While traditional inertial fusion energy target designs typically use equimolar portions of deuterium and tritium and have areal densities ({rho}r) of {approx} 3 g/cm{sup 2}, significant safety and environmental (S and E) advantages may be obtained through the use of high-density ({rho}r {approx} 10 g/cm{sup 2}) targets with tritium components as low as 0.5%. Such targets would absorb much of the neutron energy within the target and could be self-sufficient from a tritium breeding point of view. Tritium self-sufficiency within the target would free target chamber designers from the need to use lithium-bearing blanket materials, while low inventories within each target would translate into low inventories in target fabrication facilities. Absorption of much of the neutron energy within the target, the extremely low tritium inventories, and the greatly moderated neutron spectrum, make ''tritium-lean'' targets appear quite attractive from an S and E perspective.

A new air-stable electronic surface passivation for GaAs and other III-V compound semiconductors that employs sulfur and a suitable metal ion, e.g., Zn, and that is robust towards plasma dielectric deposition has been developed. Initial improvements in photoluminescence are twice that of S-only treatments and have been preserved for >11 months with SiO{sub x}N{sub y} dielectric encapsulation. Photoluminescence and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopies indicate that the passivation consists of two major components with one being stable for >2 years in air. This process improves heterojunction bipolar transistor current gain for both large and small area devices.

The authors report on the metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) of strained layer superlattices (SLSs) of InAsSb/InPSb as well as mid-infrared optically pumped lasers grown using a high speed rotating disk-reactor (RDR). The devices contain AlAsSb cladding layers and strained, type I, InAsSb/InPSb active regions. By changing the layer thickness and composition of InAsSb/InPSb SLSs, they have prepared structures with low temperature (< 20 K) photoluminescence wavelengths ranging from 3.4 to 4.8 {micro}m. They find a variation in bandgap of 0.272 to 0.324 eV for layer thicknesses of 9.0 to 18.2 nm. From these data they have estimated a valence band offset for the InAsSb/InPSb interface of about 400 meV. The optical properties of the superlattices revealed an anomalous low energy transition that can be assigned to an antimony rich interfacial layer in the superlattice. An InAsSb/InPSb SLS, laser was grown on an InAs substrate with AlAs{sub 0.16}Sb{sub 0.84} cladding layers. A lasing threshold and spectrally narrowed laser emission were seen from 80 through 200 K, the maximum temperature where lasing occurred. The temperature dependence of the SLS laser threshold is described by a characteristic temperature, T{sub 0} = 72 K, from 80 to 200 K.

This paper summarizes the results of the studies of the irradiation-induced formation of nanostructures, where the injected interstitials from the source of irradiation are not major components of the nanophase. This phenomena has been observed by in situ transmission electron microscopy (TEM) in a number of intermetallic compounds and ceramics during high-energy electron or ion irradiations when the ions completely penetrate through the specimen. Beginning with single crystals, electron or ion irradiation in a certain temperature range may result in nanostructures composed of amorphous domains and nanocrystals with either the original composition and crystal structure or new nanophases formed by decomposition of the target material. The phenomenon has also been observed in natural materials which have suffered irradiation from the decay of constituent radioactive elements and in nuclear reactor fuels which have been irradiated by fission neutrons and other fission products. The mechanisms involved in the process of this nanophase formation are discussed in terms of the evolution of displacement cascades, radiation-induced defect accumulation, radiation-induced segregation and phase decomposition, as well as the competition between irradiation-induced amorphization and recrystallization.

We report propane dehydrogenation behavior of catalysts prepared using two novel synthesis strategies that combine inverse micelle Pt nanocluster technology with silica and alumina sol-gel processing. Unlike some other sol-gel catalyst preparations. Pt particles in these catalysts are not encapsulated in the support structure and the entire Pt particle surface is accessible for reaction. Turnover frequencies (TOF) for these catalysts are comparable to those obtained over Pt catalysts prepared by traditional techniques such as impregnation, yet the resistance to deactivation by carbon poisoning is much greater in our catalysts. The deactivation behavior is more typical of traditionally prepared PtSn catalysts than of pure Pt catalysts.

In this paper, we include for discussion three topics of current interest in metal oxide surface science. Using first principles density functional theory (DFT) [1] calculations, we have investigated: (1) the atomic-scale structure of experimentally-relevant ultrathin alumina films, (2) the role of common point defects in metal island nucleation on oxide terraces, and (3) the growth and morphology of metals on oxide surfaces which have high concentrations of a common impurity.

Fluids adsorbed near surfaces, macromolecules, and in porous materials are inhomogeneous, inhibiting spatially varying density distributions. This inhomogeneity in the fluid plays an important role in controlling a wide variety of complex physical phenomena including wetting, self-assembly, corrosion, and molecular recognition. One of the key methods for studying the properties of inhomogeneous fluids in simple geometries has been density functional theory (DFT). However, there has been a conspicuous lack of calculations in complex 2D and 3D geometries. The computational difficulty arises from the need to perform nested integrals that are due to nonlocal terms in the free energy functional These integral equations are expensive both in evaluation time and in memory requirements; however, the expense can be mitigated by intelligent algorithms and the use of parallel computers. This paper details our efforts to develop efficient numerical algorithms so that no local DFT calculations in complex geometries that require two or three dimensions can be performed. The success of this implementation will enable the study of solvation effects at heterogeneous surfaces, in zeolites, in solvated (bio)polymers, and in colloidal suspensions.

In a previous companion paper, we presented the details of our algorithms for performing nonlocal density functional theory (DFT) calculations in complex 2D and 3D geometries. We discussed scaling and parallelization, but did not discuss other issues of performance. In this paper, we detail the precision of our methods with respect to changes in the mesh spacing. This is a complex issue because given a Cartesian mesh, changes in mesh spacing will result in changes in surface geometry. We discuss these issue using a series of rigid solvated polymer models including square rod polymers, cylindrical polymers, and bead-chain polymers. By comparing the results of the various models, it becomes clear that surface curvature or roughness plays an important role in determining the strength of structural solvation forces between interacting solvated polymers. The results in this paper serve as benchmarks for future application of these algorithms to complex fluid systems.

The effect of higher-order corrections to the Born approximation is studied for the previously obtained giant conductance enhancement in tunnel-coupled double quantum wires in a parallel magnetic field. The relative correction is found to be significant and depends on various effects such as the magnetic field, electron and impurity densities, impurity positions, symmetric and asymmetric doping profiles, and center barrier thickness.

At very high energies, weak coupling, non-perturbative methods can be used to study classical gluon production in nuclear collisions. One observes in numerical simulations that after an initial formation time, the produced partons are on shell, and their subsequent evolution can be studied using transport theory. At the initial formation time, a simple non-perturbative relation exists between the energy and number densities of the produced partons, and a scale determined by the saturated parton density in the nucleus.

Heavy-ion fusion (HIF) designs for inertial fusion energy (XFE) power plants typically require final focusing magnets just outside the reaction chamber and blanket. Due to penetrations within the chamber and blanket, the magnets are exposed to a radiation environment. Although the magnet bores would be sized to avoid line-of-sight irradiation, the magnets still would be susceptible to nuclear heating and radiation damage from neutrons and y-rays. Additionally, the magnets must be included in waste management considerations due to neutron activation. Modified versions of the HYLIFE-II IFE power plant featuring two-sided illumination by arrays of 32 or 96 beams from each side are presented. A simple, point-of-departure quadrupole magnet design is assumed, and a three-dimensional neutronics model is created for the Flibe pocket, first wall, blanket, shield, and final two focusing magnets. This work details state-of-the-art neutronics calculations and shows that the final focus system needs to be included in the economic and environmental considerations for the driver-chamber interface of any HIF IFE power plant design.

Previous studies of the safety and environmental aspects of the SOMBRERO inertial fusion energy (IFE) power plant design did not completely address the issues associated with the final focus system. While past work calculated neutron fluences for a grazing incidence metal mirror (GIMM) and a final focus mirror, scattering off of the final optical component was not included, and thus, fluences in the final focus mirror were significantly underestimated. In addition, past work did not consider neutron-induced gamma-rays. Finally, power plant lifetime waste volumes may have been underestimated as neutron activation of the neutron dumps and building structure were not addressed. In the present work, a modified version of the SOMBRERO target building is presented where a significantly larger open solid-angle fraction (5%) is used to enhance beam smoothing of a diode-pumped solid-state laser (DPSSL). The GIMMs are replaced with transmissive fused silica wedges and have been included in three -dimensional neutron and photon transport calculations. This work shows that a power plant with a large open solid-angle fraction, needed for beam smoothing with a DPSSL, is acceptable from tritium breeding, and neutron activation points-of-view.

Pressure studies have provided new insights into the physics of compositionally-disordered ABO{sub 3} oxide relaxors. Specifically results are presented and discussed on a pressure-induced ferroelectric-to-relaxor crossover phenomenon, the continuous evolution of the energetics and dynamics of the relaxation process, and the interplay between pressure and electric field in determining the dielectric response.

We have been studying the use of spectral imagery to locate targets in spectrally interfering backgrounds. In making performance estimates for various sensors it has become evident that some calculations are unreliable because of overflying. Hence, we began a thorough study of the problem of overfitting in multivariate classification. In this paper we present some model based results describing the problem. From the model we know the ideal covariance matrix, the ideal discriminant vector, and the ideal classification performance. We then investigate how experimental conditions such as noise, number of bands, and number of samples cause discrepancies from the ideal results. We also suggest ways to discover and alleviate overfitting.

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