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We have used magnetic transmission X-ray microscopy (M-TXM) to image in-field magnetization configurations of patterned Ni{sub 80}Fe{sub 20} domain wall 'injection pads' and attached planar nanowires. Comparison with micromagnetic simulations suggests that the evolution of magnetic domains in rectangular injection pads depends on the relative orientation of closure domains in the remanent state. The magnetization reversal pathway is also altered by the inclusion of transverse magnetic fields. These different modes explain previous results of domain wall injection into nanowires. Even more striking was the observation of domain walls injecting halfway across the width of wider (>400 nm wide) wires but over wire lengths of several micrometers. These extended Neel walls can interact with adjacent nanowires and cause a switching in the side of the wire undergoing reversal as the domain wall continues to expand.

The impact of carbon contamination on extreme ultraviolet (EUV) masks is significant due to throughput loss and potential effects on imaging performance. Current carbon contamination research primarily focuses on the lifetime of the multilayer surfaces, determined by reflectivity loss and reduced throughput in EUV exposure tools. However, contamination on patterned EUV masks can cause additional effects on absorbing features and the printed images, as well as impacting the efficiency of cleaning process. In this work, several different techniques were used to determine possible contamination topography. Lithographic simulations were also performed and the results compared with the experimental data.

This report discusses issues for Congress in FY2011, which are whether to approve, reject, or modify DOD's new KC-X competition strategy, and whether to approve, reject, or modify the Air Force's request for FY2011 research and development funding for the new KC-X program.

The hydrogen peroxide decomposer columns at the 200 Area Effluent Treatment Facility (ETF) have been taken out of service due to ongoing problems with particulate fines and poor destruction performance from the granular activated carbon (GAC) used in the columns. An alternative search was initiated and led to bench scale testing and then pilot scale testing. Based on the bench scale testing three manganese dioxide based catalysts were evaluated in the peroxide destruction pilot column installed at the 300 Area Treated Effluent Disposal Facility. The ten inch diameter, nine foot tall, clear polyvinyl chloride (PVC) column allowed for the same six foot catalyst bed depth as is in the existing ETF system. The flow rate to the column was controlled to evaluate the performance at the same superficial velocity (gpm/ft{sup 2}) as the full scale design flow and normal process flow. Each catalyst was evaluated on peroxide destruction performance and particulate fines capacity and carryover. Peroxide destruction was measured by hydrogen peroxide concentration analysis of samples taken before and after the column. The presence of fines in the column headspace and the discharge from carryover was generally assessed by visual observation. All three catalysts met the peroxide destruction criteria by …

The availability of defect-free masks remains one of the key challenges for inserting extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUVL) into high volume manufacturing. yet link data is available for understanding native defects on real masks. In this paper, a full-field EUV mask is fabricated to investigate the printability of various defects on the mask. The printability of defects and identification of their source from mask fabrication to handling were studied using wafer inspection. The printable blank defect density excluding particles and patterns is 0.63 cm{sup 2}. Mask inspection is shown to have better sensitivity than wafer inspection. The sensitivity of wafer inspection must be improved using through-focus analysis and a different wafer stack.

Printability and inspectability of phase defects in ELlVL mask originated from substrate pit were investigated. For this purpose, PDMs with programmed pits on substrate were fabricated using different ML sources from several suppliers. Simulations with 32-nm HP L/S show that substrate pits with below {approx}20 nm in depth would not be printed on the wafer if they could be smoothed by ML process down to {approx}1 nm in depth on ML surface. Through the investigation of inspectability for programmed pits, minimum pit sizes detected by KLA6xx, AIT, and M7360 depend on ML smoothing performance. Furthermore, printability results for pit defects also correlate with smoothed pit sizes. AIT results for pattemed mask with 32-nm HP L/S represents that minimum printable size of pits could be {approx}28.3 nm of SEVD. In addition, printability of pits became more printable as defocus moves to (-) directions. Consequently, printability of phase defects strongly depends on their locations with respect to those of absorber patterns. This indicates that defect compensation by pattern shift could be a key technique to realize zero printable phase defects in EUVL masks.

This report focuses on the United States' relationship with Iran and how the Obama Administration is handling prior administration's economic sanctions against Iran. The Obama Administration's policy approach toward Iran has contrasted with the Bush Administration's by attempting to couple the imposition of sanctions to an active and direct U.S. effort to negotiate with Iran on the nuclear issue.

This report examines earthquake catastrophe risk and insurance in the United States in light of recent developments, particularly the devastating earthquakes in Haiti and Chile. It examines both traditional and non-traditional approaches for financing recovery from earthquake losses as well as challenges in financing catastrophe losses with insurance.

We investigate the thermodynamic states occurring in explosion fields from condensed explosive charges. These states are often modeled with a Jones-Wilkins-Lee (JWL) function. However, the JWL function is not a Fundamental Equation of Thermodynamics, and therefore cannot give a complete specification of such states. We use the Cheetah code of Fried to study the loci of states of the expanded detonation products gases from C-4 charges, and their combustion products air. In the Le Chatelier Plane of specific-internal-energy versus temperature, these loci are fit with a Quadratic Model function u(T), which has been shown to be valid for T < 3,000 K and p < 1k-bar. This model is used to derive a Fundamental Equation u(v,s) for C-4. Given u(v,s), one can use Maxwell's Relations to derive all other thermodynamic functions, such as temperature: T(v,s), pressure: p(v,s), enthalpy: h(v,s), Gibbs free energy: g(v,s) and Helmholz free energy: f(v,s); these loci are displayed in figures for C-4. Such complete equations of state are needed for numerical simulations of blast waves from explosive charges, and their reflections from surfaces.

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This report evaluates questions regarding whether the current deficit is manageable and what effects it will have on the economy.

This report lays out generic scenarios for balancing the budget in the next fiscal year. Although these are not policy options that are likely to be enacted, they are meant to offer simple examples to gauge the scope of tradeoffs that would be required if policymakers eventually decide to bring the budget back to balance. If changes are postponed or stretched over a longer time period, they would need to be larger because of higher debt service.

This report discusses various views on the issue of who bears the burden of the national debt, future generations or the generation that incurred it.

This report provides an overview of the U.S.-China relationship, recent developments in the relationship, Obama Administration policy toward China, and a summary of legislation related to China in the 113th and 112th Congresses.

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This report summarizes U.S. assistance to the Democratic People's Republic of North Korea (DPRK, also known as North Korea). It will be updated periodically to track changes in U.S. provision of aid to North Korea.

This report summarizes U.S. energy, food and medical assistance to the Democratic People's Republic of North Korea (DPRK, also known as North Korea).

This issue has the following articles: (1) Optimizing Electron-Positron Pair Production on kJ-Class High-Intensity Lasers for the Purpose of Pair-Plasma Creation; (2) Neutron Yield Study of Direct-Drive, Low-Adiabat Cryogenic D2 Implosions on OMEGA; (3) Al 1s-2p Absorption Spectroscopy of Shock-Wave Heating and Compression in Laser-Driven Planar Foil; (4) A Measurable Lawson Criterion and Hydro-Equivalent Curves for Inertial Confinement Fusion; (5) Pulsed-THz Characterization of Hg-Based, High-Temperature Superconductors; (6) LLE's Summer High School Research Program; (7) FY08 Laser Facility Report; and (8) National Laser Users Facility and External Users Programs.

Much work has already been done on how both the resist and line-edge roughness (LER) on the mask affect the final printed LER. What is poorly understood, however, is the extent to which system-level effects such as mask surface roughness, illumination conditions, and defocus couple to speckle at the image plane, and currently factor into LER limits. Here, we propose a 'rule-of-thumb' simplified solution that provides a fast and powerful method to obtain mask roughness induced LER. We present modeling data on an older generation mask with a roughness of 230 pm as well as the ultimate target roughness of 50 pm. Moreover, we consider feature sizes of 50 nm and 22 nm, and show that as a function of correlation length, the LER peaks at the condition that the correlation length is approximately equal to the resolution of the imaging optic.

We describe the imaging and characterization of native defects on a full field extreme ultraviolet (EUV) mask, using several reticle and wafer inspection modes. Mask defect images recorded with the SEMA TECH Berkeley Actinic Inspection Tool (AIT), an EUV-wavelength (13.4 nm) actinic microscope, are compared with mask and printed-wafer images collected with scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and deep ultraviolet (DUV) inspection tools. We observed that defects that appear to be opaque in the SEM can be highly transparent to EUV light, and inversely, defects that are mostly transparent to the SEM can be highly opaque to EUV. The nature and composition of these defects, whether they appear on the top surface, within the multilayer coating, or on the substrate as buried bumps or pits, influences both their significance when printed, and their detectability with the available techniques. Actinic inspection quantitatively predicts the characteristics of printed defect images in ways that may not be possible with non-EUV techniques. As a quantitative example, we investigate the main structural characteristics of a buried pit defect based on EUV through-focus imaging.

Aerosol indirect effects continue to constitute one of the most important uncertainties for anthropogenic climate perturbations. Within the international AEROCOM initiative, the representation of aerosol-cloud-radiation interactions in ten different general circulation models (GCMs) is evaluated using three satellite datasets. The focus is on stratiform liquid water clouds since most GCMs do not include ice nucleation effects, and none of the model explicitly parameterises aerosol effects on convective clouds. We compute statistical relationships between aerosol optical depth ({tau}{sub a}) and various cloud and radiation quantities in a manner that is consistent between the models and the satellite data. It is found that the model-simulated influence of aerosols on cloud droplet number concentration (N{sub d}) compares relatively well to the satellite data at least over the ocean. The relationship between {tau}{sub a} and liquid water path is simulated much too strongly by the models. This suggests that the implementation of the second aerosol indirect effect mainly in terms of an autoconversion parameterisation has to be revisited in the GCMs. A positive relationship between total cloud fraction (f{sub cld}) and {tau}{sub a} as found in the satellite data is simulated by the majority of the models, albeit less strongly than that in the …

The particle removal efficiency (PRE) of cleaning processes diminishes whenever the minimum defect size for a specific technology node becomes smaller. For the sub-22 nm half-pitch (HP) node, it was demonstrated that exposure to high power megasonic up to 200 W/cm{sup 2} did not damage 60 nm wide TaBN absorber lines corresponding to the 16 nm HP node on wafer. An ammonium hydroxide mixture and megasonics removes {ge}50 nm SiO{sub 2} particles with a very high PRE, A sulfuric acid hydrogen peroxide mixture (SPM) in addition to ammonium hydroxide mixture (APM) and megasonic is required to remove {ge}28 nm SiO{sub 2} particles with a high PRE. Time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectroscopy (TOFSIMS) studies show that the presence of O{sub 2} during a vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) ({lambda} = 172 nm) surface conditioning step will result in both surface oxidation and Ru removal, which drastically reduce extreme ultraviolet (EUV) mask life time under multiple cleanings. New EUV mask cleaning processes show negligible or no EUV reflectivity loss and no increase in surface roughness after up to 15 cleaning cycles. Reviewing of defect with a high current density scanning electron microscope (SEM) drastically reduces PRE and deforms SiO{sub 2} particles. 28 nm SiO{sub …

This report provides an overview of the nanotechnology that is believed by many to offer extraordinary economic and societal benefits and two others: nanomanufacturing and public understanding of and attitudes toward nanotechnology.