Various methods have been carried out in an effort to obtain SiO2 (Silica) particles with relatively the same grain size distribution and a uniform shape. This fine Silica particle size will be useful in the formation of SiC in the next stage. In this works, Silica particles has been synthesized through two different methods: conventional sol-gel and sonochemistry (using ultrasonic probe). Silica was synthesized by mixing TEOS, ethanol, ammonia, and D.I water with the molar ratio of 1 : 75.9 : x : y respectively. In sol-gel method, x was varied with 2.85, 5.7, and 8.54 M while y was fixed at 61.6 M. In sonochemistry method, y was varied with 6.69, 12.3, and 75.9M while x was fixed at 2.85 M Additional variation of sample environment including with and without ice has also been done in sonochemistry method. Amorphous phase was found in all samples from the XRD profiles. FT-IR results showed that the IR spectral peaks of all samples match the FT-IR spectrum of SiO2 with symmetric and asymmetric stretching mode of Si-O functional groups at 802 – 810 cm−1 and 1093 – 1103 cm−1 wavenumber. SEM images indicated that the average of SiO2 particle size tends to increase with the higher amount of ammonia concentration used and lesser concentration of water used results in smaller particle size. The influence of sample environment in sonochemistry method showed an interesting phenomenon where a lot of small particles sticked with bigger particles.

High Resolution Powder Diffractometer (HRPD) and Four Circle Diffractometer/Texture Diffractometer (FCD/TD) are two BATAN-owned neutron diffractometers which have been fully operational since 1992. These are used to investigate structure and texture of crystalline materials, respectively. Before analyzing, the acquired raw neutron diffraction data should first be processed in a specific way to achieve the suitable data format required by the analysis software. This data processing step is a repetitive task for every single experiment which is previously done manually and very time-consuming. The purpose of this development project was to optimize this step to be fully automatic and executable by a code. This work was performed by means of Python code utilizing the array manipulation in re-arranging and re-formatting the raw data. The resulted Python codes were named as hrpd.py and fcdtd.py. These have been successfully done and validated, making data processing step easier, simpler, and significantly faster with only 20 seconds or less required.Keywords: HRPD, FCD/TD, Automatic Data Processing, Neutron Diffraction, Python

In the present study, numerically iterative models are employed to study two processes involved in the pulsed laser deposition of an Y3Fe5O12 target. The 1D conduction heat model is used to evaluate the temperature of the target irradiated by a nano-second pulse laser, taking into account the plasma shielding effect. Further, the gas dynamics model is employed to simulate the kinetic of plasma plume expansion. The results may be important in obtaining high-quality Y3Fe5O12 thin films.

Silicon carbide (SiC) is a competitive candidate material to be used in several advanced and Generation-IV nuclear reactor designs as neutron moderator, fuel coating, cladding, or core structural material. Many studies have been performed to investigate the durability of SiC in severe environment in nuclear reactor. However, the nature and behavior of defect induced by neutron irradiation are still not fully understood. This paper is aimed to study collision cascade and primary radiation damage in SiC using molecular dynamics simulation. The potential being used was a hybrid Tersoff potential modified with Ziegler-Biersack-Littmark (ZBL) screening function. The collision cascade was let evolved for 10 ps from a Si or C primary knocked atom (PKA) located initially at the top center of a system containing 960000 atoms. The simulation was carried out at room temperature as well as at several advanced fission reactor-relevant temperatures. It was obtained that the number of C point defects were larger than the number of Si point defects. The number of stable point defect was found to be temperature-dependent. It was also obtained that the recovery of point defects was larger at high temperature (>800°C).