Single Layer Valves in Microfluidics
A mechanism for constructing single layer valves in microfluidic devices is reported.
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A mechanism for constructing single layer valves in microfluidic devices is reported.
Optical tweezers are highly versatile laser traps for neutral microparticles, with fundamental applications in physics and in single molecule cell biology. Force measurements are performed by converting the stiffness response to displacement of trapped transparent microspheres, employed as force transducers. Usually, calibration is indirect, by comparison with fluid drag forces. This can lead to discrepancies by sizable factors. Progress achieved in a program aiming at absolute calibration, conducted over the past fifteen years, is briefly reviewed. Here we overcome its last major obstacle, a theoretical overestimation of the peak stiffness, within the most employed range for applications, and we perform experimental validation. The discrepancy is traced to the effect of primary aberrations of the optical system, which are now included in the theory. All required experimental parameters are readily accessible. Astigmatism, the dominant effect, is measured by analyzing reflected images of the focused laser spot, adapting frequently employed video microscopy techniques. Combined with interface spherical aberration, it reveals a previously unknown window of instability for trapping. Comparison with experimental data leads to an overall agreement within error bars, with no fitting, for a broad range of microsphere radii, from the Rayleigh regime to the ray optics one, for different polarizations and trapping heights, including all commonly employed parameter domains. Besides signalling full first-principles theoretical understanding of optical tweezers operation, the results may lead to improved instrument design and control over experiments, as well as to an extended domain of applicability, allowing reliable force measurements, in principle, from femtonewtons to nanonewtons.
This paper reviews the state of art technology of laser induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS). Research on LIBS is gaining momentum in the field of instrumentation and data analysis technique due to its wide application in various field particularly in environmental monitoring and in industry. The main focus is on its miniaturization for field application and on increasing its sensitivity. The sensitivity of LIBS has been increased by confining the laser produced plasma using external magnetic field as well as using two successive laser pulse excitation of plasma. LIBS has capability for simultaneous multi element determination, localized microanalysis, surface analysis and has been used successfully for determination and identification of hazardous explosive and biological samples. Experimental findings of LIBS study in different applications have been discussed.
For the upgrade of the ATLAS muon spectrometer in March 2014 new muon tracking chambers (sMDT) with drift-tubes of 15 mm diameter, half of the value of the standard ATLAS Monitored Drift-Tubes (MDT) chambers, and 10~$μ$m positioning accuracy of the sense wires have been constructed. The new chambers are designed to be fully compatible with the present ATLAS services but, with respect to the previously installed ATLAS MDT chambers, they are assembled in a more compact geometry and they deploy two additional tube layers that provide redundant rack information. The chambers are composed of 8 layers of in total 624 aluminium drift-tubes. The assembly of a chamber is completed within a week. A semi-automatized production line is used for the assembly of the drift-tubes prior to the chamber assembly. The production procedures and the quality control tests of the single components and of the complete chambers will be discussed. The wire position in the completed chambers have been measured by using a coordinate measuring machine.
A model of the CW high-power transmitter, utilizing frequency-locked magnetrons with a phase control studied initially as a prototype of controllable in phase and power an RF source for intensity-frontier superconducting linacs, was considered for telecommunication as a model of magnetron source, acceptable for a wideband phase-amplitude modulation at a precisely stable carrier frequency. The R&D conducted with CW, 2.45 GHz, 1 kW, microwave oven magnetrons demonstrated that the frequency locking of the magnetrons by the phase-modulated signal provides wideband phase and amplitude modulation at the modulating frequency at least up to 3 MHz and large magnitude, keeping the carrier frequency precisely stable, without broadening of the spectral line width. Performed experiments with power combining verified applicability of the transmitter based on the frequency-locked magnetrons for wideband phase and amplitude modulation, which may be used for telecommunication. Results of the experiments are described in the presented work.
We introduce the fully-depleted charge-coupled device (CCD) as a particle detector. We demonstrate its low energy threshold operation, capable of detecting ionizing energy depositions in a single pixel down to 50 eVee. We present results of energy calibrations from 0.3 keVee to 60 keVee, showing that the CCD is a fully active detector with uniform energy response throughout the silicon target, good resolution (Fano ~0.16), and remarkable linear response to electron energy depositions. We show the capability of the CCD to localize the depth of particle interactions within the silicon target. We discuss the mode of operation and unique imaging capabilities of the CCD, and how they may be exploited to characterize and suppress backgrounds. We present the first results from the deployment of 250 um thick CCDs in SNOLAB, a prototype for the upcoming DAMIC100. DAMIC100 will have a target mass of 0.1 kg and should be able to directly test the CDMS-Si signal within a year of operation.
The achievable beam current and beam quality of a particle accelerator can be limited by the build-up of an electron cloud (EC) in the vacuum chamber. Secondary electron emission from the walls of the vacuum chamber can contribute to the growth of the electron cloud. An apparatus for in-situ measurements of the secondary electron yield (SEY) of samples in the vacuum chamber of the Cornell Electron Storage Ring (CESR) has been developed in connection with EC studies for the CESR Test Accelerator program (CesrTA). The CesrTA in-situ system, in operation since 2010, allows for SEY measurements as a function of incident electron energy and angle on samples that are exposed to the accelerator environment, typically 5.3 GeV counter-rotating beams of electrons and positrons. The system was designed for periodic measurements to observe beam conditioning of the SEY with discrimination between exposure to direct photons from synchrotron radiation versus scattered photons and cloud electrons. The SEY chambers can be isolated from the CESR beam pipe, allowing us to exchange samples without venting the CESR vacuum chamber. Measurements so far have been on metal surfaces and EC-mitigation coatings. The goal of the SEY measurement program is to improve predictive models for EC build-up and EC-induced beam effects. This report describes the CesrTA in-situ SEY apparatus, the measurement tool and techniques, and iterative improvements therein.
Scintillation detector has lower energy resolution for Gamma-ray as compared to semiconductor detector, better spectra analysis method is essential to traditional method. A model for describing the response function of scintillation detector over the range of incident Gamma-ray energies between 0.5 and 1.5 MeV has been established and applied to fitting radiation sources spectra. Each function form for describing the feature of Gamma-ray spectra are based on the analysis of fundamental interaction mechanism. These functions are combined to form a DRF model to fit experiment spectra by weighted least squares fitting method, parameters in this model are obtained simultaneously. Gaussian standard deviation can be calculated out by an individual procedure. Validity of the DRF model is demonstrated by fitting Co-60 and Cs-137 spectra measured by CsI(Tl) detector and comparing them to the normalized equivalent measured spectrum.
Fluorescent nuclear track detectors (FNTD) show great potential for applications in ion-beam therapy research, such as dosimetry, advanced beam characterization, in-vivo use or as radiobiological assay. A essential feature of FNTDs is their ability to assess the energy loss of single ions yielding for example LET estimations. This article describes the basic characterisations of FNTDs and our read-out system (a Zeiss LSM710 confocal laser scanning microscope) to enable quantative measurements of energy loss.
The CUORE (Cryogenic Underground Observatory for Rare Events) experiment will search for neutrinoless double beta decay of $^{130}$Te. With 741 kg of TeO$_2$ crystals and an excellent energy resolution of 5 keV (0.2%) at the region of interest, CUORE will be one of the most competitive neutrinoless double beta decay experiments on the horizon. With five years of live time, CUORE projected neutrinoless double beta decay half-life sensitivity is $1.6\times 10^{26}$ y at $1σ$ ($9.5\times10^{25}$ y at the 90% confidence level), which corresponds to an upper limit on the effective Majorana mass in the range 40--100 meV (50--130 meV). Further background rejection with auxiliary light detector can significantly improve the search sensitivity and competitiveness of bolometric detectors to fully explore the inverted neutrino mass hierarchy with $^{130}$Te and possibly other double beta decay candidate nuclei.
The MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR is an array of natural and enriched high purity germanium detectors that will search for the neutrinoless double-beta decay of 76-Ge and perform a search for weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) with masses below 10 GeV. As part of the MAJORANA research and development efforts, we have deployed a modified, low-background broad energy germanium detector at the Kimballton Underground Research Facility. With its sub-keV energy threshold, this detector is sensitive to potential non-Standard Model physics, including interactions with WIMPs. We discuss the backgrounds present in the WIMP region of interest and explore the impact of slow surface event contamination when searching for a WIMP signal.
Here, we present a numerical post-processing method for removing the effect of anti-symmetric residual aberrations in high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) images of weakly scattering 2D-objects. The method is based on applying the same aberrations with the opposite phase to the Fourier transform of the recorded image intensity and subsequently inverting the Fourier transform. We present the theoretical justification of the method and its verification based on simulated images in the case of low-order anti-symmetric aberrations. Ultimately the method is applied to experimental hardware aberration-corrected HRTEM images of single-layer graphene and MoSe2 resulting in images with strongly reduced residual low-order aberrations, and consequently improved interpretability. Alternatively, this method can be used to estimate by trial and error the residual anti-symmetric aberrations in HRTEM images of weakly scattering objects.
CoGeNT and MALBEK use p-type point contact germanium detectors to search for low-mass dark matter particles. Both detectors enjoy identical intrinsic noise characteristics. However, MALBEK's data acquisition electronics severely degrade the ability to separate signals originating in the bulk of the germanium crystal from surface backgrounds, through a measurement of the preamplifier pulse rise-time in the sub-keVee energy range of interest. The physical meaning of the parameter W$_{par}$ developed by the MAJORANA collaboration to compensate for this limitation is clarified here. It is shown that this parameter does not correlate to rise-time at low energy, and is presently unable to distinguish between surface and bulk events below $\sim$1 keVee. This leads to a sizable overstatement of MALBEK's sensitivity to low-mass dark matter particles, when employing aggressive W$_{par}$ cuts.
A method for calibration of cryogenic liquid argon detector response to recoils with certain energy -8.2 keV - is proposed. The method utilizes a process of inelastic scattering of monoenergetic neutrons produced by fusion DD neutron generator. Features of kinematics of inelastic scattering cause sufficient (forty times) increase in count rate of useful events relative to traditional scheme exploited elastic scattering with the same recoil energy and compatible energy resolution. The benefits of the proposed scheme of calibration most well implemented with the use of tagged neutron generator as a neutron source that allows to eliminate background originated from casual coincidence of signals on cryogenic detector and additional detector of scattered neutrons.
Building a new generation of fission reactors in the United States presents many technical and regulatory challenges. One important challenge is the need to share and present results from new high-fidelity, high-performance simulations in an easily usable way. Since modern multiscale, multi-physics simulations can generate petabytes of data, they will require the development of new techniques and methods to reduce the data to familiar quantities of interest (e.g., pin powers, temperatures) with a more reasonable resolution and size. Furthermore, some of the results from these simulations may be new quantities for which visualization and analysis techniques are not immediately available in the community and need to be developed. This paper describes a new system for managing high-performance simulation results in a domain-specific way that naturally exposes quantities of interest for light water and sodium-cooled fast reactors. It describes requirements to build such a system and the technical challenges faced in its development at all levels (simulation, user interface, etc.). An example comparing results from two different simulation suites for a single assembly in a light-water reactor is presented, along with a detailed discussion of the system's requirements and design.
This review is concerned with a detailed analysis of some of the technical problems which arise in the application of the Penning trap method to the experimental study of neutron $β$ -decay,a technique which was first successfully tested on the low-flux swimming-pool reactor LIDO (capture flux =3$\cdot 10^6$cm$^(-2)$s$^(-1)$) at AERE Harwell in the 1970's. It does not discuss the scientific merits or demerits of these studies. Of particular importance are the trapping and release of neutron decay protons, and the influence of magnetic mirror effects and radial drifting on the trapped particles. Since these have energies < 1 keV they must be accelerated to energies of order 20-30 keV following release, at which point they are recorded in a silicon surface barrier detector. However serious difficulties were encountered in the post-release acceleration process with vacuum breakdown in the presence of crossed electric and magnetic fields.
KamLAND-PICO project aims to search for WIMPs dark matter by means of NaI(Tl) scintillator. To investigate the WIMPs candidate whose cross section is as small as $10^{-9}$ pb, a pure NaI(Tl) crystal was developed by chemical processing and taking care of surroundings. The concentration of U and Th chain was reduced to $5.4\pm0.9$ ppt and $3.3\pm2.2$ ppt, respectively. It should be remarked that the concentration of $^{210}$Pb which was difficult to reduce reached to the high purity as $58\pm26$ $μ$Bq/kg.
Using industrial standard 0.35μm CMOS Integrated Circuit process, we realized a highly pixelated sensor that directly collects charge via metal nodes placed on the top of each pixel and forms two dimensional images of charge cloud distribution. The first version, Topmetal-I, features a 64x64 pixel array of 80μm pitch size. Direct charge calibration reveals an average capacitance of 210fF per pixel. The charge collection noise is near the thermal noise limit. With the readout, individual pixel channels exhibit a most probable equivalent noise charge of 330e-.