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The carbon footprint from the iron, steel and other metal sectors has become a problem both environmentally and economically. The purpose of this report is to propose a concept of an electrified reheat furnace for the steel industry in the making of sheet metal. The aim is to reduce the environmental impact from the steel industry. The approach in this report has been to analyse relevant facts to propose a fully electrified concept. The concept is divided into two sections. The first section of the concept consists of a preheating furnace with the purpose to heat the slabs to 850 °C before it enters the second section. The preheating furnace contains 1447 – 2412 MoSi2 heating elements due to considering different efficiencies. The second section consists of 13 induction heating modules heating the slabs to a homogenous temperature of 1250 °C. By applying electrical heating in a walking beam furnace approximately 100 000 tonne carbon dioxide can be reduced annually. In conclusion, the proposed concept could be a feasible solution in order to avoid carbon emission and obtain the same production rate as the existing reheating furnaces. However, it is suggested that further investigations and analysis are performed regarding this concept to verify the total efficiency of the reheating furnace and to theoretically determine the required power input / Koldioxidutsläppen från järn, stål och andra metallindustrier har blivit ett problem både urmiljö och ekonomisk synpunkt. Syftet med denna rapport är att föreslå ett koncept av en heltelektrifierad uppvärmningsugn för stålindustrin i processen för att skapa plåt. Målet meddenna studie är att reducera stålindustrins påverkan på växthuseffekten. Metoden i denna rapport har varit att analysera relevant fakta för att sedan kunna föreslå ettkoncept av en helt elektrifierad ugn. Det föreslagna konceptet är uppdelad i två delar. Denförsta delen består av en förvärmningsugn med målet att värma stålet till 850 °C innan ståletgår in i den andra delen. Förvärmningsugnen består av 1447 – 2412 stycken MoSi2värmeelement med hänsyn till ugnens verkningsgrad. Den andra delen består utav 13 styckeninduktionsvärmemoduler som värmen stålet till en homogentemperatur på 1250 °C. Genomatt använda elektricitet för att värma ugnen minskar koldioxidutsläppen med 66 kg per tontillverkas stål. Sammanfattningsvis, det föreslagna konceptet kan vara en möjlig lösning för att minskakoldioxidutsläpp och samtidigt bibehålla samma produktionshastighet som existerandeuppvärmningsugnar. Däremot är det förslaget att vidare studier och analyser görs påkonceptet för att verifiera den totala verkningsgraden av ugnen och för att bestämma denexakta energiförbrukningen.

Conventionally manufactured stents are available in uniform sizes and straight forms. These standard products are not suitable for all patients and research indicates that this is the reason for migration of stents in the vessel, and tubular structure in general, after deployment. The occurrence of migration makes readmission into hospital and the removal of the deployed stent necessary. This thesis develops a method which results in patient-customized stents which can be manufactured through additive manufacturing. These individualized stents intent to offer the same advantages of conventional stents while mitigating the disadvantages. The work’s core part is thedesign of a stent based on the geometric information through a medical scan. It converts the relevant areas from the medical scan data which is in the DICOM format to the STL file format. After cleaning and further processing, the shape will be the base for the design process of a stent using CAD software. Additionally, it also gives insight into the subjacent technologies such as medical scanning, additive manufacturing, choice of material and necessary further processing steps. A process chain from scanning, data transformation, 3D printing and post processing is described.The developed method delivers a reliable model and results in a fully individualized stent. In the current stage, it involves manual work since the representation of data in the steps is different. Further suggestions for steps to automate the process and an estimation of economic efficiency is given. / Det finns konventionellt tillverkade stenter i likformiga storlekar och raka former. Dem här standardprodukter är inte lämpliga för alla patienter och forskning tyder på att detta är orsaken till migrationen av stenter i blodkärl efter placering. Förekomsten av migration skapa återtagande på sjukhus och avlägsnande av den placerade stenten är nödvändig. Den här avhandlingen utvecklar en metod som resulterar i patient anpassade stenter som kan varatillverkad genom additiv tillverkning. Dessa individualiserade stenter avser att erbjuda samma fördelar som konventionella stenter och mildra nackdelarna. Arbetets kärna är designen av en stent baserad på den geometriska informationen baserande på en medicinsk bildteknik. Det omvandlar relevanta kroppsdelar från det medicinska bildteknik som finns i DICOM-formatet till STLfilformatet. Efter rengöring och vidare bearbetning kommer formen att vara basen för stentens designprocess med CAD-mjukvara. Dessutom ger den också inblick i de underliggande teknikerna som medicinsk bildteknik, tillsatsframställning, materialval och nödvändig vidarebehandling steg. En processkedja från skanning, datatransformation, 3D-utskrift och efterbehandling är beskrivits.Den utvecklade metoden ger en tillförlitlig modell och resulterar i en helt individualiserad stent. I det aktuellt stadium, innebär det manuellt arbete eftersom representationen av data i stegen är annorlunda. Ytterligare förslag till åtgärder för att automatisera processen och en uppskattning av ekonomisk effektivitet är given.

Additive Manufacturing (AM) as a method is on the rise and allow for a high freedom to create unique shapes without being limited by conventional machining methods. The Electron Beam Melting method, developed by Arcam AB in Mölndal, Sweden, use Powder Bed Fusion together with an electron beam and at an elevated temperature (+1000ºC) to lower stress due to thermal gradients. The purpose of this paper is to study the influence of Scan Length during Electron Beam Melting of Alloy 718 in regards to the appearance of shrinkage, porosity, primary carbide precipitation (mainly NbC), primary dendrite width and hardness. Samples built had the dimensions of 10x15xVar mm3 (Height x Depth x Width) with widths ranging from 10 mm in steps of 5 mm up to a maximum of 90 mm. The parameters were set as a single entry within the build project and as such each layer was melted as a single unit. A Light-Optical Microscope (LOM) and a Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) was used to obtain images for manual counting to calculate the fraction of porosity and NbC-precipitates as well as the columnar grain width. The space between lines of interdendritical precipitation of NbC was used to determine the dendrite arm widths and a series of Hardness Vickers (500g for 15s) indents was performed. An Energy-Dispersive X-Ray Spectroscope (EDS) was used to help identify precipitates and phases. Columnar grain width and the spacing between vertical bands of interdendritical NbC was measured according to ASTM112-13 while porosity and hardness was measured according to ASTM562-11. Both of these only looked at the XZ-plane instead of all three planes. The columnar grain width was measured in the 10 mm, 40 mm and 90 mm samples at a distance of 4 mm from the top and with a slight spread over the sample width according to ASTM112-13 but using only one plane for counting. No significant change to columnar width was found. Primary dendrite arm width was measured on the 10 mm, 40 mm and 90 mm samples at about 5 mm from the top. An average for all samples was found to be 7.82 μm ± 2.89. No significant trend could be found with increased sample width. A total average porosity of 0.33% ± 0.16 was found. Variations between samples were less than the standard deviation. Even though the variations were not high enough to be significant, no obvious trend could be seen in regards to sample width, position on the base plate or heat transfer through the build. The presence of NbC was investigated in all samples with a total average of 0.36% ± 0.23 with variations between sample lengths being within the standard deviation. An insignificant trend could be seen between the smaller samples together with the wider samples having a higher degree of NbC compared to the middle samples. No significant trend could be seen in NbC based on row. Across all samples, the mean hardness was found to be 406.75 HV0.5 ± 16.53. No significant trend could be seen with increased sample width. Based on sample rows no significant trend could be seen.

In this research, the transport properties of ZnO were studied through the use of electron and neutron beam irradiation. Acceptor states are known to form deep in the bandgap of doped ZnO material. By subjecting doped ZnO materials to electron and neutron beams we are able to probe, identify and modify transport characteristics relating to these deep accepter states. The impact of irradiation and temperature on minority carrier diffusion length and lifetime were monitored through the use of the Electron Beam Induced Current (EBIC) method and Cathodoluminescence (CL) spectroscopy. The minority carrier diffusion length, L, was shown to increase as it was subjected to increasing temperature as well as continuous electron irradiation. The near-band-edge (NBE) intensity in CL measurements was found to decay as a function of temperature and electron irradiation due to an increase in carrier lifetime. Electron injection through application of a forward bias also resulted in a similar increase of minority carrier diffusion length. Thermal and electron irradiation dependences were used to determine activation energies for the irradiation induced effects. This helps to further our understanding of the electron injection mechanism as well as to identify possible defects responsible for the observed effects. Thermal activation energies likely represent carrier delocalization energy and are related to the increase of diffusion length due to the reduction in recombination efficiency. The effect of electron irradiation on the minority carrier diffusion length and lifetime can be attributed to the trapping of non-equilibrium electrons on neutral acceptor levels. The effect of neutron irradiation on CL intensity can be attributed to an increase in shallow donor concentration. Thermal activation energies resulting from an increase in L or decay of CL intensity monitored through EBIC and CL measurements for p-type Sb doped ZnO were found to be the range of Ea = 112 to 145 meV. P-type Sb doped ZnO nanowires under the influence of temperature and electron injection either through continuous beam impacting or through forward bias, displayed an increase in L and corresponding decay of CL intensity when observed by EBIC or CL measurements. These measurements led to activation energies for the effect ranging from Ea = 217 to 233 meV. These values indicate the possible involvement of a SbZn-2VZn acceptor complex. For N-type unintentionally doped ZnO, CL measurements under the influence of temperature and electron irradiation by continuous beam impacting led to a decrease in CL intensity which resulted in an electron irradiation activation energy of approximately Ea = 259 meV. This value came close to the defect energy level of the zinc interstitial. CL measurements of neutron irradiated ZnO nanostructures revealed that intensity is redistributed in favor of the NBE transition indicating an increase of shallow donor concentration. With annealing contributing to the improvement of crystallinity, a decrease can be seen in the CL intensity due to the increase in majority carrier lifetime. Low energy emission seen from CL spectra can be due to oxygen vacancies and as an indicator of radiation defects.

The identification and characterization of molecular biomarkers using mass spectrometry on an orbiting or fly-by spacecraft is one of the preferred analytical techniques in the search for life beyond the Earth. However, analysis is complicated by unwanted molecular dissociation occurring when sampled native molecules impact the instrument at high velocity. The mechanisms of chemical changes produced in high velocity impacts have been studied experimentally in some cases; however, there are significant experimental limitations to these techniques. Here I present the design, construction, and testing of a new experimental technique to produce high velocity molecular and microparticle collisions under a controlled lab setting using a high-speed spinning rotor. Chapter 1 of this manuscript gives a scientific review of the astrobiological importance of this project for future and current space missions as well as describing previous techniques used to produced hypervelocity impacts and their limitations. Chapter 2 presents the design, construction, calibration, and preliminary experiments of the new technique involving the high-speed rotor. Chapter 3 describes the fabrication of a molecular beam system from the ground up to be coupled with the high-speed rotor. Chapter 4, describes future project directions and presents future experiments using the rotor as a stand-alone instrument. Lastly, the appendix contains the standard operation procedures and design notes regarding the operation of these two instruments.

Since the discovery of carbon nanotubes (CNT) in 1999, they have attracted much attention due to their unique mechanical and electrical properties and potential applications. Yet their nanosize makes the study of individual CNTs easier said than done. In our laboratory, carbon fibers with nanotube cores have been synthesized with conventional chemical vapor deposition (CVD) method. The single multiwall carbon nanotube (MWNT) sticks out as a tip of the carbon fiber. In order to pick up the individual CNT tips, focused ion beam (FIB) technique is applied to cut and adhere the samples. The carbon fiber with nanotube tip was first adhered on a micro-manipulator with the FIB welding function. Afterwards, by applying the FIB milling function, the fiber was cut from the base. This enables us to handle the individual CNT tips conveniently. By the same method, we can attach the nanotube tip on any geometry of solid samples such as conventional atomic force microscopy (AFM) silicon tips. The procedures developed for the FIB assisted individual CNT tip fabrication will be described in detail. Because of their excellent electrical and stable chemical properties, individual CNTs are potential candidates as electron guns for electron based microscopes to produce highly coherent electron beams. Due to the flexibility of the FIB fabrication, the individual CNT tips can be easily fabricated on a sharpened clean tungsten wire for field emission (FE) experimentation. Another promising application for individual CNT tips is as AFM probes. The high aspect ratio and mechanical resilience make individual CNTs ideal for scanning probe microscopy (SPM) tips. Atomic force microscopy with nanotube tips allows us to image relatively deep features of the sample surface at near nanometer resolution. Characterization of AFM with individual CNT tips and field emission properties of single CNT emitters will be studied and presented.

Thin-film solar cells are potentially low-cost devices to convert sunlight into electricity. Improvements in the conversion efficiencies of these cells reduce material utilization cost and make it commercially viable. Solar cells from the Thin-Film Physics Group, ETH Zurich, Switzerland and the Florida Solar Energy Center (FSEC), UCF were characterized for defects and other microstructural features within the thin-film structure and at the interfaces using transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The present thesis aims to provide a feedback to these groups on their deposition processes to understand the correlations between processing, resulting microstructures, and the conversion efficiencies of these devices. Also, an optical equipment measuring photocurrents from a solar cell was developed for the identification of defect-prone regions of a thin-film solar cell. The focused ion beam (FIB) technique was used to prepare TEM samples. Bright-field TEM along with scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) including elemental distribution line scans and maps were extensively used for characterizing the absorber layer and interfaces both above and below the absorber layer. Energy-filtered transmission electron microscopy (EFTEM) was applied in cases where EDS results were inconclusive due to the overlap of X-ray energies of certain elements, especially molybdenum and sulfur. Samples from ETH Zurich were characterized for changes in the CIGS (Cu(In,Ga)Se2) microstructure due to sodium incorporation from soda-lime glass or from a post-deposition treatment with NaF as a function of CIGS deposition temperature. The CIGS-CdS interface becomes smoother and the small columnar CIGS grains close to the Mo back contact disappear with increasing CIGS deposition temperature. At 773 K the two sodium incorporation routes result in large differences in the microstructures with a significantly larger grain size for the samples after post-deposition Na incorporation. Porosity was observed in the absorber layer close to the back contact in the samples from FSEC. The reason for porosity could be materials evaporation in the gallium beam of the FIB or a processing effect. The porosity certainly indicates heterogeneities of the composition of the absorber layer near the back contact. A Mo-Se rich layer (possibly MoSe2) was formed at the interface between CIGS/CIGSS and Mo improving the quality of the junction. Other chemical heterogeneities include un-sulfurized Cu-Ga deposits, residual Se from the selenization/ sulfurization chamber in CIGS2 and the formation of Cu-rich regions which are attributed to decomposition effects in the Ga beam of the FIB. Wavy absorber surfaces were observed for some of the cells with occasional discontinuities in the metal grids. The 50 nm thick CdS layer, however, remained continuous in all the samples under investigation. For a sample with a transparent back contact, a 10 nm Mo layer was deposited on ITO (indium tin oxide) before deposition of the CIGS2 (Cu(In,Ga)S2) layer. EFTEM maps indicate that a MoS2 layer does not form for such a Mo/MoS2-ITO back contact. Instead, absorber layer material diffuses through the thin Mo layer onto the ITO forming two layers of CIGS2 on either side of Mo with different compositions. Furthermore, an optical beam induced current (OBIC) system with micron level resolution was successfully developed and preliminary photocurrent maps were acquired to microscopically identify regions within a thin-film solar cell with undesirable microstructural features. Such a system, when fully operational, will provide the means for the identification of special regions from where samples for TEM analysis can be obtained using the FIB technique to study specifically the defects responsible for local variations in solar cell properties.

The performance of lasercom systems operating in the atmosphere is reduced by optical turbulence, which causes irradiance fluctuations in the received signal. The result is a randomly fading signal. Fade statistics for lasercom systems are determined from the probability density function (PDF) of the irradiance fluctuations. The expected number of fades per second and their mean fade time require the joint PDF of the fluctuating irradiance and its time derivative. Theoretical integral expressions, as well as closed form, analytical approximations, were developed for the joint PDF of a gamma-gamma distributed irradiance and its time derivative, and the corresponding expression for the expected number of fades per second. The new approximation for the conditional PDF of the time derivative of a gamma-gamma irradiance is a zero mean Gaussian distribution, with a complicated irradiance depending variance. Fade statistics obtained from experimental data were compared to theoretical predictions based on the lognormal and gamma-gamma distributions. A Gaussian beam wave was propagated through the atmosphere along a horizontal path, near ground, in the moderate-to-strong optical turbulence. To characterize the propagation path, a new method that infers atmospheric propagation parameters was developed. Scintillation theory combined with a numerical scheme was used to infer the structure constant, Cn2, the inner scale and the outer scale from the optical measurements. The inferred parameters were used in calculations for the theoretical PDFs. It was found that fade predictions made by the gamma-gamma and lognormal distributions provide an upper and lower bound, respectively, for the probability of fade and the number of fades per second for irradiance data collected in the moderate-to-strong fluctuation regime. Aperture averaging effects on the PDF of the irradiance fluctuations were investigated by comparing the irradiance distributions for the three receiver apertures at two different values of the structure parameter and, hence, different values of the coherence radius. For the moderate-to-strong fluctuation regime, the gamma-gamma distribution provides a good fit to the irradiance fluctuations collected by finite-sized apertures that are significantly smaller than the coherence radius. For apertures larger than or equal to the coherence radius, the irradiance fluctuations appear to be lognormally distributed.

Liquid crystals have been a major subject of research for the past decades. Aside from the variety of structures they can form, they exhibit a vast range of optical phenomena. Many of these phenomena found applications in technology and became an essential part of it. In this dissertation thesis we continue the line to propose a number of new applications of optical effects in liquid crystals and develop their theoretical framework. One such application is the possibility of beam combining using Orientational Stimulated Scattering in a nematic liquid crystal cell. Our numerical study of the OSS process shows that normally this possibility does not exist. However, we found that if a number of special conditions is satisfied efficient beam combining with OSS can be done. These conditions require a combination of special geometric arrangement of incident beams, their profiles, nematic material, and more. When these conditions are fulfilled, power of the beamlets can be coherently combined into a single beam, with high conversion efficiency while the shape and wave-front of the output beam are still of good quality. We also studied the dynamics of the OSS process itself and observed (in a numerical model) a number of notorious instabilities caused by effects of back-conversion iv process. Additionally, there was found a numerical solitary-wave solution associated with this back-conversion process. As a liquid crystal display application, we consider a nematic liquid crystal layer with the anisotropy axis modulated at a fixed rate in the transverse direction with respect to light propagation direction. If the layer locally constitutes a half-wave plate, then the thinscreen approximation predicts 100% -efficient diffraction of normal incident wave. If this diffracted light is blocked by an aperture only transmitting the zero-th order, the cell is in dark state. If now the periodic structure is washed out by applying voltage across the cell and light passes through the cell undiffracted, the light will pass through the aperture as well and the cell will be in its bright state. Such properties of this periodically aligned nematic layer suggest it as a candidate element in projection display cells. We studied the possibility to implement such layer through anchoring at both surfaces of the cell. It was found that each cell has a thickness threshold for which the periodic structure can exist. The anchored periodic structure cannot exist if thickness of the cell exceeds this threshold. For the case when the periodic structure exists, we found the structure distortion in comparison with the preferable ideal sinusoidal profile. To complete description of the electromechanical properties of the periodic cell, we studied its behavior at Freedericksz transition. Optical performance was successfully described with the coupled-mode theory. While influence of director distortion is shown to be negligibly small, the walk-off effects appear to be larger. In summary, there are good prospects for use of this periodically v aligned cell as a pixel in projection displays but experimental study and optimization need to be performed. In the next part we discuss another modulated liquid crystal structure in which the director periodically swings in the direction of light propagation. The main characteristic of such structure is the presence of bandgap. Cholesteric liquid crystals are known to possess bandgap for one of two circular polarizations of light. However, unlike the cholesterics the bandgap of the proposed structure is independent of polarization of normally incident light. This means that no preparation of light is needed in order for the structure to work in, for example, liquid crystal displays. The polarization universality comes at the cost of bandgap size, whose maximum possible value ∆ωPTN compared to that of cholesterics ∆ωCh is approximately twice smaller: ∆ωPTN ≈ 0.58∆ωCh if modulation profile is sinusoidal, and ∆ωPTN ≈ 0.64∆ωCh if it is rectangular. This structure has not yet been experimentally demonstrated, and we discuss possible ways to make it.