Reports presenting information on technology advancements in the nuclear industry and nuclear power plant functions have been abstracted and are available on the energy data base.

A new class of targets for laser fusion experiments was fabricated using plasma-deposition and etching technology. Plasma polymer coatings seeded with silicon or sulfur were deposited as 300..mu..m diameter microspots inside holes of equal diameter in a pure hydrocarbon polymer film. The target was designed to study large-scale plasma instabilities and measure the temperature and density histories of laser induced plasmas. The microspot target required three new development: freestanding stress-free CH films, technology to define and form holes in CH films, and development of seeded films deposited as 300..mu..m diameter discs, nested tightly in the precision holes. Hydrocarbon films were deposited by plasma polymerization or by solution casting (polystyrene in dichloromethane) onto potassium-chloide-coated glass slides. Holes were defined either by masking with a 300..mu..m diameter disc or by reactive ion etching through a washer mask. Sulfur or silicon seeded CH polymer microspots were deposited through a mask using plasma polymerization. Seeded polymer films were prepared with compositions as high as 12 atomic percent, with most diagnostic targets made with 2 a/o. Silicon seeded polymers, when deposited at 750 mtorr (100 Pa) pressure, wer transparent and colorless.

Preliminary R and D has been started on magnets for a next-generation high-energy-physics accelerator, the 20 TeV Superconducting Supercollider (SSC). One design now being developed at LBL is described in this paper. The design is based on two layers of flattened Nb-Ti cable, a 40 mm ID winding with flared ends, and an operating field of 6.5 T. Experimental results are presented on several one-meter-long models tested at both He I and He II temperature. Measurement of field, residual magnetization, quench propagation velocity, and winding prestress are presented. (A 2-in-1 magnet based on this coil design is being jointly developed by LBL and Brookhaven National Laboratory, and 15 ft. long models are being constructed at BNL).

A recently completed two-year study of a commercial tandem mirror reactor design (Mirror Advanced Reactor Study (MARS)) is briefly reviewed. The end plugs are designed for trapped particle stability, MHD ballooning, balanced geodesic curvature, and small radial electric fields in the central cell. New technologies such as lithium-lead blankets, 24T hybrid coils, gridless direct converters and plasma halo vacuum pumps are highlighted.

Quasiparticles in the Fractional Quantum Hall Effect behave qualitatively like electrons confined to the lowest landau level, and can do everything electrons can do, including condense into second generation Fractional Quantum Hall ground states. I review in this paper the reasoning leading to variational wavefunctions for ground state and quasiparticles in the 1/3 effect. I then show how two-quasiparticle eigenstates are uniquely determined from symmetry, and how this leads in a natural way to variational wavefunctions for composite states which have the correct densities (2/5, 2/7, ...). I show in the process that the boson, anyon and fermion representations for the quasiparticles used by Haldane, Halperin, and me are all equivalent. I demonstrate a simple way to derive Halperin's multiple-valued quasiparticle wavefunction from the correct single-valued electron wavefunction.

The Large Coil Task (LCT) is a collaboration between the US, Euratom, Japan, and Switzerland for the production and testing of 2.5 x 3.5-m bore, superconducting 8-T magnets. The definitive tests in the design configuration, the six coils arrayed in a compact torus, will begin in 1985. Partial-array tests are being done in 1984. In January the initial cooldown of two coils was aborted because of helium-to-vacuum leaks that developed in certain seal welds when the coil temperatures were 170 to 180 K. In July three adjacent coils (designated JA, GD, CH) were cooled and in August two were energized to the limits of the test facility. An overview of the results are presented, including facility, cooldown (warmup has not yet begun), energization, dump, recovery from intentional normal zones, strain, and displacement, for operation up to 100% of design current but below full field and stress. These initial results are highly encouraging.

We describe our in-beam superconducting conversion electron spectrometer and its use in a (t,p) proton-conversion electron coincidence mode. Several examples of completed and on-going investigations are presented. These include: E0 strength from the /sup 238/U fission isomer; electromagnetic properties of the J/sup ..pi../ = 6/sup +/ and 8/sup +/ states of /sup 210/Pb; single particle and cluster states of /sup 213/Fr; the J/sup ..pi../ = 21/2/sup +/ isomer in /sup 197/Au and /sup 199/Au; and the cluster states of /sup 199/Au. Results of the study of odd-odd deformed /sup 244/Am are presented. The latter results performed using neutron-capture gamma-ray and conversion electron techniques are compared to recent developments in the modeling of deformed odd-odd nuclei. 23 refs., 10 figs., 1 tab.