We have successfully integrated a thermally insulating silica aerogel thin ®lm into a new uncooled monolithic thin ®lm infrared (IR) imaging device. We have calculated noise equivalent temperature differences of 0.04±0.108C from a variety of PbxZryTi12yO3 (PZT) and PbxLa12xZryTi12yO3 (PLZT) pyroelectric imaging elements in these monolithic structures. The low thermal conductivity of the aerogel...

Introduction: A concept for an astrobiology science instrument is described here in the context of a future mission to Enceladus [1]. Water jets from the south polar region of this moon form a plume and supply material to the Saturn e-ring [2, 3]. By utilizing remote chemical analysis of free amino acid chirality, the Enceladus Amino Acid Sampler (EAAS) is designed to address the fundamental as...

Introduction Carbon aerogel (CA) is a most promising material as an electrode for electrical double-layer capacitor (EDLC), as it allows an interconnected three-dimensional network structure, a high specific surface area, good electrical conductivity and a suitable pore size distribution for common electrolytes. Moreno-Castilla et al. [1] prepared titania/carbon composite by the sol-gel method,...

Determining the thermal history of the cometary grains captured by the Stardust mission presents a difficult problem. We consider two simplified models for the deceleration of hypervelocity particles captured in aerogel ; both models assume a velocity squared drag force. The first model assumes that the mass of the particle remains constant during capture and the second that mass is lost due to...

We study the superfluid transition of 4He in aerogel by Monte Carlo simulations and finite size scaling analysis. Aerogel is a highly porous silica glass, which we model by a diffusion limited cluster aggregation model. The superfluid is modeled by a three dimensional XY model, with excluded bonds to sites on the aerogel cluster. We obtain the correlation length exponent nu=0.73+/-0.02, in reas...

Targets have been developed to measure supersonic radiation transport in aerogel foams using absorption spectroscopy. The target consists of an aerogel foam uniformly doped with either titanium or scandium inserted into an undoped aerogel foam package. This creates a localized doped foam region to provide spatial resolution for the measurement. Development and characterization of the foams is a...

Superfluid He-A shares the properties of spin nematic and chiral orbital ferromagnet. Its order parameter is characterized by two vectors d̂ and l̂. This doubly anisotropic superfluid, when it is confined in aerogel, represents the most interesting example of a system with continuous symmetry in the presence of random anisotropy disorder. We discuss the Larkin-Imry-Ma state, which is characterize...

The phonon-roton excitations of liquid He immersed in aerogel of 95% porosity have been measured using inelastic neutron scattering. Excitations having wave vectors at the phonon (Q50.2 Å ), maxon, roton, and beyond the roton (Q52.4 Å ) regions of the dispersion curve were investigated at temperatures between T50.5 K and T52.25 K. Aerogel grown with deuterated materials not exposed to air was u...

The Cerenkov counters in TASS0 consist of 3 elements, one filled with aerogel and two with Freon 114 and CO2. The 1700 liters of aerogel cover an area of 11.8m2 with a thickness of 13.5 to 18 cm. Most cells are filled with an index of refraction between 1.023 and 1.026. In a running period of 2 months after installation = 3.9 + 0.2 photoelectrons were observed. The mean valu: over 17 months...

The thermal conductivity of gas-permeated single-walled carbon nanotube (SWCNT) aerogel (8 kg m − 3 density, 0.0061 volume fraction) is measured experimentally and modeled using mesoscale and atomistic simulations. Despite the high thermal conductivity of isolated SWCNTs, the thermal conductivity of the evacuated aerogel is 0.025 ± 0.010 W m − 1 K − 1 at a temperature of 300 K. This very low va...