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The Education, Training & Workforce Development Division provides communication among the academic, industrial, and governmental communities through the exchange of views and information on matters related to education, training and workforce development in nuclear and radiological science, engineering, and technology. Industry leaders, education and training professionals, and interested students work together through Society-sponsored meetings and publications, to enrich their professional development, to educate the general public, and to advance nuclear and radiological science and engineering.
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ANS Student Conference 2025
April 3–5, 2025
Albuquerque, NM|The University of New Mexico
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General Kenneth Nichols and the Manhattan Project
Nichols
The Oak Ridger has published the latest in a series of articles about General Kenneth D. Nichols, the Manhattan Project, and the 1954 Atomic Energy Act. The series has been produced by Nichols’ grandniece Barbara Rogers Scollin and Oak Ridge (Tenn.) city historian David Ray Smith. Gen. Nichols (1907–2000) was the district engineer for the Manhattan Engineer District during the Manhattan Project.
As Smith and Scollin explain, Nichols “had supervision of the research and development connected with, and the design, construction, and operation of, all plants required to produce plutonium-239 and uranium-235, including the construction of the towns of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and Richland, Washington. The responsibility of his position was massive as he oversaw a workforce of both military and civilian personnel of approximately 125,000; his Oak Ridge office became the center of the wartime atomic energy’s activities.”
H. Xu, A. Nikroo, J. R. Wall, R. Doerner, M. Baldwin, J. H. Yu
Fusion Science and Technology | Volume 49 | Number 4 | May 2006 | Pages 778-785
Technical Paper | Target Fabrication | doi.org/10.13182/FST06-A1201
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Beryllium is one of the preferred ablators for achieving ignition in inertial confinement fusion (ICF). Thin and thick coatings of Be on CH shells have been deposited using a sputter coater established at UCSD's PISCES facility and examined using a variety of characterization techniques. Due to the spherical nature of these substrates, shadowing effects are expected to play significant roles in film growth as well as the expected surface diffusion length of deposited atoms. Be coatings on flat surfaces and spherical surfaces have been deposited and compared to understand the material growth behaviors on different surfaces and as a function of processing parameters. On flat surfaces, Be film developed polycrystalline morphology with columnar growth. On spherical surfaces, Be film also showed columnar growth at lower powers, which then transitioned into a twisted grain structure at higher powers. Cycling of parameters has been used to investigate possible grain growth interruption during growth and improving morphology. Initial results also suggest that copper doping during deposition does not change the columnar growth morphology. Measurements of the surface roughness of beryllium-coated shells indicate roughness growth proportional to the thickness with an exponent of 0.8 to 1.2, which is consistent with shadowing dominated roughening. As ion-beam-assisted growth may improve the surface finish and micro-structure of deposited films, we have also studied the effect of process parameters on the flux and energy of the ions reaching the substrates using an offline energy dispersive mass spectrometer system.