In situ reaction and alteration of mudstone-cement interfaces at the Horonobe URL; Comparison between ordinary Portland cement and low alkaline cement

Dei, Shuntaro; Shibata, Masahito*; Negishi, Kumi*; Sugiura, Yuki; Amano, Yuki; Bateman, K.*; Wilson, J.*; Yokoyama, Tatsunori; Kagami, Saya; Takeda, Masaki; et al.

Results in Earth Sciences (Internet), 3, p.100097_1 - 100097_16, 2025/12

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rines.2025.100097

Interactions between cement and host rock in geological repositories for radioactive waste will result in a chemically disturbed zone, which may potentially affect the long-term safety. This paper investigates the chemical evolution at the interface between cement (Ordinary Portland Cement: OPC and Low Alkaline Cement: LAC) and mudstone after 11 years of in situ reactions at the Horonobe Underground Research Laboratory. The study combines various analytical techniques to identify the key reactions at the cement-rock interface, including cement dissolution, precipitation of secondary minerals such as calcite and C-(A-)S-H phases, cation exchange in montmorillonite and reduced porosity in mudstone. The study also highlights the effects of cement-mudstone interactions on radionuclide migration, such as reduction of diffusivity due to reduced porosity and enhancement of sorption due to incorporation into secondary minerals in the altered mudstone.

Large magnetic Bragg peak enhancement by ultrasound injection on FeTiO

Shamoto, Shinichi; Shin, K.*; Akatsu, Mitsuhiro*; Imai, Masaki; Ueta, Daichi*; Yokoo, Tetsuya*; Nemoto, Yuichi*; Hassan, A. M. A.*; Chang, L.-J.*; Ieda, Junichi; et al.

Applied Physics Letters, 127(13), p.132403_1 - 132403_5, 2025/09

https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0273424

Electrical coherent driving of chiral antiferromagnet

Takeuchi, Yutaro*; Sato, Yuma*; Yamane, Yuta*; Yoon, J.-Y.*; Kanno, Yukinori*; Uchimura, Tomohiro*; De Zoysa, K. V.*; Han, J.*; Kanai, Shun*; Ieda, Junichi; et al.

Science, 389(6762), p.830 - 834, 2025/08

https://doi.org/10.1126/science.ado1611

DECOVALEX-2023: An International collaboration for advancing the understanding and modeling of coupled thermo-hydro-mechanical-chemical (THMC) processes in geological systems

Birkholzer, J. T.*; Graupner, B. J.*; Harrington, J.*; Jayne, R.*; Kolditz, O.*; Kuhlman, K. L.*; LaForce, T.*; Leone, R. C.*; Mariner, P. E.*; McDermott, C.*; et al.

Geomechanics for Energy and the Environment, 42, p.100685_1 - 100685_17, 2025/06

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gete.2025.100685

Extending TOPAS with an analytical microdosimetric function; Application and benchmarking with nBio track structure simulations

Hartzell, S.*; Parisi, A.*; Sato, Tatsuhiko; Beltran, C. J.*; Furutani, K. M.*

Physics in Medicine & Biology, 70(10), p.105010_1 - 105010_19, 2025/05

https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6560/adcfec

In situ neutron diffraction study of strain evolution and load partitioning during elevated temperature tensile test in HIP-Treated electron beam powder bed fusion manufactured Ti-6Al-4V

Pandian, K.*; Neikter, M.*; Ekh, M.*; Harjo, S.; Kawasaki, Takuro; Woracek, R.*; Hansson, T.*; Pederson, R.*

JOM, 77(4), p.1803 - 1815, 2025/04

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11837-025-07128-1

A Benchmark for Monte Carlo simulation of photoneutron fields from electron accelerators

Sari, A.*; Meleshenkovskii, I.*; Ogawa, Tatsuhiko; Tran, K.-T.*; Jinaphanh, A.*; Jouanne, C.*; Zoia, A.*

Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research A, 1072, p.170168_1 - 170168_17, 2025/03

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nima.2024.170168

Electron accelerators cover a wide range of applications, from nuclear waste package assay and security-related tasks to radiation therapy. High-energy photons produced by electron Bremsstrahlung radiation might induce photonuclear reactions emitting secondary neutrons. In this paper, we perform a two-stage benchmark for Monte Carlo simulation of photoneutron fields from electron accelerators operating in the 4-20 MeV range. On the one hand, we benchmark three independently developed Monte Carlo codes, i.e., MCNP, TRIPOLI-4; and PHITS, using ENDF7u photonuclear data from the ENDF/B-VII.1 library. On the other hand, we benchmark two photonuclear data sub-libraries, i.e., ENDF7u and JENDL-5, as well as nuclear reaction models, using the PHITS code. Errors in ENDF7u for W-184 and Ta-181 cause unphysical shapes of the photoneutron energy spectra with the three codes. Questionable behaviors are also found with JENDL-5, which calls for further examinations in this recently released library. For the cases of heavy water and beryllium, the photoneutron energy spectra obtained with MCNP6 is invalidated. We identified that the problem stems from wrong treatment of the reference frame in using the ACE data files by MCNP and previous versions of PHITS. Results obtained for tungsten and tantalum show that photoneutrons are overall emitted in an isotropic manner. However, results obtained for heavy water and beryllium display different tendencies. This investigation should help Monte Carlo code users to refine the current validity domain of the latest releases of MCNP6, PHITS and TRIPOLI-4 for the simulation of photoneutrons.

Diverse microbiome functions, limited temporal variation and substantial genomic conservation within sedimentary and granite rock deep underground research laboratories

Amano, Yuki; Sachdeva, R.*; Gittins, D.*; Anantharaman, K.*; Lei, S.*; Valentin-Alvarado, L. E.*; Diamond, S.*; Beppu, Hikari*; Iwatsuki, Teruki; Mochizuki, Akihito; et al.

Environmental Microbiome (Internet), 19, p.105_1 - 105_17, 2024/12

https://doi.org/10.1186/s40793-024-00649-3

LET-based approximation of the microdosimetric kinetic model for proton radiotherapy

Parisi, A.*; Furutani, K. M.*; Sato, Tatsuhiko; Beltran, C. J.*

Medical Physics, 51(10), p.7589 - 7605, 2024/10

https://doi.org/10.1002/mp.17337

In this study, we have developed an approximate MKM (microdosimetric kinetic model) based on LET (dose-averaged linear energy transfer) to address the challenges of biological relative effectiveness (RBE) models for proton therapy. This is an attempt to apply the mechanism-based approach used in carbon ion therapy to proton beams. This LET-based MKM establishes a correlation between dose-averaged LET and microbiological indices and successfully models survival rates for multiple cell lines. This has resulted in a mathematical description of RBE based on physical quantities that can be readily used in proton therapy planning systems.

Brightening triplet excitons enable high-performance white-light emission in organic small molecules via integrating n-- transitions

Yang, Q.*; Yang, X.*; Wang, Y.*; Fei, Y.*; Li, F.*; Zheng, H.*; Li, K.*; Han, Y.*; Hattori, Takanori; Zhu, P.*; et al.

Nature Communications (Internet), 15, p.7778_1 - 7778_9, 2024/09

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-52196-7

Luminescent materials that simultaneously embody bright singlet and triplet excitons hold great potential in optoelectronics, signage, and information encryption. However, achieving high-performance white-light emission is severely hampered by their inherent unbalanced contribution of fluorescence and phosphorescence. Herein, we address this challenge by pressure treatment engineering via hydrogen bonding cooperativity effect to realize the mixture of n-- transitions, where the triplet state emission was boosted from 7% to 40% in isophthalic acid (IPA). A superior white-light emission based on hybrid fluorescence and phosphorescence was harvested in pressure-treated IPA, and the photoluminescence quantum yield was increased to 75% from the initial 19% (blue-light emission). In-situ high-pressure IR spectra, X ray diffraction, and neutron diffraction reveal continuous strengthening of the hydrogen bonds with the increase of pressure. Furthermore, this enhanced hydrogen bond is retained down to the ambient conditions after pressure treatment, awarding the targeted IPA efficient intersystem crossing for balanced singlet/triplet excitons population and resulting in efficient white-light emission. This work not only proposes a route for brightening triplet states in organic small molecule, but also regulates the ratio of singlet and triplet excitons to construct high-performance white-light emission.