The electrostatic comb finger drive has become an integral design for microsensor and microactuator applications. This paper reports on utilizing the levitation effect of comb fingers to design vertical-to-the-substrate actuation for interferometric applications. For typical polysilicon comb drives with 2 {micro}m gaps between the stationary and moving fingers, as well as between the microstructures and the substrate, the equilibrium position is nominally 1-2 {micro}m above the stationary comb fingers. This distance is ideal for many phase shifting interferometric applications. Theoretical calculations of the vertical actuation characteristics are compared with the experimental results, and a general design guideline is derived from these results. The suspension flexure stiffnesses, gravity forces, squeeze film damping, and comb finger thicknesses are parameters investigated which affect the displacement curve of the vertical microactuator. By designing a parallel plate capacitor between the suspended mass and the substrate, in situ position sensing can be used to control the vertical movement, providing a total feedback-controlled system. Fundamentals of various capacitive position sensing techniques are discussed. Experimental verification is carried out by a Zygo distance measurement interferometer.

The West Hackberry Tertiary Project is a field test of the concept that air injection can generate tertiary oil recovery through the Double Displacement Process is the gas displacement of a water invaded oil column for the purpose of recovering tertiary oil through gravity discharge. The novel aspect of this project is the use of air as the injection fluid.

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A plan was prepared to implement the Quality Assurance requirements of the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management RW-0333P to the Spent Nuclear Fuel Characterization activities. The plan was based on an evaluation of the current characterization activities against the RW-0333P requirements.

The use of a magnetic field within a fusion target is now known as Magnetized Target Fusion in the US and as MAGO (Magnitnoye Obzhatiye, or magnetic compression) in Russia. In contrast to direct, hydrodynamic compression of initially ambient-temperature fuel (e.g., ICF), MTF involves two steps: (a) formation of a warm, magnetized, wall-confined plasma of intermediate density within a fusion target prior to implosion; (b) subsequent quasi-adiabatic compression and heating of the plasma by imploding the confining wall, or pusher. In many ways, MTF can be considered a marriage between the more mature MFE and ICF approaches, and this marriage potentially eliminates some of the hurdles encountered in the other approaches. When compared to ICF, MTF requires lower implosion velocity, lower initial density, significantly lower radial convergence, and larger targets, all of which lead to substantially reduced driver intensity, power, and symmetry requirements. When compared to MFE, MTF does not require a vacuum separating the plasma from the wall, and, in fact, complete magnetic confinement, even if possible, may not be desirable. The higher density of MTF and much shorter confinement times should make magnetized plasma formation a much less difficult step than in MFE. The substantially lower driver requirements …

An experimental signature for detecting spontaneous lateral composition modulation in a (InAs){sub n}/(GaAs){sub m} short period superlattice on an InP substrate based on magnetoexciton spectroscopy described. The authors find by aligning the magnetic field in three crystallographic directions, one parallel to and the other two perpendicular to the composition modulation direction, that the magnetoexciton shifts are anisotropic and are a good indicator for the presence of composition modulation.

The accelerator production of tritium (APT) facility, with its high beam current and high beam energy, would be an ideal supplier of radioisotopes for medical research, imaging, and therapy. By-product radioisotopes will be produced in the APT window and target cooling systems and in the tungsten target through spallation, neutron, and proton interactions. High intensity proton fluxes are potentially available at three different energies for the production of proton- rich radioisotopes. Isotope production targets can be inserted into the blanket for production of neutron-rich isotopes. Currently, the major production sources of radioisotopes are either aging or abroad, or both. The use of radionuclides in nuclear medicine is growing and changing, both in terms of the number of nuclear medicine procedures being performed and in the rapidly expanding range of procedures and radioisotopes used. A large and varied demand is forecast, and the APT would be an ideal facility to satisfy that demand.

Inelastic neutron scattering has been used to measure spin wave excitations in the quasi-one dimensional S = 3/2 magnetic material CsVBr{sub 3}. Dispersion relations were determined using standard triple-axis methods. Fits to linear spin wave theory yield model Hamiltonian parameters describing magnetic interactions in the system.

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