Molecular excitation in the Interstellar Medium: recent advances in collisional, radiative and chemical processes

We review the different excitation processes in the interstellar mediumComment: Accepted in Chem. Re

Borehole drilling and related activities at the Stripa mine

Drilling operations for the joint Swedish-U.S. program on radioactive waste storage in mined caverns were conducted from August, 1977 to April, 1978. At the peak of drilling, six drills were active, one on the surface and five underground. 160 boreholes were drilled with sizes ranging from 38 to 406 mm dia. Special techniques and drilling equipment were developed to drill and remove the large cores. Instrumentation and heater installations required strict drilling specifications. Detailed descriptions of the fractures and other relevant rock properties required orientation of the core as well as special recovery techniques. To assure the best possible quality of the core, a triple-tube core barrel was used to drill all boreholes 76 mm diameter and larger

Low-frequency picotesla field detection with planar Hall effect bridge sensors

The applicability of miniaturized magnetic field sensors are being explored in several fields of magnetic field detection, due to their integratability, low mass, and potentially low cost. In this respect, different thin-film technologies, especially those employing magnetoresistance, show great potential, being compatible with micro- and nanotechnology batch processing. For low-frequency magnetic field detection, sensors based on the planar Hall effect, especially planar Hall effect bridge (PHEB) sensors, show promising performance given their inherent low-field linearity, limited hysteresis and moderate noise figure. In this work, the applicability of such PHEB sensors to different areas is investigated. An analytical model was constructed, to estimate the performance of an arbitrary PHEB in terms of e.g. sensitivity and detectivity. The model incorporates a number of approximations and, to validate the results, modelled data is compared to measurements on actual PHEBs. It is concluded that the model slightly underestimated the detectivity, especially at low frequencies and when demagnetizing effects becomes apparent. The model is also sensitive to fabrication process induced variations of the material parameters of the sensors. Nevertheless, accounting for these discrepancies, the modelled data is typically within 10% from the experimental data and the model can be used to estimate the performance of a particular PHEB design. The model is also used to establish a design process for optimizing a PHEB to a particular set of requirements on the bandwidth, detectivity, compliance voltage and amplified signal-to-noise ratio. By applying this design process, the size, sensitivity, resistance, bias current and power consumption of the PHEB can be calculated. The model shows that PHEBs are applicable to several different science areas including archaeological surveying, satellite attitude determination, scientific space missions, and magnetic bead detection in lab-on-a-chip applications

Low-frequency noise in planar Hall effect bridge sensors

The low-frequency characteristics of planar Hall effect bridge sensors are investigated as function of the sensor bias current and the applied magnetic field. The noise spectra reveal a Johnson-like spectrum at high frequencies, and a 1/f-like excess noise spectrum at lower frequencies, with a knee frequency of around 400 Hz. The 1/f-like excess noise can be described by the phenomenological Hooge equation with a Hooge parameter of gH=0.016. The detectivity is shown to depend on the total length, width and thickness of the bridge branches. Increasing the total length by a factor of 10 improves the detectivity by a factor of 101/2. Moreover, the detectivity is shown to depend on the amplitude of the applied magnetic field, revealing a magnetic origin to part of the 1/f noise

Low-frequency noise in planar Hall effect bridge sensors

The low-frequency characteristics of planar Hall effect bridge sensors are investigated as function of the sensor bias current and the applied magnetic field. The noise spectra reveal a Johnson-like spectrum at high frequencies, and a 1/f-like excess noise spectrum at lower frequencies, with a knee frequency of around 400 Hz. The 1/f-like excess noise can be described by the phenomenological Hooge equation with a Hooge parameter of gH=0.016. The detectivity is shown to depend on the total length, width and thickness of the bridge branches. Increasing the total length by a factor of 10 improves the detectivity by a factor of 101/2. Moreover, the detectivity is shown to depend on the amplitude of the applied magnetic field, revealing a magnetic origin to part of the 1/f noise