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Going Nuclear: Notes from the officially unofficial book tour
I work in the analytical labs at one of Europe’s oldest and largest nuclear sites: Sellafield, in northwestern England. I spend my days at the fume hood front, pipette in one hand and radiation probe in the other (and dosimeter pinned to my chest, of course). Outside the lab, I have a second job: I moonlight as a writer and public speaker. My new popular science book—Going Nuclear: How the Atom Will Save the World—came out last summer, and it feels like my life has been running at full power ever since.
S. Le Tacon, F. Durut, C. Chicanne, V. Brunet
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 63 | Number 2 | March-April 2013 | Pages 132-135
Technical Paper | Selected papers from 20th Target Fabrication Meeting, May 20-24, 2012, Santa Fe, NM, Guest Editor: Robert C. Cook | doi.org/10.13182/FST13-A16330
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Glass thin films appear particularly interesting as semipermeable barriers for many noncryogenic target applications. This functional layer can be sputtered from quartz targets onto CHx microshells synthesized by glow discharge polymerization. In the present work, we investigate the influence of deposit parameters (pressure, RF power, target-holder distance, and plasma composition) on glass coating microstructure and permeation properties. The permeation properties of CHx/SiO2/CHx capsules are studied by mass spectrometry using deuterium (D2) as the filling gas. The use of a low deposition pressure and a high RF power in a background atmosphere of argon appears essential to obtain the most efficient barrier. The optimized sputtering conditions allow deuterium half-lives of 1 month on 1700-m CHx capsules, including a 1-m-thick SiO2 coating (corresponding to a permeation coefficient of 3 × 10-20 molm-1s-1Pa-1). These capsules could be filled to the required pressures ([approximately]3 MPa) for Laser Mégajoule (LMJ) experiments.