40 year anniversary of the RADAN systems – compact pulsed power sources for various investigations

This article includes a brief overview of the compact RADAN-series subgigawatt pulsed voltage sources and describes their capabilities in various electrophysical researches. We present the results obtained in the experiments at nano- and subnanosecond time scales on the formation of the voltage pulses with a special shape, electron beams emission in air gaps and by the cold cathodes in vacuum, as well as generation of electromagnetic radiation. Particular attention is paid to the promising application of the RADAN systems.

Излучение Вавилова-Черенкова и импульсная катодолюминесценция в полиметилметакрилате при возбуждении субнаносекундным пучком электронов

The spectral and amplitude-time characteristics of the emission of polymethyl methacrylate upon excitation by electron beams with electron energies up to 300 and 450 keV are studied. Vavilov-Cherenkov radiation and cathodoluminescence pulses were recorded with a subnanosecond time resolution. It is shown that the intensity of pulsed cathodoluminescence radiation in the visible and near ultraviolet spectral regions at electron energies of hundreds of keV exceeds the intensity of Vavilov-Cherenkov radiation.

Melting dynamics of ice in the mesoscopic regime

How does a crystal melt? How long does it take for melt nuclei to grow? The melting mechanisms have been addressed by several theoretical and experimental works, covering a subnanosecond time window with sample sizes of tens of nanometers and thus suitable to determine the onset of the process but unable to unveil the following dynamics. On the other hand, macroscopic observations of phase transitions, with millisecond or longer time resolution, account for processes occurring at surfaces and time limited by thermal contact with the environment. Here, we fill the gap between these two extremes, investigating the melting of ice in the entire mesoscopic regime. A bulk ice Ih or ice VI sample is homogeneously heated by a picosecond infrared pulse, which delivers all of the energy necessary for complete melting. The evolution of melt/ice interfaces thereafter is monitored by Mie scattering with nanosecond resolution, for all of the time needed for the sample to reequilibrate. The growth of the liquid domains, over distances of micrometers, takes hundreds of nanoseconds, a time orders of magnitude larger than expected from simple H-bond dynamics.

Effect of Dehydrated Trehalose Matrix on the Kinetics of Forward Electron Transfer Reactions in Photosystem I

The effect of dehydration on the kinetics of forward electron transfer (ET) has been studied in cyanobacterial photosystem I (PS I) complexes in a trehalose glassy matrix by time-resolved optical and EPR spectroscopies in the 100 fs to 1 ms time domain. The kinetics of the flash-induced absorption changes in the subnanosecond time domain due to primary and secondary charge separation steps were monitored by pump–probe laser spectroscopy with 20-fs low-energy pump pulses centered at 720 nm. The back-reaction kinetics of P