Applied Physics

Tungsten (W) has been selected as the Plasma Facing Material (PFM) to be used in the divertor region of ITER. Despite the advantages such as good thermal properties, high melting point etc. Transient events, like edge localized modes (ELMs) and disruptions, can induce irreversible degradation on this solid material limiting its lifetime. Use of liquid lithium (Li) as PFM however, offers unique advantages in terms of heat handling capabilities and plasma performance improvement. Furthermore a liquid metal does not present a permanent deformation and degradation compared to a solid material. For all these reasons, lithium is considered as an alternative PFM for future fusion devices.
In this work deuterium (D) retention (a substitute for Tritium) on LithiatedW has been studied, by the development of necessary samples using a high purity cold rolled tungsten sheet at 250◦ C, Lithiated by evaporation of pure
Li (99.9%) at 500◦ C under Helium (He) flow, (corresponding to Li deposition on W) or He plasma conditions (Li deposition + implantation on W) under a pressure of ∼ 3 Pa for all instances, in a device constructed and designed at CIEMAT, Madrid for serving this particular purpose. Then deuterium uptake in the Li-W surface for the differently lithiated samples were studied at 250◦ C (sample temperature), using mass spectrometry and optical emission spectroscopy (OES) under D2 glow discharge plasma (plasma voltage 100-250 V, plasma current of 250 − 300 mA and total fluence of ∼10^{23} D/m^2) without altering the physical or chemical state of the exposed samples.
The lithiated samples were also subjected to sputtering using Argon (Ar) plasma and then analyzed for the new surface conditions. Post-mortem Nuclear Reaction analysis (NRA) and Laser induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) are used to probe aspects related to retention in these PFMs with depth profiles. The analysis indicates a higher D uptake for lithiated W surface under He flow, compared to Lithiation under He plasma conditions (atomic D/(Li+W) rates between 0.40-0.50) in addition to implanted Li differences which correlate with particle balance calculations, depending on the chemical state of the Li-W layer and treatment used.
Finally a mathematical model for implantation of W-PFM with Li and separately D implanted on W is adapted. This is used for comparisons with experimental values to fully aid the understanding of the underlying processes involved in the enhanced pumping action established on lithiated-W which could serve as the future reactor PFM and address Li-W interactions.

One of the most important requirements for building a quantum computer is having complete control over qubits and quantum gates. That is, errors in qubit state preparation and measurement, as well as errors in the fidelity of single-qubit gates need to to be sufficiently low for quantum computation to be feasible. One of the most widely accepted methods of diagnosing errors in gate implementation is that of randomized benchmarking, a process in which a quantum circuit composed of randomly chosen, yet known, gates is applied to a qubit prepared in the ground state, and the final state is then measured. The randomness of the circuit allows for the extraction of an average error per gate independent of the individual gates themselves, effectively evaluating the gate implementation process as a whole. An additional method known as interleaved randomized benchmarking can be used in conjunction to separate out the errors due to individual gates. For my thesis, I wrote a pulse generation and simulation software for randomized benchmarking in the Python programming language, and was then able to run it on a physical quantum system composed of superconducting qubits. I hope this tool will prove useful as the lab works to improve pulse tuning methods and ultimately gate fidelities of their quantum operations.

Quantum  calculations  of  the  physical  properties  (electronic  and  vibrational),  based  on  density  functional  theory  (DFT) method at B3LYP/6-31G** level of theory, were performed, by means of the Gaussian 09 set of programs, to investigate the effect of the addition of the radical CN on pyridazine molecules. The best geometry, the total energy, frontier molecular orbital energies  (HOMO and HUMO),  energy  gap,  ionization  potential,  electron  affinity,  electronegativity,  chemical  hardness,  chemical  softness,  electrophilicity, dipole moment and the harmonic vibration frequencies were calculated and discussed for the study molecules. The electronic properties are computed by two different methods, a finite difference approximation and Koopman’s theorem. The study clearly shows that adding the radicals CN cause decreased the energy gap and the chemical hardness, and increase the electrophilicity. Therefore, the p resence of these  radicals  improves  the  conductivities  and  enhances  the  solubility  and  reactivity.  All  the  results  indicate  that  the  molecule 2,3-(CH) ₄N₂ (CN)2 is the best option for n-type organic semiconductors.

In this paper, it has been tried to explain the relation between the length of spirals in the structure of elementary particles with the Energy and Mass of the corresponding observable particle. It also explains the expansive behavior of gluon in nucleon for the length of constituent spiral structure of quark. Referring into the information system of Universe at different scales of information processing varying in collective analysis of information cells, it tries to explain the conservation of information been carried out by the SU (1) gauge symmetry
group of Universe across different generations of Universe being reflected through the study of Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation. It also tries to derive the expression for creation & annihilation operator for the Universe.

Evaporation is a ubiquitous phenomenon in the natural environment and a dominant form of energy transfer in the Earth’s climate. Engineered systems rarely, if ever, use evaporation as a source of energy, despite myriad examples of such adaptations in the biological world. Here, we report evaporation-driven engines that can power common tasks like locomotion and electricity generation. These engines start and run autonomously when placed at air–water interfaces. They generate rotary and piston-like linear motion using specially designed, biologically based artificial muscles responsive to moisture fluctuations. Using these engines, we demonstrate an electricity generator that rests on water while harvesting its evaporation to power a light source, and a miniature car (weighing 0.1 kg) that moves forward as the water in the car evaporates. Evaporation-driven engines may find applications in powering robotic systems, sensors, devices and machinery that function in the natural environment.

A identificação de espécies vegetais é crucial em várias áreas do cotidiano, como na indústria alimentícia, medicinal, etc. Porém, ainda hoje o processo de taxonomia vegetal é executado manualmente, na maioria dos casos. A falta de processos automatizados para essa tarefa motivou este trabalho, que apresenta a aplicação de dois métodos na extração de características texturais de imagens, o coeficiente de Hurst e de variação espacial. O objetivo é a extração de dados relevantes que caracterizem e diferenciem cada espécie para que seja realizada a classificação automática. As imagens analisadas são amostras de texturas de diferentes espécies vegetais. Neste trabalho procurou-se estudar métodos já conhecidos na literatura e testar possíveis melhorias e ajustes nas estratégias de análise textural. A proposta apresentada aplica uma combinação dos cálculos dos dois métodos, onde foi observada uma maior capacidade de descrição comparada com os resultados de cada método aplicado individualmente, além de manter o custo computacional. Na classificação foram utilizados os algoritmos de inteligência artificial redes neurais e k-vizinhos mais próximos. Nos experimentos foram utilizadas 40 espécies diferentes de plantas, onde o classificador foi capaz de alcançar uma porcentagem de acerto de 71,41%.

In recent years attention of the cyclone forecasters has been concentrated to improve the intensity predictions.Tropical Cyclone Heat Potential (TCHP) is one oceanographic parameter that fuels the cyclone through the available ocean thermal energy. The best approach to compute this parameter is from
in situ profiles. In such order to overcome the limitations of temporal and spatial coverage of in situ measurements, methods have been developed to compute this
parameter from satellite altimeter derived sea surface height anomalies. In this atlas, we present the annual, seasonal and monthly distribution of satellite derived TCHP over the north Indian Ocean for individual years during 1993-2011 and on climatological basis.

The flow of a viscous fluid over a stretching sheet has several important in engineering and industrial applications ranging from the polymer processing unit of a chemical engineering plant to the metal working process in metallurgy. For example, in the extrusion of a polymer sheet from a dye or in the drawing of plastic films. During the manufacture of these sheets, the melt issues from a slit and is subsequently stretched to achieve the desired thickness. The final product of desired characteristics strictly depend on the stretching rate, the rate of cooling in the process of stretching.

The golden ring to which most physicists aspire is a unified field theory that incorporates all of modern and classical physics. Some scientists and others call this a TOE or ‘theory of everything’, but it is no more than false hubris to believe that humans could possibly know and explain everything about the universe at this time. Einstein chased this goal for the last three decades of his life, basing his theoretical research on his general theory of relativity. Meanwhile, the vast majority of scientists supporting the other major accomplishment of the Second Scientific Revolution were investing all of their time and efforts to advancing the quantum theory and their quest has been extremely successful. They originally had no interest in a unified field theory. After Einstein died in 1955, his efforts were all but abandoned because of his philosophical stance against the prevalent Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum theory even though he had been one of quantum theory’s founders. During the 1970s the tables started to turn and quantum theorists became interested in unifying physics, although not from the foundational principles of relativity theory. They claimed that quantum theory was more fundamental than relativity so they began the same quest from a totally different direction despite their claims to be continuing Einstein’s quest.  Throughout the development of the ensuing standard quantum model, superstring theory and many other theoretical schemes, quantum theorists have remained resolute in their conviction that the quantum and relativity are mutually incompatible so the quantum must completely do away with and replace relativity once and for all. However, the quantum theory and relativity are not actually incompatible and, in fact, say the some of the same things about the nature of physical reality. When the similarities are fully defined and studied and the basic assumptions behind each of the theories are altered to reflect the similarities instead of the incompatibilities, only then can the point of their compatibility be determined and act as a unifying principle resulting in a completed unified field theory of the type that Einstein once sought. The development of this physical model of reality is not without irony. Not only is the quantum theory incomplete as Einstein argued in EPR, but Einstein’s general relativity is also seriously incomplete and true unification cannot be rendered complete at any level of reality until all the theoretical models being unified are themselves complete.