Nikita Bernier wrote:

Nikita Bernier wrote:  Monday, September 24, 2012, 15:01 The target boat with TaC coating is being used again. The inside of the boat is covered with a 0.002 inches thick Ta foil with TaC coating, wrapped with a 0.002 inches thick Ta foil. Chamber was pumped down to 6e-6 Torr before the Heat Shield cooling water valve was opened. A small vacuum bump was detected (See attachment #1). It is not clear if it was caused by a water leak or not. After consulting with Peter, I will wait for the vacuum to be below e-07 Torr before turning the target heater on.        Monday, September 24, 2012, 18:02 The vacuum was stable until 1e-06 Torr. The target heater was turned on and tapped up to 60 A (0.8 V).  Evaporator #2 is now auto-ramping overnight at 0.2 A/min, up to 800-850 A, with the maximum voltage limited at 14 V, between 2.00e-05 (Good vacuum) and 3.00e-05 Torr (Bad vacuum).     Tuesday, September 25, 2012, 15:11 Sintering process is going smoothly. See Attachment 1. The auto-ramping was increased to 1 A/min up to 800-850 A.     Tuesday, September 25, 2012, 16:11  And the voltage limit was increased to 18 V ! See Attachment 2.    Tuesday, September 25, 2012, 19:13 Around 806 A (readback), voltage increased more quickly than the current. It seems like resistance is building up. After reaching 836 A (readback), the current was tapped down to 800 A (readback)/ 816 A (setting) in an effort to save the Ta boat. See Attachment 3. The current will stay at 800 A for ~4 hours before ramping down.

 Wednesday, September 26, 2012, 14:31

The current was tapped down twice as resistance was building up. After 4 hours at ~800 A, the TGHT was ramped down at 2 A/min. See Attachment 1. The target boat was cooled down for 4 hours before the chiller was turned off.

Also I had trouble measuring the temperature. I was unable to get a clear picture with the pyrometer. Therefore the exact temperature remains unknown, but from previous experiments, 800 A was about 1400°C.

The TaC coated Ta foil is very brittle. There is a lot of crystallisation on the Ta boat. See attachment 2. It is unlikely that the boat would survive many more sintering. Therefore it will be used for BeO pellets tests. 

When John gets back, I suggest we use a new boat coated with TaC, without additional layers. (See message #15 when this target boat was sintered up to 900A (local 893A/16.88V), Measured temp @ 1500°C)