plane, mask defects greater than 80% of the exposure plane CD (for 4:1 reduction) will in many cases render the mask useless, whereas intervening optics can have defects which are not a printing problem. For the 100 nm node, we must reduce defects to less than 0.01/cm² @ 80nm or larger to obtain acceptable mask production yields. We have succeeded in reducing the defects to less than 0.1/cm² for defects larger than 130 nm detected by visible light inspection tools, however our program goal is to achieve 0.01/cm² in the near future. More importantly though, we plan to have a detailed understanding of defect origination and the effect on multilayer growth in order to mitigate defects below the 10^-2/cm² level on the …

A surface-micromachined MEMS process has been used to demonstrate multiple-input chemical sensing using selectively coated cantilever arrays. Combined hydrogen and mercury-vapor detection was achieved with a palm-sized, self-powered module with spread-spectrum telemetry reporting.

Recent space experience has shown that the use of commercial optocouplers can be problematic in spacecraft, such as TOPEX/Poseidon, that must operate in significant radiation environments. Radiation--induced failures of these devices have been observed in space and have been further documented at similar radiation doses in the laboratory. The ubiquitous use of optocouplers in spacecraft systems for a variety of applications, such as electrical isolation, switching and power transfer, is indicative of the need for optocouplers that can withstand the space radiation environment. In addition, the distributed nature of their use implies that it is not particularly desirable to shield optocouplers for use in radiation environments. Thus, it will be important for the space community to have access to radiation hardened/tolerant optocouplers. For many microelectronic and photonic devices, it is difficult to achieve radiation hardness without sacrificing performance. However, in the case of optocouplers, one should be able to achieve both superior radiation hardness and performance for such characteristics as switching speed, current transfer ratio (CTR), minimum power usage and array power transfer, if standard light emitting diodes (LEDs), such as those in the commercial optocouplers mentioned above, are avoided, and VCSELs are employed as the emitter portion of the …

Silicide Schottky contacts can be as large as 0.955 eV (E{sub v} + 0.165 eV) on n-type silicon and as large as 1.05 eV (E{sub c} {minus} 0.07 eV) on p-type silicon. Current models of Schottky barrier formation do not provide a satisfactory explanation of occurrence of this wide variation. A model for understanding Schottky contacts via screened pinning at defect levels is presented. In the present paper it is shown that most transition metal silicides are pinned approximately 0.48 eV above the valence band by interstitial Si clusters. Rare earth disilicides pin close to the divacancy acceptor level 0.41 eV below the conduction band edge while high work function silicides of Ir and Pt pin close to the divacancy donor level 0.21 eV above the valence band edge. Selection of a particular defect pinning level depends strongly on the relative positions of the silicide work function and the defect energy level on an absolute energy scale.

Effects of two types of chemical modifications on photoconducting polymers consisting of polyphenylenevinylene (PPV) derivatives are studied by static and ultrafast transient optical spectroscopy as well as semi-empirical ZINDO calculations. The first type of modification inserts 2,2{prime}-bipyridyl-5-vinylene units (bpy V) in the PPV backbone, and the second type involves metal-chelation with the bpy sites. Photoluminescence and exciton dynamics of polymers 1 and 2 with PV:bpyV ratios of 1 and 3 were examined in solution, and compared to those of the homopolymer, poly(2,5-bis(2{prime}-ethylhexyloxy)-1,4-phenylenevinylene) (BEH-PPV). Similar studies were carried out for several metal-chelated polymers. These results can be explained by changes in {pi}-conjugation throughout the polymer backbone. The attenuation in {pi}-conjugation by the chemical modifications transforms a conducting polymer from one-dimensional semiconductor to molecular aggregates.

None