Liquid phase epitaxial growth of GaAs

Research into new semiconductor materials for measurement of electromagnetic radiation over a wide range of energies has been an active field for several decades. There is a strong desire to identify and develop new materials which can lead to improved detectors. Such devices are expected to solve problems that cannot be solved using the semiconductor materials and device structures which have been traditionally used for radiation detection. In order for a detector which is subjected to some type of irradiation to respond, the radiation must undergo an interaction with the detector. The net result of the radiation interaction in a broad category of detectors is the generation of mobile electric charge carriers (electrons and/or holes) within the detector active volume. This charge is collected at the detector contacts and it forms the basic electrical signal. Typically, the collection of the charge is accomplished through the imposition of an electric field within the detector which causes the positive and/or negative charges created by the radiation to flow in opposite directions to the contacts. For the material to serve as a good radiation detector, a large fraction (preferably 100%) of all carriers created by the interacting incident radiation must be collected. Charge trapping by deep level impurities and structural defects can seriously degrade detector performance. The focus of this thesis is on far infrared and X-ray detection. In X-ray detector applications of p-I-n diodes, the object is to measure accurately the energy distribution of the incident radiation quanta. One important property of such detectors is their ability to measure the energy of individual incident photons with high energy resolution

Refractory metals as structural materials for fusion high heat flux components

Tungsten is the favoured armour material for plasma facing components for future fusion reactors, but studies examining the use of tungsten or other refractory metals in the underlying cooled structures have historically excluded them, leaving current concepts heavily dependent on copper alloys such as copper chrome zirconium. This paper first outlines the challenge of selecting an appropriate alternative material for this application, with reference to historical selection methodology and design solutions, and then re-examines the use of refractory metals in the light of current design priorities and manufacturing techniques. The rationale for considering refractory alloys as structural materials is discussed, showing how this is the result of relatively small changes to the logic previously applied, with a greater emphasis on high temperature operation, a re-evaluation of current costs, a relaxation of absolute activation limits, and the availability of advanced manufacturing techniques such as additive manufacturing. A set of qualitative and quantitative assessment criteria are proposed, drawing on the requirements detailed in the first section; including thermal and mechanical performance, radiation damage tolerance, manufacturability, and cost and availability. Considering these criteria in parallel rather than sequence gives a less binary approach to material selection and instead provides a strengths and weaknesses based summary from which more nuanced conclusions can be drawn. Data on relevant material properties for a range of candidate materials, including elemental refractory metals and a selection of related alloys are gathered from a range of sources and collated using a newly developed set of tools written in the python language. These tools are then used to apply the aforementioned assessment criteria and display the results. The lack of relevant data for a number of promising materials is highlighted, and although a conclusive best material cannot be identified, refractory alloys in general are proposed as worthy of further investigation

HerMES: A Statistical Measurement of the Redshift Distribution of Herschel-SPIRE Sources Using the Cross-correlation Technique

The wide-area imaging surveys with the Herschel Space Observatory at submillimeter (sub-mm) wavelengths have now resulted in catalogs of the order of one-hundred-thousand dusty, starburst galaxies. These galaxies capture an important phase of galaxy formation and evolution, but, unfortunately, the redshift distribution of these galaxies, N(z), is still mostly uncertain due to limitations associated with counterpart identification at optical wavelengths and spectroscopic follow-up. We make a statistical estimate of N(z) using a clustering analysis of sub-mm galaxies detected at each of 250, 350 and 500 μm from the Herschel Multi-tiered Extragalactic Survey centered on the Boötes field. We cross-correlate Herschel galaxies against galaxy samples at optical and near-IR wavelengths from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, the NOAO Deep Wide Field Survey, and the Spitzer Deep Wide Field Survey. We create optical and near-IR galaxy samples based on their photometric or spectroscopic redshift distributions and test the accuracy of those redshift distributions with similar galaxy samples defined with catalogs from the Cosmological Evolution Survey (COSMOS), which has superior spectroscopic coverage. We model the clustering auto- and cross-correlations of Herschel and optical/IR galaxy samples to estimate N(z) and clustering bias factors. The S_(350) > 20 mJy galaxies have a bias factor varying with redshift as b(z) = 1.0^(+1.0)_(–0.5)(1 + z)^1.2^(+0.3)_(–0.7). This bias and the redshift dependence is broadly in agreement with galaxies that occupy dark matter halos of mass in the range of 1012 to 10^(13) M_☉. We find that galaxy selections in all three Spectral and Photometric Imaging Receiver (SPIRE) bands share a similar average redshift, with = 1.8 ± 0.2 for 250 μm selected samples, and = 1.9 ± 0.2 for both 350 and 500 μm samples, while their distributions behave differently. For 250 μm selected galaxies we find the a larger number of sources with z ≤ 1 when compared with the subsequent two SPIRE bands, with 350 and 500 μm selected SPIRE samples having peaks in N(z) at progressively higher redshifts. We compare our clustering-based N(z) results to sub-mm galaxy model predictions in the literature, and with an estimate of N(z) using a stacking analysis of COSMOS 24 μm detections

‘Dead people don’t claim’: A psychopolitical autopsy of UK austerity suicides

One of the symptoms of post financial crisis austerity in the UK has been an increase in the numbers of suicides, especially by people who have experienced welfare reform. This article develops and utilises an analytic framework of psychopolitical autopsy to explore media coverage of ‘austerity suicide’ and to take seriously the psychic life of austerity (internalisation, shame, anxiety), embedding it in a context of social dis-ease. Drawing on three distinct yet interrelated areas of literature (the politics of affect and psychosocial dynamics of welfare, post and anti-colonial psychopolitics, and critical suicidology), the article aims to better understand how austerity ‘kills’. Key findings include understanding austerity suicides as embedded within an affective economy of the anxiety caused by punitive welfare retrenchment, the stigmatisation of being a recipient of benefits, and the internalisation of market logic that assigns value through ‘productivity’ and conceptualises welfare entitlement as economic ‘burden’. The significance of this approach lies in its ability to widen analytic framing of suicide from an individual and psychocentric focus, to illuminate culpability of government reforms while still retaining the complexity of suicide, and thus to provide relevant policy insights about welfare reform

A Pair of Compact Red Galaxies at Redshift 2.38, Immersed in a 100 kpc Scale Ly-alpha Nebula

We present Hubble Space Telescope (HST) and ground-based observations of a pair of galaxies at redshift 2.38, which are collectively known as 2142-4420 B1 (Francis et al. 1996). The two galaxies are both luminous extremely red objects (EROs), separated by 0.8 arcsec. They are embedded within a 100 kpc scale diffuse Ly-alpha nebula (or blob) of luminosity ~10^44 erg/s. The radial profiles and colors of both red objects are most naturally explained if they are young elliptical galaxies: the most distant yet found. It is not, however, possible to rule out a model in which they are abnormally compact, extremely dusty starbursting disk galaxies. If they are elliptical galaxies, their stellar populations have inferred masses of ~10^11 solar masses and ages of ~7x10^8 years. Both galaxies have color gradients: their centers are significantly bluer than their outer regions. The surface brightness of both galaxies is roughly an order of magnitude greater than would be predicted by the Kormendy relation. A chain of diffuse star formation extending 1 arcsec from the galaxies may be evidence that they are interacting or merging. The Ly-alpha nebula surrounding the galaxies shows apparent velocity substructure of amplitude ~ 700 km/s. We propose that the Ly-alpha emission from this nebula may be produced by fast shocks, powered either by a galactic superwind or by the release of gravitational potential energy.Comment: 33 pages, 9 figures, ApJ in press (to appear in Jun 10 issue

Opening Up the Politics of Knowledge and Power in Bioscience

Public engagement is not in tension with science, but actually a way to be more rigorous - as well as more democratic - about social choice of biotechnology