The incorporation of boron into a diamond lattice holds the potential to advance X-ray optics, offering the capability to manipulate various parameters of the lattice. This includes enhancing near -infrared absorption relative to pure diamond, thereby enabling Q-switchable optics. The use of MeV boron implantation emerges as a promising method for precisely doping the diamond lattice. However, for these optics to function effectively as Bragg -reflecting mirrors, ion implantation must be executed with meticulous attention to maintaining a strainfree, perfect diamond lattice. This study aimed to investigate the feasibility of utilizing a 9 MeV ion beam for high energy boron implantation. Different areas of a high-pressure, high -temperature (HPHT) diamond sample were subjected to irradiation with 9 MeV Boron ions, ranging in fluences from 5 x 10 15 to 2 .5 x 10 16 ions /cm 2 . Following boron implantation, high -temperature vacuum annealing was performed to restore the diamond lattice. Our assessment utilized X-ray rocking curve imaging, surface profilometry, and micro -Raman spectroscopy, with additional observations on near -infrared transmission properties. Our measurement of high -quality Bragg reflection through X-ray rocking curve imaging, sensitive to implantation -induced strain and defects, served as an key diagnostic for the effectiveness of this ion -implanted sample as a Bragg -reflecting optic.

We present a simple model based on general assumptions for the FLASH effect in radiotherapy, leading to a rate equation with only three free parameters. The model can predict the biological effect ratio between healthy and tumoral tissue for arbitrary input treatments, given as a dose rate versus time function. We analyze the behavior of the model and its sensitivity to its free parameters, and decide on suitable parameter values in accordance with available experimental data from the literature. Then we apply our model to study different sets of treatments, modeled as square pulse periodic functions with different pulse peak dose rate, pulse width and repetition period, in order to illustrate how it may be used to guide future experiment design. The model predicts that, for a given average dose rate above the FLASH threshold, a more prominent FLASH effect would be observed for continuous beams than for ultra-pulsated beams with an infinitely short irradiation time. This finding needs to be validated with suitable experiments.

Osteosarcoma is a radioresistant cancer, and proton therapy is a promising radiation alternative for treating cancer with the advantage of a high dose concentration in the tumor area. In this work, we propose the use of iodine-substituted hydroxyapatite (IHAP) nanomaterials to use iodine (127I) as a proton radiation tracer, providing access to range verification studies in mineralized tissues. For this purpose, the nanomaterials were synthesized at four iodine concentrations via hydrothermal synthesis. The materials were characterized via different microstructural techniques to identify an optimal high iodine concentration and pure apatite phase nanomaterial. Finally, such pure IHAP powders were shaped and irradiated with proton beams of 6 and 10 MeV, and their activation was demonstrated through subsequent decay analysis. The materials could be integrated into phantom structures for the verification of doses and ranges of protons prior to animal testing and clinical proton therapy treatments of tumors located deep under combined soft and calcified tissues.

Diamond properties can be tuned by doping and ion-beam irradiation is one of the most powerful techniques to do it in a controlled way, but it also produces damage and other aftereffects. Of particular interest is boron doping which, in moderate concentrations, causes diamond to become a p-type semiconductor and, at higher boron concentrations, a superconductor. Nevertheless, the preparation of superconducting boron-doped diamond by ion implantation is hampered by amorphization and subsequent graphitization after annealing. The aim of this work was to explore the possibility of creating boron-doped diamond superconducting regions and to provide a new perspective on the damage induced in diamond by MeV ion irradiation. Thus, a comprehensive analysis of the damage and eventual recovery of diamond when irradiated with 9 MeV B ions with different fluences has been carried out, combining Raman, photoluminescence, electrical resistivity, X-ray diffraction and Rutherford Backscattering/Ion-channeling. It is found that, as the B fluence increases, carbon migrates to interstitial sites outside of the implantation path and an amorphous fraction increases within the path. For low fluences (similar to 10(15) ions/cm(2)), annealing at 1000 degrees C is capable to fully recovering the diamond structure without graphitization. However, for higher fluences (>= 5 x 10(16) ions/cm(2)), those required for superconductivity, the recovery is important, but some disorder still remains. For high fluences, annealing at 1200 degrees C is detrimental for the diamond lattice and graphite traces appear. The incomplete healing of the diamond lattice and the interstitial location of B can explain that optimally doped samples do not exhibit superconductivity.

Diamond properties can be tuned by doping and ion-beam irradiation is one of the most powerful techniques to do it in a controlled way, but it also produces damage and other aftereffects. Of particular interest is boron doping which, in moderate doses, causes diamond to become a p-type semiconductor and, at higher content, a superconductor. Nevertheless, the preparation of superconducting boron-doped diamond (BDD) by ion implantation is hampered by amorphization and subsequent graphitization after annealing. The aim of this work was to explore the possibility of creating BDD superconducting regions and to provide a new perspective on the damage induced in diamond by MeV ion irradiation. Thus, a comprehensive analysis of the damage and eventual recovery of diamond when irradiated with 9 MeV B ions with fluences from 1015 to 1017 ions/cm2 has been carried out, combining Raman, photoluminescence, electrical resistivity, X-ray diffraction and Rutherford Backscattering / Ion-channeling. It is found that, as the B fluence increases, carbon migrates to interstitial sites outside of the implantation path and an amorphous fraction increases within the path. For low fluences, annealing at 1000ºC is capable to fully recovering the diamond structure without graphitization. However, for higher fluences, those required for superconductivity, the recovery is important, but some disorder still remains. For high fluences, annealing at 1200ºC is detrimental for the diamond lattice and graphite traces appear. The incomplete healing of the diamond lattice and the interstitial location of B can explain that the optimally doped samples do not exhibit superconductivity.

This paper describes in detail a novel manufacturing process for optical gratings suitable for use in the UV and soft X-ray regimes in a single-crystal diamond substrate based on highly focused swift heavy-ion irradiation. This type of grating is extensively used in light source facilities such as synchrotrons or free electron lasers, with ever-increasing demands in terms of thermal loads, depending on beamline operational parameters and architecture. The process proposed in this paper may be a future alternative to current manufacturing techniques, providing the advantage of being applicable to single-crystal diamond substrates, with their unique properties in terms of heat conductivity and radiation hardness. The paper summarizes the physical principle used for the grating patterns produced by swift heavy-ion irradiation and provides full details for the manufacturing process for a specific grating configuration, inspired in one of the beamlines at the ALBA synchrotron light source, while stressing the most challenging points for a potential implementation. Preliminary proof-of-concept experimental results are presented, showing the practical implementation of the methodology proposed herein.

X-ray Free-Electron Laser Oscillators (XFELOs) and X-ray Regenerative Amplifier FELs (XRAFELs) are currently in development to improve longitudinal coherence and spectral brightness of XFELs [1]. These schemes lase an electron beam in an undulator within an optical cavity to produce X-rays. X-rays circulate in the cavity and interact with fresh electron bunches to seed the FEL process over multiple passes, producing progressively brighter and more spectrally pure X-rays. Typically, the optical cavities used are composed of Bragg-reflecting mirrors to provide high re-flectivity and spectral filtering. This high reflectivity necessitates special techniques to out-couple X-rays from the cavity to deliver them to users. One method involves “Q-switching” the cavity by actively modifying the reflectivity of one Bragg-reflecting crystal. To control the crystal lattice constant and thus reflectivity, we use an infrared (IR) laser to heat a buried boron layer in a diamond crystal. Here, we build on earlier work [2] and present the current status of our Q-switching diamond, including implantation with 9 MeV boron ions, annealing and characterization.

We report on the current status of the ion beam laboratory of the Centre of Micro-Analysis of Materials at the Autonomous University of Madrid. The 5 MV accelerator facility provides MeV ion beams of any stable element. Six main beam lines are under operation, allowing the analysis and modification of materials through ion beam methods. Although the most demanded ions are H and He for standard Rutherford backscattering spectrometry and particle-induced X-ray emission experiments, many other analytical techniques and specific set-ups are available for users. The facility especially highlights for the use of high-energy heavy ions and microbeams, with important applications in material science, optics and electronics, biology, cultural heritage, and astrophysics. Ongoing upgrades of the facility are oriented to improve the quality of the service for external users and to face new scientific and technological challenges in areas such as advanced materials, space, energy and health.

Citation Apostolova, Tzveta and Artacho, Emilio and Cleri, Fabrizio and Cotelo, Manuel and Crespillo, Miguel L. and Da Pieve, Fabiana and Dimitriou, Vasilis and Djurabekova, Flyura and Duffy, Dorothy M. and García, Gastón and García-Lechuga, Mario and Gu, Bin and Jarrin, Thomas and Kaselouris, Evaggelos and Kohanoff, Jorge and Koundourakis, George and Koval, Natalia and Lipp, Vladimir and Martin-Samos, Layla and Medvedev, Nikita and Molina-Sánchez, Alejandro and Muñoz-Santiburcio, Daniel and Murphy, Samuel T. and Nordlund, Kai and Oliva, Eduardo and Olivares, José and Papadogiannis, Nektarios A. and Redondo-Cubero, Andrés and Rivera de Mena, Antonio and Sand, Andrea E. and Sangalli, Davide and Siegel, Jan and Solov'yov, Andrey V. and Solov'yov, Ilia A. and Teunissen, Johannes and Vázquez, Elisa and Verkhovtsev, Alexey V. and Viñals, Sílvia and Ynsa, María Dolores (2021). Tools for investigating electronic excitation: experiment and multi-scale modelling. Instituto de Fusión Nuclear "Guillermo Velarde", Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. ISBN 978-84-09-36032-1. https://doi.org/10.20868/UPM.book.69109.

The onset and progression of many degenerative diseases including atherosclerosis, have been shown to directly link to the presence/absence of certain metal ions. Consequently, the detection of these ions in tissues may improve the understanding of the driving pathophysiology. The Cu content during atherosclerosis development has not been studied due to its low concentration involved. In this work, the Cu level in atherosclerotic rabbit tissue is determined using PIXE with a 3.5 MeV proton beam. The arteries of three animal groups fed with different diets were studied: group 1, rabbits on normal standard diet, group 2, on High Fat Diet (HFD) and group 3, on HFD + Zinc diet. Zinc supplement has been proven to inhibit the beginning of atherosclerotic lesion. The result of this study shows that the Cu levels in all the atherosclerotic lesions were lower than that in the arterial walls of the samples in HFD group.

We have modified Ti6A14V at the micro and nanoscale by using ion beam irradiation with 5 MeV Si+ ions through 1D micromasks. The passivation layer on irradiated areas inhibits hydrofluoric acid induced etching, leading to pitting contrasts. Surface microscopies and spectroscopies reveal that the nanotopographic modification correlates with a preferential titanium etching, and lead to dual surface free energy properties. The patterns are able to induce guidance of olfactory ensheathing glia cells, mainly through inhibition of adhesion on nanostructured areas, and could be attractive substrates for the induction of stimuli to neural cells under non voltaic polarization.

Boron is the most effective dopant element in diamond and the capability to introduce high densities of boron makes ion implantation a potential key technology to verify superconductivity in diamond. However, its optimization involves many experimental parameters (i.e. ion energy, fluence, current, annealing times and temperature) and the effectiveness of B implantation to induce superconductivity in diamond is still to be demonstrated. So far, a limited number of works in the range of high (i.e. > 5 MeV) B ion energies have been carried, despite the promising perspective offered by deep implantation to fabricate sub-superficial superconductive structures in diamond. To this scope, in the present work, we report on the study of the structural effects of high-energy boron ion irradiation on diamond. Monocrystalline diamond sample was irradiated with an 8 MeV B-11 microbeam across multiple square areas, characterized by a different combination of fluences and ion currents. After the implantation, the sample was characterized by Raman spectroscopy and Atomic Force Microscopy to assess its structural modifications and the related surface swelling. Significant variations related to the irradiation condition have been determined.

The sol-gel process allows the high throughput formation of transition metal oxide thin films. Microwave plasma annealing (MwPA) treatments have been performed on thin films of two different transition metal oxides, Ta2O5 and ZnO, selected as representatives of covalently and strongly ionic bonded oxides, respectively. Ta2O5 has been explored as a dielectric barrier for porous silicon structures. The main limitation of the sol-gel spin coating in this case is the surface roughness of the coating, which is highly improved upon Ar MwPA. The treatment leads additionally to a microstructural activation and interface development comparable to a 500 degrees C thermal annealing. The MwPA of ZnO is a quasi-equivalent process to a 200 degrees C thermal annealing, preventing grain growth and promoting nanocrystalline phases. This is suggested to have a direct impact on the optical and electronic properties of the ZnO films. The MwPA films show wider optical band gap than thermally annealed ones. An impedance analysis further shows that the MwPA ZnO films present lower equivalent resistance and higher equivalent capacitance than the thermal films, These results are promising for the development of new processing routes for widely demanded transition metal oxide thin films. (C) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

We have developed a micromachining process to produce high-aspect-ratio channels and holes in glass and porous silicon. Our process utilizes MeV proton beam irradiation of silicon using direct writing with a focused beam, followed by electrochemical etching. To increase throughput we have also developed another process for large area ion irradiation based on a radiation-resistant gold surface mask, allowing many square inches to be patterned. We present a study of the achievable channel width, depth and period and sidewall verticality for a range of channels which can be over 100μm deep or 100nm wide with aspect ratios up to 80. This process overcomes the difficulty of machining glass on a micro- and nanometer scale which has limited many areas of applications in different fields such as microelectronics and microfluidics.

Boron-doped diamond is a material with a great technological and industrial interest because of its exceptional chemical, physical and structural properties. At modest boron concentrations, insulating diamond becomes a p-type semiconductor and at higher concentrations a superconducting metal at low temperature. The most conventional preparation method used so far, has been the homogeneous incorporation of boron doping during the diamond synthesis carried out either with high-pressure sintering of crystals or by chemical vapour deposition (CVD) of films. With these methods, high boron concentration can be included without distorting significantly the diamond crystalline lattice. However, it is complicated to manufacture boron-doped microstructures. A promising alternative to produce such microstructures could be the implantation of focused high-energy boron ions, although boron fluences are limited by the damage produced in diamond. In this work, the effect of focused high-energy boron ion implantation in single crystals of diamond is studied under different irradiation fluences and conditions. Micro-Raman spectra of the sample were measured before and after annealing at 1000°C as a function of irradiation fluence, for both superficial and buried boron implantation, to assess the changes in the diamond lattice by the creation of vacancies and defects and their degree of recovery after annealing.

We have studied the near-surface damage in a diamond crystal caused by irradiation with swift boron ions and its healing after high-temperature annealing. A diamond crystal was irradiated with 9-MeV 11B3+ ions with fluence values between 1×1015 and 4.42×1016ions/cm2 to generate various levels of lattice damage. The ions loose energy to the lattice and, according to simulations, stop at a depth of about 5μm, where they form a thin buried implantation layer. For the near-surface layers damage is produced by the ions at high kinetic energy before they slow down. Only intrinsic defects can be produced, with no boron atoms. The lattice damage of the near-surface layers and its recovery after annealing for 1h at 1000°C were studied by Raman and photoluminescence spectroscopies. Back-scattered light from a 514.5-nm laser beam was collected from the sample surface, probing a depth of a few micrometers. We observe some disordering of the lattice plus the formation of neutral vacancies, interstitial and other lattice defects. After annealing the Raman spectrum shows a significant recovery of the lattice order and the disappearance of isolated neutral vacancies. Residual damage is confirmed by the luminescence spectrum, that shows the appearance of new spectral features.

We have studied the radiation damage in diamond as a function of layer depth upon self-ion implantation with 9-MeV carbon ions and its recovery after annealing at 1000 degrees C. Raman and photoluminescence spectra show substantial damage of the lattice, namely, amorphization, neutral vacancies, and interstitial defects. Damage is maximum in the stopping layer at a depth of 4 mm. After annealing there is some recovery of the lattice, but the residual damage increases with fluence, up to about 2 x 10(16) ions/cm(2). At this fluence the stopping layer becomes highly disordered and does not heal with annealing. Surprisingly, for higher fluence values, of about 5 x 10(16) ions/cm(2), there is almost no residual damage. After full amorphization is reached, the layers appear to recrystallize by solid phase epitaxy (SPE), using the pristine diamond layers underneath as a template. These results prove that graphitization of diamond after annealing can be avoided in deeply buried layers, implanted at fluences much higher than expected. High fluences, in fact, can lead to high quality diamond layers. If SPE can be confirmed, it would have a great interest for diamond device applications, as it allows for higher doping levels. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The relationship between the microstructure and the electrical behavior of nickel/carbon nanocomposite (nc-Ni/C) thin films is reported. A particular attention was accorded to the role of the chemical composition and the nature of the amorphous carbon matrix on the electrical behavior of the material. The nc-Ni/C thin films were synthesized using two different cold plasma processes both allowing to finely control the chemical composition, structure and morphology of the films. The first process combines magnetron sputtering of a nickel target and the deposition of hydrogenated carbon by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition using methane as a precursor. The second process consists in the co-sputtering of a nickel and a graphite target in pure argon plasma. For the two deposition processes, a similar increase in the electrical conductivity with the Ni content was observed and attributed to the percolation of the Ni nanograins through the carbon matrix. The percolation threshold was evaluated around 41 at.% of Ni for the two deposition processes. For lower Ni concentrations, the microstructural study indicated that the electrical conductivity is governed by the nature of the amorphous carbon phase which is found to be dependent on the deposition process as revealed by mu-Raman spectroscopy. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Accumulating evidence supports a role for cellular Fe in cell proliferation, inflammation, and disease tolerance. Psoriasis is a severe inflammatory and hyper proliferative condition of human skin whose aetiology remains poorly understood. Herein, we performed nuclear microscopy techniques to quantify with cellular resolution and high sensitivity the concentration of Fe in lesional (psoriatic plaques) and non-lesional adjacent skin of psoriatic patients. Fe contents were measured across skin depth and along epidermal strata either by quantitatively imaging Fe distribution in regions of interest, or by determining Fe profiles through analysis of sequential points along selected transepts. Both procedures require deconvolution of spectra to project quantitative elemental data through the application of different software codes. Using these approaches a detailed quantitative distribution of Fe was resolved. We show that in both lesional and non-lesional skin, the epidermal profiles of Fe contents showed a peak at the basal layer and that Fe concentration along the basal layer was not uniformly distributed. Typically, Fe levels were significantly higher in epidermal ridges relative to regions above dermal papillae. Lesional skin displayed excess Fe over extended regions above basal layer.In conclusion, we found significantly increased Fe deposits in the epidermis of psoriatic patients, particularly in areas of epidermal hyper proliferation. These findings suggest an important role for Fe in the pathogenesis of psoriasis. They also raise the possibility that manipulation of Fe levels in the skin may become relevant for the clinical management of psoriasis. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.