The present invention is an improvement on the LIGA microfabrication process wherein a buffer layer is applied to the upper or working surface of a substrate prior to the placement of a resist onto the surface of the substrate. The buffer layer is made from an inert low-Z material (low atomic weight), a material that absorbs secondary X-rays emissions from the substrate that are generated from the substrate upon exposure to a primary X-rays source. Suitable materials for the buffer layer include polyamides and polyimide. The preferred polyimide is synthesized from pyromellitic anhydride and oxydianiline (PMDA-ODA).

A weekly publication, the Texas Register serves as the journal of state agency rulemaking for Texas. Information published in the Texas Register includes proposed, adopted, withdrawn and emergency rule actions, notices of state agency review of agency rules, governor's appointments, attorney general opinions, and miscellaneous documents such as requests for proposals. After adoption, these rulemaking actions are codified into the Texas Administrative Code.

The efficiency and stability of rotational magnetic suspension systems are enhanced by the use of high-temperature superconductor (HTS) magnetic bearings. Fundamental aspects of the HTS magnetic bearings and rotational magnetic suspension are presented. HTS cooling can be by liquid cryogen bath immersion or by direct conduction, and thus there are various applications and integration issues for cryocoolers. Among the numerous cryocooler aspects to be considered are installation; operating temperature; losses; and vacuum pumping.

A small grant was added to an ongoing Navy program to extend the scope of ongoing work by development of a new laser instrument. The instrument, MSCAT (Miniature Scattering and Transmissometry) uses small angle scattering to obtain the needed multi-parameter information for measurement of particle size distribution and number density. During the short course of the grant, the instrument was built and tested in a field experiment off the coast of North Carolina. Useful data were obtained, and these have been presented at the Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union in 1994.

This revision of the guide provides updated references to project management level Program Management and Assessment Configuration Management activities, and provides working level directions for submitting requirements and project documentation related to the Hanford Tanks Initiative (HTI) project. This includes documents and information created by HTI, as well as non-HTI generated materials submitted to the project.

The purpose of this paper is to describe recent trends CIAC has encountered while working with sites that have been compromised. Frequently, the intruders set up and run Internet Relay Chat (IRC) to exchange information and to show off their success at having compromised a site. Invariably, this protocol consumes bandwidth, uses CPU cycles and is a source of embarrassment for the site. This paper focuses on these negative aspects of IRC and concedes that one can cite numerous examples where IRC is used in a positive manner.

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory` s (LLNL) Contained Firing Facility (CFF) is a facility to be constructed for explosives testing of up to 60 kg of explosives at LLNL` s Site 300 Explosives Test Site. The CFF will be a large, rectangular, reinforced concrete firing chamber, lined with steel for shrapnel protection. The CFF will contain several glass ports for cameras, lasers, and other diagnostic equipment to be used for data collection during planned explosives detonations. Glass is used due to the need for the greatest possible optical clarity. This study was performed during the CFF final design stage to determine probabilities and consequences (bounding and best estimate) of impact of shrapnel, due to concerns about the possible effects of rebounding shrapnel on these glass diagnostic ports. We developed a customized version of the Persistence of Vision{trademark} Ray-Tracer (POV-Ray{trademark}) version 3.02 code for the Macintosh TM Operating System (MacOS{trademark}). POV-Ray creates three- dimensional, very high quality (photo-realistic) images with realistic reflections, shading, textures, perspective, and other effects using a rendering technique called ray-tracing. It reads a text file that describes the objects and lighting in a scene and generates an image of that scene from the viewpoint of a camera, also …

This document presents the results of Acceptance Testing of the 241-C-106 in-tank video camera imaging system. The purpose of this imaging system is to monitor the Project W-320 sluicing of Tank 241-C-106. The objective of acceptance testing of the 241-C-106 video camera system was to verify that all equipment and components function in accordance with procurement specification requirements and original equipment manufacturer`s (OEM) specifications. This document reports the results of the testing.

We measured the ballistic performance of five ceramic materials (alumina, silicon carbide, boron carbide, aluminum nitride, and titanium diboride) and Pyrex, when they are backed by thick steel plates. The projectile for all tests was a right-circular cylinder of tungsten sinter-alloy W2 with length 25.4 mm and diameter 6.35 mm, fired at velocities from 1.35 to 2.65 km/s. For this threat we determined the minimum areal density of each material that is needed to keep the projectile from penetrating the backup steel. For all of the facing materials studied here, this performance measure increases approximately linearly with projectile velocity. However, the rate of increase is significantly lower for aluminum nitride than for the other materials studied. Indeed, aluminum nitride is a poor performer at the lowest velocity tested, but is clearly the best at the highest velocity. Our computer simulations show the significant influence of the backing material on ceramic performance, manifested by a transition region extending two projectile diameters upstream from the material interface. Experiments with multiple material layers show that this influence also manifests itself through a significant dependence of ballistic performance on the ordering of the material

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With support from NASA, we are performing a series of laboratory astrophysics investigations designed to address fundamental uncertainties in basic atomic physics processes relevant to the interpretation of discrete X-ray spectra of cosmic plasmas. Moderate resolution spectra acquired by the ASCA Observatory already demonstrate the inadequacy of currently available spectral modelling codes for this wavelength band. With the upcoming launches of AXAF, XMM, ASTRO E, and Spektrum Roentgen-Gamma, the demand for significant advances in this field will increase dramatically. Our program is based on the exploitation of the Electron Beam Ion Trap facility at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and a unique set of spectrometers and experimental techiques specifically developed for this purpose. Recent experiments have been devoted to definitive measurements of line emissivities for iron L-shell ions in optically thin, collisional plasmas.

In the uniform droplet spray (UDS) process, a jet of liquid metal is broken up into uniform droplets by applying a periodic perturbation to the jet at a specific frequency and amplitude. The droplets are electrically charged to the same polarity to prevent in-flight merging. As a result of the uniform droplet size distribution, the dynamic and thermal states of the droplets can be precisely controlled in the UDS process. Before the UDS process can be applied to the production of aluminum sheets, the thermal history of the droplets must be understood. The incoming thermal state of the droplets at impact with the substrate significantly affects the degree of droplet consolidation as well as the microstructural grain size, which in turn determine the final material properties of the sprayed part. Therefore, the first step in this research was to simulate and measure the droplet thermal state during flight. The thermal state of a solidifying droplet is defined by its temperature and volume fraction of solid. To predict the temperature and solid fraction of the droplets as functions of flight distance, a thermal model was developed for aluminum binary alloy droplets by assuming Newtonian cooling, no undercooling, and local equilibrium at …