Oxygen potential of plutonium and plutonium-americium dioxides

Vauchy, R.; Hirooka, Shun; Saito, Kosuke

Materials Today Communications (Internet), 41, p.110676_1 - 110676_17, 2024/12

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mtcomm.2024.110676

Oxygen potential measurements of PuO reported in the open literature were reviewed and re-interpreted using the defect chemistry model developed by our team. An empirical, easy-to-use, relationship connecting the O/Pu ratio, the equilibrium oxygen potential, and the temperature is proposed based on the interpolation of the experimental data in the 953-2100 K temperature range. The effect of americium on the oxygen potential of PuO is also discussed.

Conceptual study of Post Irradiation Examination (PIE) Facility at J-PARC

Saito, Shigeru; Meigo, Shinichiro; Makimura, Shunsuke*; Hirano, Yukinori*; Tsutsumi, Kazuyoshi*; Maekawa, Fujio

JAEA-Technology 2023-025, 48 Pages, 2024/03

JAEA-Technology-2023-025.pdf:3.11MB

JAEA has been developing Accelerator-Driven Systems (ADS) for research and development of nuclear transmutation using accelerators in order to reduce the volume and hazardousness of high-level radioactive waste generated by nuclear power plants. In order to prepare the material irradiation database necessary for the design of ADS and to study the irradiation effects in Lead-Bismuth Eutectic (LBE) alloys, a proton irradiation facility is under consideration at J-PARC. In this proton irradiation facility, 250 kW proton beams will be injected into the LBE spallation target, and irradiation tests under LBE flow will be performed for candidate structural materials for ADS. Furthermore, semiconductor soft-error tests, medical RI production, and proton beam applications will be performed. Among these, Post Irradiation Examination (PIE) of irradiated samples and RI separation and purification will be carried out in the PIE facility to be constructed near the proton irradiation facility. In this PIE facility, PIE of the equipment and samples irradiated in other facilities in J-PARC will also be performed. This report describes the conceptual study of the PIE facility, including the items to be tested, the test flow, the facilities, the test equipment, etc., and the proposed layout of the facility.

Latent ion tracks were finally observed in diamond

Amekura, Hiroshi*; Chettah, A.*; Narumi, Kazumasa*; Chiba, Atsuya*; Hirano, Yoshimi*; Yamada, Keisuke*; Yamamoto, Shunya*; Leino, A. A.*; Djurabekova, F.*; Nordlund, K.*; et al.

Nature Communications (Internet), 15, p.1786_1 - 1786_10, 2024/02

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-45934-4

Injecting high-energy heavy ions in the electronic stopping regime into solids can create cylindrical damage zones called latent ion tracks. Although these tracks form in many materials, none have ever been observed in diamond, even when irradiated with high-energy GeV uranium ions. Here we report the first observation of ion track formation in diamond irradiated with 2-9 MeV C fullerene ions. Depending on the ion energy, the mean track length (diameter) changed from 17 (3.2) nm to 52 (7.1) nm. High resolution scanning transmission electron microscopy (HR-STEM) indicated the amorphization in the tracks, in which -bonding signal from graphite was detected by the electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS).

Development of a non-destructive depth-selective quantification method for sub-percent carbon contents in steel using negative muon lifetime analysis

Ninomiya, Kazuhiko*; Kubo, Kenya*; Inagaki, Makoto*; Yoshida, Go*; Chiu, I.-H.; Kudo, Takuto*; Asari, Shunsuke*; Sentoku, Sawako*; Takeshita, Soshi*; Shimomura, Koichiro*; et al.

Scientific Reports (Internet), 14, p.1797_1 - 1797_8, 2024/01

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-52255-5

The amount of C in steel, which is critical in determining its properties, is strongly influenced by steel production technology. We propose a novel method of quantifying the bulk C content in steel non-destructively using muons. This revolutionary method may be used not only in the quality control of steel in production, but also in analyzing precious steel archaeological artifacts. A negatively charged muon forms an atomic system owing to its negative charge, and is finally absorbed into the nucleus or decays to an electron. The lifetimes of muons differ significantly, depending on whether they are trapped by Fe or C atoms, and identifying the elemental content at the muon stoppage position is possible via muon lifetime measurements. The relationship between the muon capture probabilities of C/Fe and the elemental content of C exhibits a good linearity, and the C content in the steel may be quantitatively determined via muon lifetime measurements. Furthermore, by controlling the incident energies of the muons, they may be stopped in each layer of a stacked sample consisting of three types of steel plates with thicknesses of 0.5 mm, and we successfully determined the C contents in the range 0.20 - 1.03 wt% depth-selectively, without sample destruction.

Pd nanoparticles on the outer surface of microporous aluminosilicates for the direct alkylation of benzenes using alkanes

Misaki, Satoshi*; Miwa, Hiroko*; Ito, Takashi; Yoshida, Takefumi*; Hasegawa, Shingo*; Nakamura, Yukina*; Tokutake, Shunta*; Takabatake, Moe*; Shimomura, Koichiro*; Chun, W.-J.*; et al.

ACS Catalysis, 13(18), p.12281 - 12287, 2023/09

https://doi.org/10.1021/acscatal.3c02309

Study of the and shell gap for Ti and V by the first high-precision multireflection time-of-flight mass measurements at BigRIPS-SLOWRI

Iimura, Shun*; Rosenbusch, M.*; Takamine, Aiko*; Tsunoda, Yusuke*; Wada, Michiharu*; Chen, S.*; Hou, D. S.*; Xian, W.*; Ishiyama, Hironobu*; Yan, S.*; et al.

Physical Review Letters, 130(1), p.012501_1 - 012501_6, 2023/01

https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.130.012501

Sodium-cooled Fast Reactors

Ohshima, Hiroyuki; Morishita, Masaki*; Aizawa, Kosuke; Ando, Masanori; Ashida, Takashi; Chikazawa, Yoshitaka; Doda, Norihiro; Enuma, Yasuhiro; Ezure, Toshiki; Fukano, Yoshitaka; et al.

Sodium-cooled Fast Reactors; JSME Series in Thermal and Nuclear Power Generation, Vol.3, 631 Pages, 2022/07

https://shop.elsevier.com/books/sodium-cooled-fast-reactors/morishita/978-0-12-824076-2

This book is a collection of the past experience of design, construction, and operation of two reactors, the latest knowledge and technology for SFR designs, and the future prospects of SFR development in Japan. It is intended to provide the perspective and the relevant knowledge to enable readers to become more familiar with SFR technology.

Observation of spin-space quantum transport induced by an atomic quantum point contact

Ono, Koki*; Higomoto, Toshiya*; Saito, Yugo*; Uchino, Shun; Nishida, Yusuke*; Takahashi, Yoshiro*

Nature Communications (Internet), 12, p.6724_1 - 6724_8, 2021/11

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-27011-2

Quantum transport is ubiquitous in physics. So far, quantum transport between terminals has been extensively studied in solid state systems from the fundamental point of views such as the quantized conductance to the applications to quantum devices. Recent works have demonstrated a cold-atom analog of a mesoscopic conductor by engineering a narrow conducting channel with optical potentials, which opens the door for a wealth of research of atomtronics emulating mesoscopic electronic devices and beyond. Here we realize an alternative scheme of the quantum transport experiment with ytterbium atoms in a two-orbital optical lattice system. Our system consists of a multi-component Fermi gas and a localized impurity, where the current can be created in the spin space by introducing the spin-dependent interaction with the impurity. We demonstrate a rich variety of localized-impurity-induced quantum transports, which paves the way for atomtronics exploiting spin degrees of freedom.

An Approach toward evaluation of long-term fission product distributions in the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant after the severe accident

Uchida, Shunsuke; Karasawa, Hidetoshi; Kino, Chiaki*; Pellegrini, M.*; Naito, Masanori*; Osaka, Masahiko

Nuclear Engineering and Design, 380, p.111256_1 - 111256_19, 2021/08

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nucengdes.2021.111256

It is essential to grasp the long-term distributions of FP as well as fuel debris all over the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (1F) for safe completion of its decommissioning projects. The fuel debris is going to be removed from the plant under the severe conditions of FP being scattered during major decommissioning work, and then, the decommissioning projects are going to be terminated by storing safely the removed debris as recovered fertile materials or as materials for final radioactive disposal. In order to determine the FP distribution in the plant for the long period from the accident occurrence to the termination of the plant decommissioning, procedures for analyzing multi-term FP behaviors were proposed. The proposed procedures should be improved by applying the FP data measured in the plant and validated based on the feedback data. Then, the accuracy-improved procedures should be applied to estimate FP distribution during each period of the decommissioning projects.

Rabi-oscillation spectroscopy of the hyperfine structure of muonium atoms

Nishimura, Shoichiro*; Torii, Hiroyuki*; Fukao, Yoshinori*; Ito, Takashi; Iwasaki, Masahiko*; Kanda, Sotaro*; Kawagoe, Kiyotomo*; Kawall, D.*; Kawamura, Naritoshi*; Kurosawa, Noriyuki*; et al.

Physical Review A, 104(2), p.L020801_1 - L020801_6, 2021/08

https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.104.L020801