Dr Terry Vockerodt

We investigate the fusion of 16O and 154Sm with excited states at Coulomb energies using a theoretical dynamical model. The two-body Schrödinger equation is solved using the time-dependent wave-packet coupled-channels method. The wave function of the collective motion and excitations are visualized in both position and momentum space, providing a detailed mechanism of the reaction. We benchmark our calculations of the energy-resolved fusion transmission coefficients with those from the time-independent coupled-channels method. The present results are in good agreement with the time-independent results for a wide range of energies and angular momenta, demonstrating both the reliability of the quantum wave-packet dynamical approach for fusion and its usefulness for providing additional insights into fusion dynamics.

We investigate the fusion and scattering of a 16 O projectile on 152,154 Sm targets using the time-dependent coupled-channel wave-packet method. We benchmark calculations of the S-matrix elements, fusion cross sections and scattering differential cross sections with those from the time-independent coupled-channel method, and compare the results to experimental data. We find that our time-dependent method and the time-independent method produce quantitatively similar results for the S-matrix elements and fusion cross sections, but our method cannot quantitatively explain the experimental scattering differential cross sections, mainly due to the low maximum number of partial waves produced by the time-dependent method. Nevertheless, the strong agreements between our method and the time-independent method demonstrates that the time-dependent coupled-channel wave-packet method can be used to address fusion reactions for a wide range of energies, with the advantage of being able to extend to time-dependent Hamiltonians for more advanced modelling of nuclear reactions.

In this work we present silver nanowire hybrid electrodes, prepared through the addition of small quantities of pristine graphene by mechanical transfer deposition from surface-assembled Langmuir films. This technique is a fast, efficient, and facile method for modifying the opto-electronic performance of AgNW films. We demonstrate that it is possible to use this technique to perform two-step device production by selective patterning of the stamp used, leading to controlled variation in the local sheet resistance across a device. This is particularly attractive for producing extremely low-cost sensors on arbitrarily large scales. Our aim is to address some of the concerns surrounding the use of AgNW films as replacements for indium tin oxide (ITO); namely the use of scarce materials and poor stability of AgNWs against flexural and environmental degradation.