VORPAL: Versatile Plasma Simulation Code

VORPAL enables researchers to simulate complex physical phenomena in less time and at a much lower cost than empirically testing process changes for plasma and vapor deposition processes. VORPAL offers a unique combination of physical models to cover the entire range of plasma simulation problems. Laser wakefield accelerators, plasma thrusters, high-power microwave guides, and plasma processing chambers are only a few of the many applications benefiting from the powerful, parallel algorithms incorporated into the VORPAL framework. Ionization and neutral gas models enable VORPAL to bridge the gap between plasma and neutral flow physics. The software runs on a wide range of computing platforms, from desktop machines to massively parallel supercomputers with thousands of processors. The use of standard data formats allows data analysis at various levels of sophistication, including your own preferred data analysis tool.

Source: Tech-X Corporation

Dr. Eric Cornell: Searching for the Electron's Electric Dipole Moment in Trapped Molecular Ions

I joined the Physics Division Colloquium at Argonne this morning. Dr. Eric Cornell, 2001 Nobel Prize winner presented a great talking about his resent research on electron electric dipole moment (eEDM).

Searching for the Electron's Electric Dipole Moment in Trapped Molecular Ions

The current experimental upper bound on the electron electric dipole moment (eEDM) already cuts into the natural scale predicted by supersymmetry. I'll discuss an ongoing experiment in our lab to push experimental sensitivity down some two orders of magnitude. The effective electric fields inside a molecule can be thousands of times larger than in free space. A molecule with unpaired electron spin serves as our high-field lab for this benchtop particle physics experiment.

related link: Cornell Group

The crystal melting movie?

As Phy Org web reported, Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory (SSRL) researchers
have observed the atomic events involved in rapid crystal melting using an intense laser and ultra-fast x-rays.

Sub-Picosecond Pulse Source (SPPS) provides short bursts of x-rays (2 x 10^6 photons in an 80 fs FWHM pulse at 8.9 keV with a 1.5% bandwidth into a 200 um by 400 um spot). The laser pulse (50fs FWHM, 20 mJ @ 800 nm) at the sample, which convolved with the x-ray pulse yields a Gaussian cross correlation of 100 fs FWHM.

The data, published recently in Physical Review Letters, revealed that when their bonds destabilized, the atoms moved apart from each other quickly, as if repelling each other. The semiconductor material had visible melting damage after being struck by the laser.

A 32TW laser beam sending into the atmosphere

Recent paper published on APL reported the ultrahigh power laser pulses have been sent vertically into the atmosphere. Scientists from Switzerland and France sent 26J, 32TW laser pulses delivered by the Alise beamline of the CEA-CESTA into the sky. They found more than 400 self-guided filaments. The white light was observed when the laser beam propagating up to the air, beyond 20km.

If you are interested this phenomena, you may download the full text paper from the APL website.

EUV Tool Produces Images

This was just announced today on Photonics web.

The $65 million EUV ADT, developed by Netherlands-based ASML Holding NV, a supplier of advanced lithography tools, will be essential in development of the infrastructure for EUV lithography and is considered the most likely technology for insertion into manufacturing as early as the 32-nm computer chip device node, based on cost-effectiveness and ability to extend to future nodes, according to ASML.

I am very courious about this EUV source, how can they produce a 32 nm laser for lithography? There is no answer from the Photonicsweb report. I did not get answer from College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering at the University at Albany (UAlbany). Fortunately ASML tell us it's the plasma physics to produce this short wavelength:

The light source for EUV is a gas through which a high-voltage electrical charge (or high energy photons) is sent. This ionizes the gas, separating the nucleus of the atoms from the electrons, thereby creating a plasma, a very hot cloud of ions. As the electrons attempt to return to the nucleus, they emit a burst of light, which has a very short wavelength of 13.5 nm.

For more information visit: EUV Lithography: The next generation