In situ transmission electron microscopy ion irradiations of model iron-chromium alloys

Iron-chromium alloys are used as a model to study the microstructural evolution of defects in irradiated structural steel components of a nuclear reactor. We examine the effects of temperature and chromium concentration on the defect evolution and segregation behavior in the early stages of damage. In situ irradiations are conducted in a transmission electron microscope (TEM) at 300°C and 450°C with 150keV iron ions in single crystal Fe14Cr and Fe19Cr bicrystal to doses of 2E15 ions/cm^2. The microstructures resulting from annealing and irradiation of the alloy are characterized by analysis of TEM micrographs and diffraction patterns and compared with those of irradiated pure iron. We found the irradiation temperature to have little effect on the microstructural development. We also found that the presence of chromium in the sample leads to defect populations with small average loop size and no extended or nested loop structures, in contrast to the populations of large extended loops seen in irradiated pure iron. A very weak dependence was found on the specific chromium content of the alloy. Chromium was shown to suppress defect growth by inhibiting defect mobility in the alloy. While defects in pure iron are highly mobile and able to grow, those in the FeCr alloys remained small and relatively motionless due to the pinning effect of the chromium.

Measurement of target single-spin asymmetry in charged kaon electroproduction on a transversely polarized 3He target

The subject of quark transverse spin and transverse momentum distribution are two current research frontier in understanding the spin structure of the nucleons. The goal of the research reported in this dissertation is to extract new information on the quark transversity distribution and the novel transverse-momentum-dependent Sivers function in the neutron. A semi-inclusive deep inelastic scattering experiment was performed at the Hall A of the Jefferson laboratory using 5.9 GeV electron beam and a transversely polarized ^{3}He target. The scattered electrons and the produced hadrons (pions, kaons, and protons) were detected in coincidence with two large magnetic spectrometers. By regularly flipping the spin direction of the transversely polarized target, the single-spin-asymmetry (SSA) of the semi-inclusive deep inelastic reaction ^{3}He^{uparrow}(e,e'h^{\pm})X was measured over the kinematic range 0.13 < x < 0.41 and 1.3 < Q^{2} < 3.1 (GeV)^{2}. The SSA contains several different azimuthal angular modulations which are convolutions of quarks distribution functions in the nucleons and the quark fragmentation functions into hadrons. It is from the extraction of the various ``moments'' of these azimuthal angular distributions (Collins moment and Sivers moment) that we obtain information on the quark transversity distribution and the novel T-odd Sivers function. In this dissertation, I first introduced the theoretical background and experimental status of nucleon spins and the physics of SSA. I will then present the experimental setup and data collection of the JLab E06-010 experiment. Details of data analysis will be discussed next with emphasis on the kaon particle identification and the Ring-Imaging Cherenkov detector which are my major responsibilities in this experiment. Finally, results on the kaon Collins and Sivers moments extracted from the Maximum Likelihood method will be presented and interpreted. I will conclude with a discussion on the future prospects for this research.