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I am using an #web-888 #websdr with an mini whip antenna to monitor 11 bands of #FT8 and #FT4 in parallel and automatically report it to pskreporter.
That is what it received in the last 24 hours (under DK9JHB/sdr)
What you can see here is the glowing of the argon #plasma during a DC #sputtering process.
The argon ions inside the plasma are accelerated by a high voltage (multiple hundred volts) and collide with the metal target. These impacts throw out some atoms of the target, which then get deposited on the small substrates you can see at the bottom. That way you can create thin metal layers with just a few hundred nanometer thickness or less.
Such a cold cathode ion #vacuum gauge is actually surprisingly simply build. Basically it's just a vacuum proof steel chamber, with a single electrical feed through to which an anode ring is attached. Then the cathode is placed (non-touching) around the anode and together with some magnets around the whole gauge, the sensor for measuring the pressure in high vacuum range is finished. (1/2)
Today I replaced the cathode of a cold cathode (penning) #vacuum gauge. The differences between the old and new cathode are clearly visible.
During operation residual gas ions get accelerated at the cathode, which cause sputtering of the cathode atoms. Besides some other effects, this causes the cathode to get damaged and its atoms distributed across the gauge over time.
Various cool #SEM images I have taken during my master thesis:
These are ZnO #nanowires on a ZnO layer. The wires have a diameter 300 times smaller than a human hair.
Normally they should be attached to the silicon substrate, but a scratch caused this cool looking damage to the sample.
ZnO nanowires have cool properties, for example each wire can work as its own tiny laser under the right conditions.
#science #physics #physik #nanowires #nanotechnology #nano #microscopy #ElectronMicroscopy
The interior of an RF sputter system used for creating ZnO films.
