Rehabilitation of the radioactively contaminated objects and territory of the Russian Science Center Kurchatov Institute

This article is devoted to work done in 2002–2006 as part of the unified project Reabilitatsiya to rehabilitate radiation hazardous objects and sections of the radioactively contaminated territory of the Russian Science Center Kurchatov Institute. The main objects of the rehabilitation work were old storage sites built for radioactive wastes on the territory of the Institute when military and civilian nuclear technologies were under development. The structural features of the storage sites, including the volumes and characteristics of the wastes stored, are presented. The salient aspects of the disposal sites, taken into account during the rehabilitation work, are discussed. The organization of the rehabilitation operations and the sequence in which they are performed, the special features of the technical design solutions used, the technological methods, and ways for conducting the work are described. __________ Translated from Atomnaya énergiya, Vol. 102, No. 5, pp. 300–306, May, 2007.     

The radiative recombination coefficient and the internal quantum yield of electroluminescence in silicon

The results of the analysis of variations in the radiative recombination coefficient with varying doping level and concentration of excess electron-hole pairs are reported. It is shown that, along with the effect of narrowing of the band gap calculated in the many-electron approximation, the effect of screening of the Coulomb interaction responsible for the decrease in the excition binding energy should be taken into account. Both effects produce similar trends and decrease the radiative recombination coefficient with increasing levels of doping or injection. The contributions of excitonic radiative recombination and band-to-band radiative recombination to the total radiative recombination coefficient are separated from each other. It is shown that, in the region of room temperature, both contributions are comparable, while at liquid-nitrogen temperature, the excitonic component dominates over the band-to-band component. The results obtained by refined calculations of the limiting value of the internal quantum yield of electroluminescence for the silicon diodes and p-i-n structures are presented. It is shown that the internal quantum yield of electroluminescence can be as high as 14%. However, this values sharply decreases with increasing surface recombination rate and decreasing lifetime of excess charge carriers in the bulk.     

Development of Stretch Solder Interconnections for Wafer Level Packaging

A wafer level packaging technique has been developed with an inherent advantage of good solder joint co-planarity suitable for wafer level testing. A suitable weak metallization scheme has also been established for the detachment process. During the fabrication process, the compliancy of the solder joint is enhanced through stretching to achieve a small shape factor. Thermal cycling reliability of these hourglass-shaped, stretch solder interconnections has been found to be considerably better than that of the conventional spherical-shaped solder bumps.     

Carbon nanofibers as hydrogen adsorbing materials for power sources

Porous carbon nanofibers are synthesized by CVD method from acetylene with use of iron-containing catalysts. Activation of the nanofibers in melted potassium hydroxide results in increasing surface area from initial 300–400 m² g⁻¹ to 1700 m² g⁻¹. As follows from XRD data, activated nanofibers do not contain regular packages of graphene layers, but retain high electric conductivity. Deposition of copper improves electrochemical hydrogen storing characteristics of carbon nanofibers. Carbon nanomaterials obtained can be used as hydrogen storing materials in batteries instead of hydride forming metals.     

Modeling and sensitivity analysis of fire emissions in southern Africa during SAFARI 2000

This paper uses three recently generated southern African satellite burned area products for the month of September 2000 in a sensitivity study of regional biomass burning emissions for a number of trace gases and particulates. Differences in the extent and location of areas burned among products generated from Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), Systeme Pour l'Observation de la Terre (SPOT-VEGETATION), and Along Track Scanning Radiometer (ATSR-2) data are significant and result in different emissions estimates for woodland and grassland land cover types. Due to the different emission profiles in woodlands and grasslands, favoring relatively more products of incomplete combustion in woodlands compared with products of complete combustion in grasslands in the late dry season, these changes are not proportional to the differences in the burned area amounts. The importance of accurate burned area information not just in terms of the total area but also in terms of its spatial distribution becomes apparent from our modeling results. This paper highlights the urgent need for satellite data producers to provide accuracy assessments associated with satellite-derived products. Preferably, these accuracy data will be spatially explicit, or defined in a way that can be applied in a spatially explicit modeling context, to enable emissions uncertainties to be defined with respect to different landscape units in support of greenhouse gas emissions reporting.     

Correct Understanding of the Helmholtz Decomposition in the Radial-Averaging Method for Describing Centrifugal Separation

The theory of separation, based on radial averaging, in a Zippe centrifuge is developed. Certain aspects of the theory of the rotational potential and the errors in understanding the essence of the Helmholtz decomposition as it applies to a gas centrifuge are elucidated. It is shown that the Helmholtz decomposition method does not have cetain drawbacks of the classical theory of the radial averaging method and makes it possible to take account of the rotational flows due to the feed, find expicitly the transit flow distribution, take account of the radial nonuniformity, and take account of the radial convective transport of an isotope by the circulation and transit flows, and the method is not limited by the assumption that the feed flow is small.     

Neural-Net Analysis of the Plasticity of ÉP-450 Ferrite–Martensite Steel with Different Alloying Element Concentrations

The results of a computational experiment with a neural-net model simulating the effect of the chemical composition on the plastic properties of ÉP-450 steel are presented. It is shown that computer-aided development of reactor steel with prescribed properties is, in principle, possible.     

SVBR-75/100 Multipurpose Modular Low-Power Fast Reactor with Lead–Bismuth Coolant

The results of development work on the SVBR-75/100 modular fast reactor cooled by lead–bismuth coolant are presented. The design is based on the experience gained operating reactors in nuclear-powered submarines. The SVBR-75/100 reactor is inherently safe because of its low power, the chemical inertness and high boiling point of the lead–bismuth coolant, and the integrated basin-type arrangement of the first-loop equipment. This eliminates the conflict between the safety and economic requirements that is characteristic of conventional-type reactors. The lower power makes it possible to build the reactor in a factory and deliver the reactor using any form of transportation to the nuclear power plant site. All safety systems operate passively. Most of these systems are used as normal-operating systems. This creates conditions for multipurpose applications of such reactor modules in developed and developing countries.     

Ion-beam-defect processes in group-III nitrides and ZnO

Recently, there has been much interest in wide band-gap wurtzite semiconductors such as group-III nitrides (GaN, AlGaN, and InGaN) and ZnO. Ion-beam-defect processes are considerably more complex in these wurtzite semiconductors than in the case of both elemental and group-III-V cubic semiconductors. This brief review focuses on our recent studies of the following aspects of ion-beam-defect processes: (i) effects of implanted species and the density of collision cascades, (ii) the nature of ion-beam-produced planar defects in GaN, (iii) defect production in GaN by swift heavy ions, (iv) blistering of H-implanted GaN, (v) electrical isolation of GaN and ZnO, (vi) the effect of Al and In content on defect processes in III-nitrides, and (vii) structural damage in ZnO with an intriguing effect of the formation of an anomalous defect peak. Emphasis is given to unusual ion-beam-defect processes and to the physical mechanisms underlying them.