Physics Commons^™

Formation Of Nanodiamonds At Near-Ambient Conditions Via Microplasma Dissociation Of Ethanol Vapour, Ajay Kumar, Pin Ann Lin, Albert Xue, Boyi Hao, Yoke Khin Yap, R. Mohan Sankaran

Department of Physics Publications

Clusters of diamond-phase carbon, known as nanodiamonds, exhibit novel mechanical, optical and biological properties that have elicited interest for a wide range of technological applications. Although diamond is predicted to be more stable than graphite at the nanoscale, extreme environments are typically used to produce nanodiamonds. Here we show that nanodiamonds can be stably formed in the gas phase at atmospheric pressure and neutral gas temperatures <100 °C by dissociation of ethanol vapour in a novel microplasma process. Addition of hydrogen gas to the process allows in flight purification by selective etching of the non-diamond carbon and stabilization of the nanodiamonds. The nanodiamond particles are predominantly between 2 and 5 nm in diameter, and exhibit cubic diamond, n-diamond and lonsdaleite crystal structures, similar to nanodiamonds recovered from meteoritic residues. These results may help explain the origin of nanodiamonds in the cosmos, and offer a simple and inexpensive route for the …

Schematics Of A Water Balloon Launcher Design And Reproducible Water-Balloon-Filling Procedures Used For A Middle School Summer Science Camp, Mike A. Christiansen, Boyd F. Edwards, David D. Sam

USU Uintah Basin Faculty Publications

We recently held a Science Summer Camp for middle school students, designed to infuse young people with increased excitement for STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) subjects. Our efforts, which received nationally-syndicated news coverage, included the invention of a versatile water balloon launcher.

This document contains:

(1) detailed construction schematics and user operation guidelines for our balloon launcher;

(2) data and instructions for reproducibly filling water balloons to specific volumes and weights, within used by students during the summer camp.

Innovative Applications Of Genetic Algorithms To Problems In Accelerator Physics, Alicia Hofler, Balša Terzić, Matthew Kramer, Anton Zvezdin, Vasiliy Morozov, Yves Roblin, Fanglei Lin, Colin Jarvis

Physics Faculty Publications

The genetic algorithm (GA) is a powerful technique that implements the principles nature uses in biological evolution to optimize a multidimensional nonlinear problem. The GA works especially well for problems with a large number of local extrema, where traditional methods (such as conjugate gradient, steepest descent, and others) fail or, at best, underperform. The field of accelerator physics, among others, abounds with problems which lend themselves to optimization via GAs. In this paper, we report on the successful application of GAs in several problems related to the existing Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility nuclear physics machine, the proposed Medium-energy Electron-Ion …