John Wong wrote:

Nikita Bernier wrote: Wednesday, June 20, 2012, 17:23 New Target boat, with no coating, wrapped with a 0.002 inches thick Ta foil, contains NiO D-shape discs : Sample,   # Disks,    Mass (g),    Thickness (mm) 1    12,  1.9396,  1.938 2    13,  0.9592,  0.847 3    25,  2.6675,  3.06 See John's Ipad for their recipes. Evaporator #2 is now auto-ramping overnight at 0.5 A/min, up to 580 A, with the maximum voltage limited at 14 V, between 3.00e-05 (Good vacuum) and 4.00e-05 Torr (Bad vacuum).   Wednesday, June 20, 2012, 22:28 TGHT tripped off at 78A due to high out-gassing pressure.  The current was tapped down to 75A before it was turned back on.  Changed ramping rate from 0.5A/min to 0.2A/min.   Initiate auto-ramping...   Thursday, June 21, 2012, 08:35 Vacuum has come down to 7e-7 as TGHT is being ramped up at 0.2A/min. (see attachment#1). Increase TGHT rate to 2A/min. The temperature should be measured when the heater gets up to around 500A.

 Thursday, June 21, 2012, 17:37

The NiO discs were heated up to 1500C at 560A.  The target heater was lowered in steps and the temperature was measured.  At 320A, the target container was ~1110C.  (see attachment #1) 

There was a sign of resistant on the target container as the p/s voltage started to go up at a higher rate.  (see attachment#2, 3, 4 for the archived striptool).

Unfortunately, the target container was broken; it was most likely reacted with the Ni.  (see attachment#5)

So.... the possible solution?!  TRY coating the container with Ta2O5.  Will discuss more in the Friday Jun 22 meeting.