The authors report a new approach to obtain single-transverse-mode operation of a multimode fiber amplifier, in which the gain fiber is coiled to induce significant bend loss for all but the lowest-order mode. They have demonstrated this method by constructing a coiled amplifier using Yb-doped, double-clad fiber with a core diameter of 25 {micro}m and NA of {minus}0.1 (V {approx} 7.4). When operated as an ASE source, the output beam had an M{sup 2} value of 1.09 {+-} 0.09; when seeded at 1,064 nm, the slope efficiency was similar to that of an uncoiled amplifier. This technique does not require exotic fiber designs or increase system complexity and is inexpensive to implement. It will allow scaling of pulsed fiber lasers and amplifiers to significantly higher pulse energies and peak powers and cw fiber sources to higher average powers while maintaining excellent beam quality.

The question of how to proceed toward ever more realistic plasma simulation studies using ever increasing computing power is addressed. The answer presented here is the M3D (Multilevel 3D) project, which has developed a code package with a hierarchy of physics levels that resolve increasingly complete subsets of phase-spaces and are thus increasingly more realistic. The rationale for the multilevel physics models is given. Each physics level is described and examples of its application are given. The existing physics levels are fluid models (3D configuration space), namely magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) and two-fluids; and hybrid models, namely gyrokinetic-energetic-particle/MHD (5D energetic particle phase-space), gyrokinetic-particle-ion/fluid-electron (5D ion phase-space), and full-kinetic-particle-ion/fluid-electron level (6D ion phase-space). Resolving electron phase-space (5D or 6D) remains a future project. Phase-space-fluid models are not used in favor of delta f particle models. A practical and accurate nonlinear fluid closure for noncollisional plasmas seems not likely in the near future.

This is a multiyear experimental research program focused on improving relevant material properties of high-T{sub c} superconductors (HTSs) and on development of fabrication methods that can be transferred to industry for production of commercial conductors. The development of teaming relationships through agreements with industrial partners is a key element of the Argonne program. Recent results are presented on YBa{sub 2}Cu{sub 3}O{sub x} (Y-123) coated conductors, sheathed (Bi,Pb){sub 2}Sr{sub 2}Ca{sub 2}Cu{sub 3}O{sub x} (Bi-2223) tapes, and applications development.

This is a fact sheet written for the Inventions and Innovation Program about a new grid-tied inverter technology for alternate/renewable energy systems.

Sandia National Laboratories has learned through their process of technology transfer that not all high tech transfers are alike. They are not alike by the nature of the customers involved, the process of becoming involved with these customers and finally and most importantly the very nature of the technology itself. Here they focus on technology transfer in the microsystems arena and specifically the sacrificial surface version of microsystems. They have learned and helped others learn that many MEMS applications are best realized through the use of surface micromachining (SMM). This is because SMM builds on the substantial integrated circuit industry. In this paper they review Sandia's process for transferring a disruptive MEMS technology in numerous cases.

The process of combining nuclei (the protons and neutrons inside an atomic nucleus) together with a release of kinetic energy is called fusion. This process powers the Sun, it contributes to the world stockpile of weapons of mass destruction and may one day generate safe, clean electrical power. Understanding the intricacies of fusion power, promised for 50 years, ,is sometimes difficult because there are a number of ways of doing it. There is hot fusion, cold fusion and con-fusion. Hot fusion is what powers suns through the conversion of mass energy to kinetic energy. Cold fusion generates con-fusion and nobody really knows what it is. Honestly - this is true. There does seem to be something going on here; I just don't know what. Apparently some experimenters get energy out of a process many call cold fission but no one seems to know what it is, or how to do it reliably. It is not getting much attention from the mainline physics community. Even so, no one is generating electrical power for you and me with either method. In this article 1 will point out some basic features of the mainstream approaches taken to hot fusion power, as well as …

This is a fact sheet written for the Inventions and Innovation Program about a new auxiliary power unit for use in the long-haul trucking industry.

The assembly and packaging of MEMS (Microelectromechanical Systems) devices raise a number of issues over and above those normally associated with the assembly of standard microelectronic circuits. MEMS components include a variety of sensors, microengines, optical components, and other devices. They often have exposed mechanical structures which during assembly require particulate control, space in the package, non-contact handling procedures, low-stress die attach, precision die placement, unique process schedules, hermetic sealing in controlled environments (including vacuum), and other special constraints. These constraints force changes in the techniques used to separate die on a wafer, in the types of packages which can be used in the assembly processes and materials, and in the sealing environment and process. This paper discusses a number of these issues and provides information on approaches being taken or proposed to address them.

In order to understand best-estimate calculations of the peak local fuel enthalpy during a rod ejection accident, an assessment of the uncertainty has been completed. The analysis took into account point kinetics parameters which would be available from a three-dimensional core model and engineering judgment as to the uncertainty in those parameters. Sensitivity studies to those parameters were carried out using the best-estimate code PARCS. The results showed that the uncertainty (corresponding to one standard deviation) in local fuel enthalpy would be determined primarily by the uncertainty in ejected rod worth and delayed neutron fraction. For an uncertainty in the former of 8% and the latter of 5%, the uncertainty in fuel enthalpy varied from 51% to 69% for control rod worth varying from $1.2 to $1.0. Also considered in the uncertainty were the errors introduced by uncertainties in the Doppler reactivity coefficient, the fuel pellet specific heat, and assembly and fuel pin peaking factors.

This research project has three objectives. The first objective is to develop a capability to predict and optimize the ability of gels to reduce permeability to water more than that to oil or gas. The second objective is to develop procedures for optimizing blocking-agent placement in wells where hydraulic fractures cause channeling. The third objective is to develop procedures to optimize blocking-agent placement in naturally fractured reservoirs. This research project consists of three tasks, each of which addresses one of the above objectives. Work is directed at both injection wells and production wells and at vertical, horizontal, and highly deviated wells.

The sulfur content in diesel fuel has a significant effect on diesel engine emissions, which are currently subject to environmental regulations. It has been observed that engine particulate and gaseous emissions are directly proportional to fuel sulfur content. With the introduction of low-sulfur fuels, significant reductions in emissions are expected. The process of sulfur reduction in petroleum-based diesel fuels also reduces the lubricity of the fuel, resulting in premature failure of fuel injectors. Thus, another means of preventing injector failures is needed for engines operating with low-sulfur diesel fuels. In this study, the authors evaluated a near-frictionless carbon (NFC) coating (developed at Argonne National Laboratory) as a possible solution to the problems associated with fuel injector failures in low-lubricity fuels. Tribological tests were conducted with NFC-coated and uncoated H13 and 52100 steels lubricated with high- and low- sulfur diesel fuels in a high-frequency reciprocating test machine. The test results showed that the NFC coatings reduced wear rates by a factor of 10 over those of uncoated steel surfaces. In low-sulfur diesel fuel, the reduction in wear rate was even greater (i.e., by a factor of 12 compared to that of uncoated test pairs), indicating that the NFC coating holds promise …

Uncertainty and sensitivity analysis results obtained in the 1996 performance assessment for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant are presented for two-phase flow the vicinity of the repository under undisturbed conditions. Techniques based on Latin hypercube sampling, examination of scatterplots, stepwise regression analysis, partial correlation analysis and rank transformation are used to investigate brine inflow, gas generation repository pressure, brine saturation and brine and gas outflow. Of the variables under study, repository pressure is potentially the most important due to its influence on spallings and direct brine releases, with the uncertainty in its value being dominated by the extent to which the microbial degradation of cellulose takes place, the rate at which the corrosion of steel takes place, and the amount of brine that drains from the surrounding disturbed rock zone into the repository.

The Consolidated Incinerator Facility (CIF) at the Savannah River Site (SRS) burns low-level radioactive wastes and mixed wastes as a method of treatment and volume reduction. The CIF generates secondary waste, which consists of ash and offgas scrubber solution. Currently the ash is stabilized/solidified in the Ashcrete process. The scrubber solution (blowdown) is sent to the SRS Effluent Treatment Facility (ETF) for treatment as wastewater. In the past, the scrubber solution was also stabilized/solidified in the Ashcrete process as blowcrete, and will continue to be treated this way for listed waste burns and scrubber solutions that do not meet the ETF Waste Acceptance Criteria (WAC). The disposal plan for Ashcrete and special case blowcrete is to bury these containerized waste forms in shallow unlined trenches in E-Area. The WAC for intimately mixed, cement-based wasteforms intended for direct disposal specifies limits on compressive strength and permeability. Simulated waste and actual CIF ash and scrubber solution were mixed in the laboratory and cast into wasteforms for testing. Test results and related waste disposal consequences are given in this report.

This report describes the groundwater monitoring and corrective-action program at the M-Area Hazardous Waste Management Facility (HWMF) and the Metallurgical Laboratory (Met Lab) HWMF at the Savannah River Site (SRS) during 1999.

Intelligent, integrated microsystems combine some or all of the functions of sensing, processing information, actuation, and communication within a single integrated package, and preferably upon a single silicon chip. As the elements of these highly integrated solutions interact strongly with each other, the microsystem can be neither designed nor fabricated piecemeal, in contrast to the more familiar assembled products. Driven by technological imperatives, microsystems will best be developed by multi-disciplinary teams, most likely within the flatter, less hierarchical organizations. Standardization of design and process tools around a single, dominant technology will expedite economically viable operation under a common production infrastructure. The production base for intelligent, integrated microsystems has elements in common with the mathematical theory of chaos. Similar to chaos theory, the development of microsystems technology will be strongly dependent on, and optimized to, the initial product requirements that will drive standardization--thereby further rewarding early entrants to integrated microsystem technology.

This is a fact sheet written for the Inventions and Innovation Program about a new spray booth technology that reduces energy use and pollution during surface coating operations.

In this study, the authors introduce a new diamondlike carbon (DLC) film providing a friction coefficient of 0.001 and wear rates of 10{sup {minus}9} to 10{sup {minus}10} mm{sup 3}/N.m in inert-gas environments (e.g., dry nitrogen and argon). The film was grown on steel and sapphire substrates in a plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition system that uses using a hydrogen-rich plasma. Employing a combination of surface and structure analytical techniques, they explored the structural chemistry of the resultant DLC films and correlated these findings with the friction and wear mechanisms of the films. The results of tribological tests under a 10-N load (creating initial peak Hertz pressures of 1 and 2.2 GPa on steel and sapphire test pairs, respectively) and at 0.2 to 0.5 m/s sliding velocities indicated that a close correlation exists between the friction and wear coefficients of DLC films and the source gas chemistry. Specifically, films grown in source gases with higher hydrogen-to-carbon ratios had the lowest fiction coefficients and the highest wear resistance. The lowest friction coefficient (0.001) was achieved with a film on sapphire substrates produced in a gas discharge plasma consisting of 25% methane and 75% hydrogen.

The effect of line disorder induced by heavy ion irradiation and of point disorder induced by proton and electron irradiation on the upper and lower critical points in the vortex phase diagram of YBCO is presented. The authors find that dilute line disorder induces a Bose glass transition at low fields which is replaced at the lower critical point by first order melting at higher fields. Strong pinning point defects raise the lower critical point, while weak pinning point defects have little or no effect on the lower critical point. The upper critical point is lowered by point disorder, but raised by line disorder. First order melting is suppressed by point disorder in two ways, by lowering of the upper critical point only for weak point pins, or by merging of the upper and lower critical points for strong point pins. The differing responses of the upper and lower critical points to line and point disorder can be understood in a picture of transverse and longitudinal spatial fluctuations.

The last five years have witnessed a rapid increase in the volume of data on proton decaying nuclei. The path was led by decay studies with recoil mass separators equipped with double-sided Si strip detectors. The properties of many proton-decaying states were deduced, which triggered renewed theoretical interest in the process of proton decay. The decay experiments were closely followed by in-beam {gamma}-ray studies which extended one's knowledge of high-spin states of proton emitters. The unparalleled selectivity of the Recoil-Decay Tagging method combined with the high efficiency of large arrays of Ge detectors allowed, despite small cross sections and overwhelming background from strong reaction channels, the observation of excited states in several proton emitters. Recently, in-beam studies of the deformed proton emitters {sup 141}Ho and {sup 131}Eu have been performed with the GAMMASPHERE array of Ge detectors and the Fragment Mass Analyzer at ATLAS. Evidence was found for rotational bands in {sup 141}Ho and {sup 131}Eu. The deformations and the single-particle configurations proposed for the proton emitting states from the earlier proton-decay studies were confronted with the assignments deduced based on the in-beam data. It should be noted that the cross section for populating {sup 131}Eu is only about 50 …

This is a brochure describing the Inventions and Innovation Program and its solicitation process.

NLO SUSY-QCD contribution to associated production of gluinos and gauginos are shown to enhance the cross sections by about 10% at the Tevatron and by as much as a factor of two at the LHC. They shift the mass determinations or discovery limits, soften the p{sub T} spectra, and stabilize the predictions against variations of the renormalization and factorization scales.

This is a fact sheet written for the NICE3 [National Industrial Competititveness through Energy, Environment, and Economics] Program on a new process for reusing hydrochloric acid from steel pickling operations.

The MPI standard provides a way to send and receive complex combinations of datatypes (e.g., integers and doubles) with a single communication operation. The MPI standard specifies that the type signature, that is, the basic datatypes (language-defined types such as int or DOUBLE PRECISION), must match in communication operations such as send/receive or broadcast. Because datatypes may be defined by the user in MPI, there is a limitless collection of possible type signatures. Detecting the programmer error of mismatched datatypes is difficult in this case; detecting all errors essentially requires sending a complete description of the type signature with a message. This paper discusses an alternative: send the value of a function of the type signature so that (a) identical type signatures always give the same function value, (b) different type signatures often give different values, and (c) common cases (e.g., predefined datatypes) are handled exactly. Thus, erroneous programs are often (but not always) detected; correct programs never are flagged as erroneous. The method described is relatively inexpensive to compute and uses a small (and fixed, independent of the complexity of the datatype) amount of space in the message envelope.

The emphasis of this work was on investigating the mechanisms and factors that control the recovery of heavy oil, with the objective to improve recovery efficiencies. For this purpose, the interaction of flow, transport and reaction at various scales (from the pore-network to the field scales) were studied. Particular mechanisms investigated included the onset of gas flow in foamy oil production and in in-situ steam drive, gravity drainage in steam process, the development of sustained combustion fronts and the propagation of foams in porous media. Analytical, computational and experimental methods were utilized to advance the state of the art in heavy oil recovery. Successful completion of this research was expected to lead to improvements in the recovery efficiency of various heavy oil processes.