No Arabic abstract
We present the Raman microscopy ability to detect and characterize the way hydrogen is bonded with elements that will be used for ITERs plasma facing components. For this purpose we first use hydrogenated amorphous carbon samples, formed subsequently to plasma-wall interactions (hydrogen implantation, erosion, deposition...) occurring inside tokamaks, to demonstrate how this technique can be used to retrieve useful information. We pay attention in identifying which spectroscopic parameters are sensitive to the local structure (sp 3 /sp 2) and which gives information on the hydrogen content using isothermal and linear temperature ramp studies on reference samples produced by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition. We then focus on the possibility to use this fast, non-destructive and non-contact technique to characterize the influence of hydrogen isotope implantation in few nanometers of graphite and beryllium as C is still used in the JT-60 tokamak and Be is used in JET and will be used as plasma-facing component in the future reactor ITER. We also pay attention on implantation in tungsten oxide which may be formed accidently in the machine.
We study the kinetics of the H release from plasma-deposited hydrogenated amorphous carbon films under isothermal heating at 450, 500 and 600 {degree}C for long times up to several days using in situ Raman microscopy. Four Raman parameters are analyzed. They allow the identification of different processes such as the carbon network reorganization and the H release from sp3 or sp2 carbon atoms and the corresponding timescales. Carbon reorganization with aromatization and loss of sp3 hybridization occurs first in 100 minutes at 500 {degree}C. The final organization is similar at all investigated temperatures. Full H release from sp3 carbon occurs on a longer timescale of about 10 hours while H release from sp2 carbon atoms is only partial, even after several days. All these processes occur more rapidly with higher initial H content, in agreement with what is known about the stability of these types of films. A quantitative analysis of these kinetics studies gives valuable information about the microscopic processes at the origin of the H release through the determination of activation energies.
We present an analytical model for the role of hydrogen bonding on the spin-orbit coupling of model DNA molecule. Here we analyze in detail the electric fields due to the polarization of the Hydrogen bond on the DNA base pairs and derive, within tight binding analytical band folding approach, an intrinsic Rashba coupling which should dictate the order of the spin active effects in the Chiral-Induced Spin Selectivity (CISS) effect. The coupling found is ten times larger than the intrinsic coupling estimated previously and points to the predominant role of hydrogen bonding in addition to chirality in the case of biological molecules. We expect similar dominant effects in oligopeptides, where the chiral structure is supported by hydrogen-bonding and bears on orbital carrying transport electrons.
We present a fast and simple way to determine the erosion rate and absorption coefficient of hydrogenated amorphous carbon films exposed to a hydrogen atomic source based on ex-situ Raman micro-spectroscopy. Results are compared to ellipsometry measurement. The method is applied to films eroded at different temperatures. A maximum of the erosion rate is found at ~ 450 {degree}C in agreement with previous results. This technique is suitable for future quantitative studies on the erosion of thin carbonaceous films, especially of interest for plasma wall interactions occurring in thermonuclear fusion devices.
The scanning mid-IR-laser microscopy was previously demonstrated as an effective tool for characterization of different semiconductor crystals. Now the technique has been successfully applied for the investigation of CZ Si$_x$Ge$_{1-x}$---a promising material for photovoltaics---and multicrystalline silicon for solar cells.
We report on the observability of valence bonding effects in aberration-corrected high resolution electron microscopy (HREM) images along the [010] projection of the mineral Forsterite(Mg2SiO4). We have also performed exit wave restorations using simulated noisy images and have determined that both the intensities of individual images and the modulus of the restored complex exit wave are most sensitive to bonding effects at a level of 25% for moderately thick samples of 20-25 nm. This relatively large thickness is due to dynamical amplification of bonding contrast arising from partial de-channeling of 1s states.