ABSTRACT
A U.S./Russian collaboration of accelerator scientists was directed to the development of high averaged-current (â¼1 mA) and high-quality (emittance â¼15 πmm mrad; energy spread â¼0.1%) 1.75 MeV proton beams to produce active interrogation beams that could be applied to counterterrorism. Several accelerator technologies were investigated. These included an electrostatic tandem accelerator of novel design, a compact cyclotron, and a storage ring with energy compensation and electron cooling. Production targets capable of withstanding the beam power levels were designed, fabricated, and tested. The cyclotron/storage-ring system was theoretically studied and computationally designed, and the electrostatic vacuum tandem accelerator at BINP was demonstrated for its potential in active interrogation of explosives and special nuclear materials.
ABSTRACT
A superconducting state of lithium has not been found at ambient pressure, but the present theoretical work shows that high values of the critical temperature, T(c), may be expected for some high-pressure phases. Ab initio electronic structure calculations are used to calculate the electron-phonon coupling in a "rigid-muffin-tin approximation," and estimates using McMillan's formula suggest that under increasing pressure T(c) in fcc-Li may reach 50--70 K before transitions occur to the rhombohedral (hR1-Li) and subsequently to the cI16-Li phase near 40 GPa. In cI16-Li T(c) may reach a maximum in the range 60--80 K.
ABSTRACT
Lithium is considered a 'simple' metal because, under ordinary conditions of pressure and temperature, the motion of conduction electrons is only weakly perturbed by interactions with the cubic lattice of atomic cores. It was recently predicted that at pressures below 100 GPa, dense Li may undergo several structural transitions, possibly leading to a 'paired-atom' phase with low symmetry and near-insulating properties. Here we report synchrotron X-ray diffraction measurements that confirm that Li undergoes pronounced structural changes under pressure. Near 39 GPa, the element transforms from a high-pressure face-centred-cubic phase, through an intermediate rhombohedral modification, to a cubic polymorph with 16 atoms per unit cell. This cubic phase has not been observed previously in any element; unusually, its calculated electronic density of states exhibits a pronounced semimetal-like minimum near the Fermi energy. We present total-energy calculations that provide theoretical support for the observed phase transition sequence. Our calculations indicate a large stability range of the 16-atom cubic phase relative to various other crystal structures tested here.
