A fuel cell is an electrochemical energy conversion device, the continuous-flow analogue of the popular electrochemical storage device known as the battery. While the potential of fuel cells as power sources was recognized well over a century ago, they have since found limited application; a myriad of chemical, engineering and materials issues can be cited for this disappointing showing. Recent growing concern over the fate of the environment, however, has helped to renew interest in fuel cell research. This paper describes the methanol fuel cell and catalytic problems associated with the anode. On this task, the adsorption of carbon monoxide on platinum has been investigated.

The reliability of microelectronic systems is often limited by electromigration failure in Al-based thin-film conducting lines which interconnect devices to form an integrated circuit. Under an applied electric field Al atoms migrate with the electron flow, causing a counterflow of vacancies that accumulate into voids, eventually leading to an open circuit failure. The work reported here is concerned with clarifying the microstructural mechanism of electromigration failure, and with developing a metallurgical method to improve the electromigration resistance of Al-based interconnects. Pure Al, Al-2Cu, and Al-2Cu-1Si lines with quasi-bamboo microstructures are explored as a function of heat treatment conditions and current density. The {open_quotes}weakest{close_quotes} microstructural unit that causes failure is identified by electron microscopy; with rare exceptions, failure occurs at the upstream end of the longest polygranular segment in a given line. This microstructural characteristic of electromigration failure is even observed in lines whose maximum segment lengths are less than a few microns. The time to failure appears to increase exponentially with decreasing longest polygranular segment length. A simple constitutive equation is reported to describe the failure kinetics as a function of the polygranular segment length that leads to failure. Given correct values of the kinetic constants included in the equation, …

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A strong need exists today for more efficient energy-conversion systems. Our reliance on limited fuel resources, such as petroleum for the majority of our energy needs makes it imperative that we utilize these resources as efficiently as possible. Higher-efficiency energy conversion also means less pollution, since less fuel is consumed and less exhaust created for the same energy output. Additionally, for many industrialized nations, such as the United States which must rely on petroleum imports, it is also imperative from a national-security standpoint to reduce the consumption of these precious resources. A substantial reduction of U.S. oil imports would result in a significant reduction of our trade deficit, as well as costly military spending to protect overseas petroleum resources. Therefore, energy-conversion devices which may utilize alternative fuels are also in strong demand. This paper describes research on fuel cells for transportation.

We performed fluorescence spectroscopy of single and pairs of dye molecules on a surface at room temperature. Near field scanning optical microscope (NSOM) and far field scanning optical microscope with multi-color excitation/detection capability were built. The instrument is capable of optical imaging with 100nm resolution and has the sensitivity necessary for single molecule detection. A variety of dynamic events which cannot be observed from an ensemble of molecules is revealed when the molecules are probed one at a time. They include (1) spectral jumps correlated with dark states, (2) individually resolved quantum jumps to and from the meta-stable triplet state, (3) rotational jumps due to desorption/readsorption events of single molecules on the surface. For these studies, a computer controlled optical system which automatically and rapidly locates and performs spectroscopic measurements on single molecules was developed. We also studied the interaction between closely spaced pairs of molecules. In particular, fluorescence resonance energy transfer between a single resonant pair of donor and acceptor molecules was measured. Photodestruction dynamics of the donor or acceptor were used to determine the presence and efficiency of energy transfer Dual molecule spectroscopy was extended to a non-resonant pair of molecules to obtain high resolution differential distance information. …

X-ray spectroscopy has long been used to elucidate electronic and structural information of molecules. One of the weaknesses of x-ray absorption is its sensitivity to all of the atoms of a particular element in a sample. Through out this thesis, a new technique for enhancing the site- and spin-selectivity of the x-ray absorption has been developed. By high resolution fluorescence detection, the chemical sensitivity of K emission spectra can be used to identify oxidation and spin states; it can also be used to facilitate site-selective X-ray Absorption Near Edge Structure (XANES) and site-selective Extended X-ray Absorption Fine Structure (EXAFS). The spin polarization in K fluorescence could be used to generate spin selective XANES or spin-polarized EXAFS, which provides a new measure of the spin density, or the nature of magnetic neighboring atoms. Finally, dramatic line-sharpening effects by the combination of absorption and emission processes allow observation of structure that is normally unobservable. All these unique characters can enormously simplify a complex x-ray spectrum. Applications of this novel technique have generated information from various transition-metal model compounds to metalloproteins. The absorption and emission spectra by high resolution fluorescence detection are interdependent. The ligand field multiplet model has been used for the …

The microstructure - interface - property relationships in nanometer-period x-ray multilayer mirrors (W/C, WC/C, Cr/C, CrC/C, Cu/C, Ru/C, and Ru/B{sub 4}C) were studied using cross-sectional high resolution TEM and x-ray scattering. Microstructural and morphological evolution of as-prepared multilayers, and their behavior under thermal activation were discussed in terms of the materials thermodynamic and kinetic properties. Effects of the microstructural and the morphological evolution in reactive- component (W-C, Cr-C, and Ru-B{sub 4}C) and conjugate-component (Ru-C and Cu-C) multilayers on the normal incidence reflectance and long term stability of the mirrors are presented.

Quantum mechanical methods are developed to describe the dynamics of bimolecular chemical reactions. We focus on developing approaches for directly calculating the desired quantity of interest. Methods for the calculation of single matrix elements of the scattering matrix (S-matrix) and initial state-selected reaction probabilities are presented. This is accomplished by the use of absorbing boundary conditions (ABC) to obtain a localized (L{sup 2}) representation of the outgoing wave scattering Green`s function. This approach enables the efficient calculation of only a single column of the S-matrix with a proportionate savings in effort over the calculation of the entire S-matrix. Applying this method to the calculation of the initial (or final) state-selected reaction probability, a more averaged quantity, requires even less effort than the state-to-state S-matrix elements. It is shown how the same representation of the Green`s function can be effectively applied to the calculation of negative ion photodetachment intensities. Photodetachment spectroscopy of the anion ABC{sup -} can be a very useful method for obtaining detailed information about the neutral ABC potential energy surface, particularly if the ABC{sup -} geometry is similar to the transition state of the neutral ABC. Total and arrangement-selected photodetachment spectra are calculated for the H{sub 3}O{sup -} …

The photodissociation spectroscopy and dynamics of free radicals is studied by the technique of fast beam photofragment translational spectroscopy. Photodetachment of internally cold, mass-selected negative ions produces a clean source of radicals, which are subsequently dissociated and detected. The photofragment yield as a function of photon energy is obtained, mapping out the dissociative and predissociative electronic states of the radical. In addition, the photodissociation dynamics, product branching ratios, and bond energies are probed at fixed photon energies by measuring the translational energy, P(E{sub T}), and angular distribution of the recoiling fragments using a time- and position-sensitive detector. Ab initio calculations are combined with dynamical and statistical models to interpret the observed data. The photodissociation of three prototypical hydrocarbon combustion intermediates forms the core of this work.

The rotational energy release in the dissociation of ketene (CH{sub 2}CO) along its singlet potential energy surface is observed and compared with several statistical and dynamical theories. Rotational distributions for the product, CO(X{sup 1}{Sigma}+)(v=1), are measured from the threshold for production of CH{sub 2}(a {sup 1}A{sub 1}) (0,0,0) + CO(X{sup 1}{Sigma}+)(v=1) to 1720 cm{sup -1} above. Near threshold (E{le} 200 cm{sup -1} over threshold), phase space theory (PST) matches the observed distributions. At 357 and 490 cm{sup -1}, PST constrained by the measured state distributions of the methylene fragment, provides a good fit to these CO(v=1) rotational distributions. For E > 490 cm{sup -1}, the constrained PST matches the average rotational energy observed but predicts distributions which are broader than observed. This contrasts to the rotational distributions of the {sup 1}CH{sub 2} fragment which become shifted to lower rotational states than PST as energy increases from 200 cm{sup -1} above threshold. Dynamical models, the impulsive model and Franck-Condon mapping, do not account for the product rotational state distributions. The CO(v=1) rotational distributions for E > 200 cm{sup -1} contain no measurable product from triplet channel fragmentation. Therefore, they can be compared with the previously determined CO(v=0) rotational distributions in order …

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In this thesis we have developed a simplified spherical harmonic method (SP{sub N} method) and associated efficient solution techniques for 2-D multigroup electron-photon transport calculations. The SP{sub N} method has never before been applied to charged-particle transport. We have performed a first time Fourier analysis of the source iteration scheme and the P{sub 1} diffusion synthetic acceleration (DSA) scheme applied to the 2-D SP{sub N} equations. Our theoretical analyses indicate that the source iteration and P{sub 1} DSA schemes are as effective for the 2-D SP{sub N} equations as for the 1-D S{sub N} equations. Previous analyses have indicated that the P{sub 1} DSA scheme is unstable (with sufficiently forward-peaked scattering and sufficiently small absorption) for the 2-D S{sub N} equations, yet is very effective for the 1-D S{sub N} equations. In addition, we have applied an angular multigrid acceleration scheme, and computationally demonstrated that it performs as well for the 2-D SP{sub N} equations as for the 1-D S{sub N} equations. It has previously been shown for 1-D S{sub N} calculations that this scheme is much more effective than the DSA scheme when scattering is highly forward-peaked. We have investigated the applicability of the SP{sub N} approximation to two …

Studies of surface structure and dynamics of atoms and molecules on metal surfaces are presented. My research has focused on understanding the nature of adsorbate-adsorbate and adsorbate-substrate interactions through surface studies of coverage dependency and coadsorption using both scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) and low energy electron diffraction (LEED). The effect of adsorbate coverage on the surface structures of sulfur on Pt(111) and Rh(111) was examined. On Pt(111), sulfur forms p(2x2) at 0.25 ML of sulfur, which transforms into a more compressed ({radical}3x{radical}3)R30{degrees} at 0.33 ML. On both structures, it was found that sulfur adsorbs only in fcc sites. When the coverage of sulfur exceeds 0.33 ML, it formed more complex c({radical}3x7)rect structure with 3 sulfur atoms per unit cell. In this structure, two different adsorption sites for sulfur atoms were observed - two on fcc sites and one on hcp site within the unit cell.

The numerical stability and accuracy of the vortex method are studied. The effect of the ordinary differential equations (ODE) solver and of the time step on the numerical stability is analyzed. Various ODE solvers are compared and a best performer is chosen. A new constraint on the time step based on numerical stability is proposed and verified in numerical simulations. It is shown through numerical examples that empirical rules for selecting the spatial discretization obtained in simple test problems may not be extended to more general problems. The thin tube vortex filament method is applied to the problem of Widnall`s instability on vortex rings. Numerical results different from previous calculations are presented and the source of the discrepancies is explained. The long time behavior of the unstable mode on thin vortex rings is simulated and analyzed. The short wave instability on vortex filaments is investigated both theoretically and numerically. It is shown that the short wave instability always occurs on co-rotating vortex filaments of fixed core structure. Furthermore when they are close to each other, vortex filaments produce short wave unstable modes which lead to wild stretching and folding. However, when the inter-filament distance is large in comparison with the …