The article considers the possibility of producing plutonium suitable for radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTG) of space vehicles, using the americium fraction of minor actinides (MA) as a starting material. It was supposed to place such a starting material in the central fuel assembly of the VVER-1000 light water reactor and the lead-cooled fast reactor BREST-1200. The preference for using only the Am-fraction of MA instead of the Np-fraction and the mixed Np−Am-fraction of MA is shown. The main advantage of the Am fraction is the fundamental impossibility of the appearance of undesirable ²³⁶Pu with hard γ-radiation of its decay products. A comparison of the conditions for the production of plutonium suitable for RTGs in the VVER-1000 and BREST-1200 reactors indicates a higher rate of production of such plutonium in the BREST-1200 fast reactor.

Comprehensive studies of nanocomposite coatings in the Mo–Hf–La–Si–B system with different lanthanum content have been carried out. Coatings were obtained by magnetron sputtering of mosaic targets containing Mo–xLa₂O₃ segments (x = 5, 20, 40%). It is shown that the most effective in terms of increasing hardness, elastic recovery, plasticity index, resistance to elastic deformation, and heat resistance of coatings is the introduction of 3 at % La into their composition.

This article studies the deformation resistance of high-temperature superconducting (HTSC) tapes for various parameters of deformation. The four-contact method has been used to measure the critical current in specimens deformed on indenters with diameters of 5–20 mm by tensile forces up to 200 N. The damage to the superconducting layer and local superconducting properties of mechanically impacted specimens have been investigated using scanning electron microscopy and scanning Hall magnetometry.

In this paper, we analyze in detail the features of the application of the magneto-optical imaging technique for studying HTS tapes. We present a detailed description of the experimental technique, features of the research facility for low temperatures research. The features of the penetration of a magnetic field into a superconductor are described, the procedure for calibrating a magneto-optical film and algorithms for calculating magnetic field profiles from magneto-optical images are described in detail.

Due to the development of precision optical and computational techniques, the number of experiments based on visual methods of processing track detector data increases. Application of neural networks for cluster extraction in images obtained with new generation scanning stations will not only speed up processing of images in nuclear emulsions, but also make the track reconstruction process an order of magnitude more efficient.

The Baikal-GVD experiment is a neutrino telescope located in Lake Baikal, Russia. As of 2022, it has an effective volume of 0.5 km³, which makes it the largest neutrino telescope in the Northern Hemisphere and the second largest in the world. This article presents an overview of machine learning methods developed to analyze data from the Baikal-GVD experiment. Specifically, we discuss neural networks developed to (1) suppress noise responses of optical modules, (2) identify neutrino-induced events and estimate their flux, and (3) recover the neutrino arrival angle. It is shown that neural networks are comparable or superior in accuracy to standard algorithmic event reconstruction procedures for similar problems.

An analytical solution of the Fredholm linear integral equation of the second kind for a single-particle distribution function of a liquid near a solid molecular-smooth surface is obtained. The one-particle distribution function describes the change in the local density over the entire distance of the particles from the surface. The solution is obtained in the special case of a molecular system of solid spheres. The kernel and the right-hand side of the Fredholm equation are calculated in the Percus–Yevick approximation. The interaction of particles with the surface is considered as elastic collisions.

A phenomenon of dynamic chaos, self-organization is related to stochastic instability and critical behavior of non-linear physical systems of different nature. These processes arise, for example, in phenomenon of condensed media dynamic failure and developed turbulence. In such non-linear systems there occur dynamic dissipative structure cascades, possessing a fractal structure. Multi-fractal properties are characterized by spectral function f(d_fi), determined by elements number l behavior, required for covering of fractal sets with similar probabilities P_i ~ l^d_fi . In both cases, systems transit from one scale-time level to the next one via cascade of bifurcation and quantitative process characteristics at developed stages do not depend on interatomic interaction Hamiltonian. Fractal organization of processes at all scale-time levels testifies to process similarity and permits to assign these processes to a single class of universality. On the whole the system’s evolution is defined not by interatomic interaction Hamiltonians, but by dissipative structures’ incipient cascades. Similar values of fractal dimensions on all studied scales, which characterize the failure structure, allow formation study of microflaws оf failure and macrofailure, as scale spectrum edges of overall process with overall order parameters.

The paper presents the status of the TAIGA experiment (Tunka Advanced Instrument for cosmic ray physics and Gamma-ray Astronomy), located in the Tunka Valley. The article mainly presents the tasks, developed approaches and first results on high-energy gamma-ray astronomy (10 TeV and more) obtained from a two- to three-year exposure. The current tasks of gamma-ray astronomy and plans for the development of the installation are discussed.

In this paper, a method has been developed for heat treatment of objects with a complex surface profile with a rapidly oscillating laser beam with modulated radiation power. This method is an alternative method for the dynamic formation of the distribution of the intensity of the laser spot. A mathematical model for calculating the distribution of the intensity of the oscillating beam and temperature fields induced by laser treatment is created. An algorithm for optimizing the parameters of high-frequency oscillations of the beam based on the solution of the inverse problem of thermal conductivity to obtain uniform heating of the nearsurface layer of the material is developed.

The effects of heat treatment with continuous laser radiation on samples of the Fe–18Cr–10Ni alloy of the austenitic-martensitic class, which have undergone preliminary megaplastic torsional deformation in the Bridgman chamber, are investigated. It is established that the combined application of deformation (deformation in the Bridgman chamber) and thermal (laser heating) effects to the alloy forms the structure of metastable austenite (γ-phase), which differs from stable austenite in higher strength characteristics. The nature of this phenomenon is discussed.

Heavy Ion Beam Probe (HIBP) is a unique tool for investigating the electrical potential and various turbulence characteristics in both the core and edge of toroidal plasmas. The position of the HIBP measurement region is defined by the energy of the probing beam and the entrance angle into the plasma. The probing beam energy is constant during the plasma discharge, and it determines the maximum penetration depth of the beam into the plasma. The entrance angle can be varied during one discharge, and the positions of the measuring points for different beam angles can be set as a detection line. The set of detector lines for different probing beam energies represents a two-dimensional region (detector grid) in the vertical plasma cross section. The paper presents a method of data processing, which allows us to build two-dimensional distributions of plasma parameters from HIBP data in the T-10 tokamak using the electric potential of the plasma as an example.

Hybrid hydrogen evolution reaction electrocatalysts containing various nanophases based on transition metal dichalcogenides may exhibit improved functional characteristics due to the synergistic interaction of crystalline nanophases. The possibility of such an effect in amorphous electrocatalysts containing various transition metals and chalcogenides requires deeper experimental and theoretical research. In this work, several thin-film materials in the Mo–Se–S–Ni/Co element system have been created by pulsed laser deposition and co-deposition methods. The possibility of improving the catalytic properties of these materials in the processes of (photo) electrochemical water splitting for compounds with a certain chemical composition has been established. Based on calculations based on the DFT theory, local sites containing original combinations of various atoms whose catalytic activity exceeds the activity of clusters of Mo–S and Mo–Se atoms have been determined.

The results of studying the electronic states of tantalum nanoclusters on a silicon substrate by scanning tunneling spectroscopy are presented. Nanoclusters were obtained by the method of cluster deposition from the gas phase using magnetron sputtering of a tantalum target. Clusters were formed using a Nanogen-50 cluster source (Mantis Deposition) with a quadrupole mass filter integrated into the preparation chamber of the Omicron Multiprobe MXPS VT AFM-25 ultrahigh vacuum system. It has been established that for spherical nanoclusters of different sizes, the tunneling current differs significantly, the measured differential current-voltage characteristic of nanoclusters near the Fermi energy is nonmonotonic, which may indicate a change in the density of states near the Fermi energy. This change in the tunneling conductivity of nanoclusters depending on their size indicates the presence of a metal-nonmetal transition in metal nanoclusters on the semiconductor surface as the cluster size decreases.