Effect of compacting pressure, powder degassing and thermobaric treatment on densification and properties of nanocrystalline titanium nitride

The effects of compacting pressure, powder degassing and high pressure sintering temperature and time on the densification and properties of nanocrystalline titanium nitride have been investigated. For this reason, TiN powder with a mean particle size of 55 nm was pressed in the range of compacting pressure from 0.2 to 1.0 GPa and sintered under static pressure of 3.5 GPa in the temperature range of 900–1600°C for 45–120 s. Some of green bodies were degassed in vacuum before sintering. It was shown that samples compacted in the pressure range of 0.2–0.6 GPa have the highest density after the thermobaric treatment. The maximum density (about 97.3 %TD) was obtained with degassed samples. Microhardness and microstructure investigations have shown that recrystallization of the TiN nanopowder begins at the sintering temperatures of 1100–1200°C and sintering time less than one minute. The maximum microhardness obtained was 23.2±1.0 GPa and themaximum Young modulus was 370 GPa

Biological in-vivo measurement of dose distribution in patients' lymphocytes by gamma-H2AX immunofluorescence staining: 3D conformal- vs. step-and-shoot IMRT of the prostate gland

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Different radiation-techniques in treating local staged prostate cancer differ in their dose- distribution. Physical phantom measurements indicate that for 3D, less healthy tissue is exposed to a relatively higher dose compared to SSIMRT. The purpose is to substantiate a dose distribution in lymphocytes <it>in-vivo </it>and to discuss the possibility of comparing it to the physical model of total body dose distribution.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>For each technique (3D and SSIMRT), blood was taken from 20 patients before and 10 min after their first fraction of radiotherapy. The isolated leukocytes were fixed 2 hours after radiation. DNA double-strand breaks (DSB) in lymphocytes' nuclei were stained immunocytochemically using the gamma-H2AX protein. Gamma-H2AX foci inside each nucleus were counted in 300 irradiated as well as 50 non-irradiated lymphocytes per patient. In addition, lymphocytes of 5 volunteer subjects were irradiated externally at different doses and processed under same conditions as the patients' lymphocytes in order to generate a calibration-line. This calibration-line assigns dose-value to mean number of gamma-H2AX foci/ nucleus. So the dose distributions in patients' lymphocytes were determined regarding to the gamma-H2AX foci distribution. With this information a cumulative dose-lymphocyte-histogram (DLH) was generated. Visualized distribution of gamma-H2AX foci, correspondingly dose per nucleus, was compared to the technical dose-volume-histogram (DVH), related to the whole body-volume.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Measured <it>in-vivo </it>(DLH) and according to the physical treatment-planning (DVH), more lymphocytes resulted with low-dose exposure (< 20% of the applied dose) and significantly fewer lymphocytes with middle-dose exposure (30%-60%) during Step-and-Shoot-IMRT, compared to conventional 3D conformal radiotherapy. The high-dose exposure (> 80%) was equal in both radiation techniques. The mean number of gamma-H2AX foci per lymphocyte was 0.49 (3D) and 0.47 (SSIMRT) without significant difference.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p><it>In-vivo </it>measurement of the dose distribution within patients' lymphocytes can be performed by detecting gamma-H2AX foci. In case of 3D and SSIMRT, the results of this method correlate with the physical calculated total body dose-distribution, but cannot be interpreted unrestrictedly due to the blood circulation. One possible application of the present method could be in radiation-protection for <it>in-vivo </it>dose estimation after accidental exposure to radiation.</p

Photovaractor performance for optically controlled microwave circuits, Journal of Telecommunications and Information Technology, 2002, nr 1

The photovaractor for optically controlled microwave circuits was designed and studied. The photovaractor module was fabricated as a planar p-i-n photodiode chip placed in a fibre optic matching receptacles. Study of C-V characteristics in the light illumination mode has shown that capacitance characteristics are strongly dependent on the light illumination power. These variations of the photovaractor diode capacitance are large enough to be used in optically controlled circuits such as oscillators, mixers and switchers