A new model for deflagration fronts in reactive fluids

We present a new way of modeling deflagration fronts in reactive fluids, the main emphasis being on turbulent thermonuclear deflagration fronts in white dwarfs undergoing a Type Ia supernova explosion. Our approach is based on a level set method which treats the front as a mathematical discontinuity and allows full coupling between the front geometry and the flow field. With only minor modifications, this method can also be applied to describe contact discontinuities. Two different implementations are described and their physically correct behaviour for simple testcases is shown. First results of the method applied to the concrete problems of Type Ia supernovae and chemical hydrogen combustion are briefly discussed; a more extensive analysis of our astrophysical simulations is given in (Reinecke et al. 1998, MPA Green Report 1122b).Comment: 11 pages, 13 figures, accepted by A&A, corrected and extended according to referee's comment

Advanced solar concentrator mass production, operation, and maintenance cost assessment

The object of this assessment was to estimate the costs of the preliminary design at: production rates of 100 to 1,000,000 concentrators per year; concentrators per aperture diameters of 5, 10, 11, and 15 meters; and various receiver/power conversion package weights. The design of the cellular glass substrate Advanced Solar Concentrator is presented. The concentrator is an 11 meter diameter, two axis tracking, parabolic dish solar concentrator. The reflective surface of this design consists of inner and outer groups of mirror glass/cellular glass gores

Metallic single-electron transistor without traditional tunnel barriers

We report on a new type of single-electron transistor (SET) comprising two highly resistive Cr thin-film strips (~ 1um long) connecting a 1 um-long Al island to two Al outer electrodes. These resistors replace small-area oxide tunnel junctions of traditional SETs. Our transistor with a total asymptotic resistance of 110 kOhm showed a very sharp Coulomb blockade and reproducible, deep and strictly e-periodic gate modulation in wide ranges of bias currents I and gate voltages V_g. In the Coulomb blockade region (|V| < 0.5 mV), we observed a strong suppression of the cotunneling current allowing appreciable modulation curves V-V_g to be measured at currents I as low as 100 fA. The noise figure of our SET was found to be similar to that of typical Al/AlOx/Al single-electron transistors.Comment: 5 pages incl. 4 fig

Noise in Al single electron transistors of stacked design

We have fabricated and examined several Al single electron transistors whose small islands were positioned on top of a counter electrode and hence did not come into contact with a dielectric substrate. The equivalent charge noise figure of all transistors turned out to be surprisingly low, (2.5 - 7)*10E-5 e/sqrt(Hz) at f = 10 Hz. Although the lowest detected noise originates mostly from fluctuations of background charge, the noise contribution of the tunnel junction conductances was, on occasion, found to be dominant.Comment: 4 pages of text with 1 table and 5 figure

The effect of thermal annealing on the properties of Al-AlOx-Al single electron tunneling transistors

The effect of thermal annealing on the properties of Al-AlOx-Al single electron tunneling transistors is reported. After treatment of the devices by annealing processes in forming gas atmosphere at different temperatures and for different times, distinct and reproducible changes of their resistance and capacitance values were found. According to the temperature regime, we observed different behaviors as regards the resistance changes, namely the tendency to decrease the resistance by annealing at T = 200 degree C, but to increase the resistance by annealing at T = 400 degree C. We attribute this behavior to changes in the aluminum oxide barriers of the tunnel junctions. The good reproducibility of these effects with respect to the changes observed allows the proper annealing treatment to be used for post-process tuning of tunnel junction parameters. Also, the influence of the annealing treatment on the noise properties of the transistors at low frequency was investigated. In no case did the noise figures in the 1/f-regime show significant changes.Comment: 6 pages, 7 eps-figure