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Division Spotlight
Materials Science & Technology
The objectives of MSTD are: promote the advancement of materials science in Nuclear Science Technology; support the multidisciplines which constitute it; encourage research by providing a forum for the presentation, exchange, and documentation of relevant information; promote the interaction and communication among its members; and recognize and reward its members for significant contributions to the field of materials science in nuclear technology.
Meeting Spotlight
International Conference on Mathematics and Computational Methods Applied to Nuclear Science and Engineering (M&C 2025)
April 27–30, 2025
Denver, CO|The Westin Denver Downtown
Standards Program
The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
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Sam Altman steps down as Oklo board chair
Advanced nuclear company Oklo Inc. has new leadership for its board of directors as billionaire Sam Altman is stepping down from the position he has held since 2015. The move is meant to open new partnership opportunities with OpenAI, where Altman is CEO, and other artificial intelligence companies.
Shiping Wei, Yuyao Wei, Jin Wang, Shaojian Yan, Wei Wang, Zhixin Ma, Chunjing Li
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 199 | Number 3 | March 2025 | Pages 465-475
Research Article | doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2024.2368993
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A nuclear battery is a promising candidate for small power supply sources in the military and commercial fields, but its output power and energy conversion efficiency need to be improved. This paper mainly describes a design, preparation, and electrical performance analysis of a GaAs-based tritium battery. The design of the tritium battery uses a multistage process with Monte Carlo and Matlab simulations. A titanium tritide source was prepared by a high-temperature tritium absorption device, and a GaAs semiconductor transducer was developed using a metal-organic chemical vapor deposition method. The D/Ti ratio and T/Ti ratio of the deuterium/tritium titanium films were 1.9 and 1.7, respectively. Two kinds of GaAs-based PIN junction semiconductor transducers were proposed and irradiated with the prepared tritium source. Their electrical properties were measured in situ and analyzed qualitatively. Under the irradiation of a 0.61-Ci tritium source, the short-circuit current of the device was 0.3 to 0.38 μA, the open-circuit voltage was 35 to 63 mV, the peak power was 2.8 to 6.4 nW, and the energy conversion efficiency of the GaAs semiconductor transducer was about 1.86%. It was found that an air gap between the GaAs semiconductor transducer and the radioactive source caused serious loss of beta particle energy, resulting in low output power and low energy conversion efficiency of the nuclear battery. The open-circuit voltage of the devices with a SiO2 passivation layer on the surface decreased both in a dark environment and in light illumination, but SiO2 passivation did not reduce surface recombination as expected. The research work in this paper will provide some valuable reference for the preparation and performance optimization of nuclear batteries.