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Latest News
Second round of Launch Pad selections includes eight newcomers
The National Reactor Innovation Center at Idaho National Laboratory has announced 13 project selections across 12 companies for the Nuclear Energy Launch Pad, a Department of Energy–led program that integrates reactor and fuel facility authorization, testing, and deployment support for private nuclear developers.
The Launch Pad emerged from the Reactor Pilot Program and Fuel Line Pilot Program.
According to INL, projects selected include reactor development and nuclear fuel cycle advancements, including fabrication, enrichment, and conversion technologies.
M. Wisse, L. Marot, R. Steiner, D. Mathys, A. Stumpp, M. Joanny, J. M. Travère, E. Meyer
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 66 | Number 2 | October 2014 | Pages 308-314
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/FST13-771
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
In order to extend the investigation of laser-assisted cleaning of ITER-relevant first mirror materials to the picosecond regime, a commercial laser system delivering 10-ps pulses at 355 nm at a frequency of up to 1 MHz has been used to investigate the ablation of mixed aluminum (oxide)/tungsten (oxide) layers deposited on polycrystalline and nanocrystalline molybdenum as well as nanocrystalline rhodium mirrors. Characterization before and after cleaning using scanning electron microscopy and spectrophotometry shows heavy dust formation, resulting in a degradation of the reflectivity. Cleaning using 5-ns pulses at 350 and 532 nm, on the other hand, proved very promising. The structure of the film remnants suggests that in this case buckling was the underlying removal mechanism rather than ablation. Repeated coating and cleaning using nanosecond pulses is demonstrated.