Direct-drive implosion experiments on the GEKKO XII laser (9 kJ, 0.5 /xm, 2 ns) with deuterium and tritium (DT) exchanged plastic hollow shell targets demonstrated fuel areal densities (pR) of -0.1 g/cm 2 and fuel densities of -600 times liquid density at fuel temperatures of -0.3 keV. (The density and pR values refer only to DT and do not include carbons in the plastic targets.) These values are to be compared with thermonuclear ignition conditions, i.e., fuel densities of 500-1000 times liquid density, fuel areal densities greater than 0.3 g/cm 2 , and fuel temperatures greater than 5 keV. The irradiation nonuniformity in these experiments was significantly reduced to a level of <5°/o in root mean square by introducing random-phase plates. The target irregularity was controlled to a 1% level. The fuel pR was directly measured with the neutron activation of Si, which was originally compounded in the plastic targets. The fuel densities were estimated from the pR values using the mass conservation relation, where the ablated mass was separately measured using the time-dependent X-ray emission from multilayer targets. Although the observed densities were in agreement with one-dimensional calculation results with convergence ratios of 25-30, the observed neutron yields were significantly lower than those of the calculations. This suggests the implosion uniformity is not sufficient to create a hot spark in which most neutrons should be generated.

A simple and highly sensitive biosensor based on a fiber-optic coupler is developed. The change of refractive index due to biomolecular interaction on the surface of the coupler can be detected as the change of the transmission power. The sensitivity of the sensor is evaluated to be a noise level equivalent to a refractive index variation of 4×10−6. The binding of streptavidin is detected to be concentration dependent over a range of 0.5–2μg∕ml, by immobilizing biotin on the coupler surface via aminosilan treatment. This sensor allows the construction of a low-cost, portable, and label-free biosensing system.

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We investigated the reduction mechanism of surface oxide on aluminum alloy powders containing magnesium, by x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy using synchrotron radiation (SR-XPS). The reduction is the initial reaction in a new aluminum nitridation method developed by one of the authors. In heating the powders to 823 K, magnesium soluted in the powders moves from the inner region to the surface at temperatures below 573 K, and finally, above 773 K, the magnesium reduces the aluminum oxide of powder surfaces by chemical reaction, which breaks the surface oxide films, and metallic aluminum appears on the topmost surface of the powders. These results suggest that the SR-XPS system is very useful for dynamic chemical reaction analysis of the surface via in situ measurement.

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