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Peat is known as problematic ground with low bearing capacity and extensively high compressibility. Ordinary Portland cement (OPC) and lime were usually used to tackle unfavourable characteristics of peat by improving it with its cementation effect. However, little was known of the effect of bio-cementation towards peat improvement. Bio-cementation or commonly known as Microbial-induced calcite precipitation (MICP) has been recently introduced as a ground improvement alternative for geotechnical engineering application. MICP performed by utilising metabolic pathways of non-pathogenic urealytic bacteria that precipitates calcium carbonate (CaCO3) crystal as cementation binder that seal soil particles together increasing soil strength. MICP of inorganic soil was extensively explored, and only limited was done for organic soil. This study explores on the effect of different surcharge preloading of 18kPa, 36kPa and 48kPa towards Microbial-Induced Calcite Precipitation (MICP) treatment of tropical peat. Fibrous peat studied were obtained from Miri, Sarawak and cured under a submerged condition with different vertical preload for seven days. Laboratory study including unconfined compression test, quantification of carbonates precipitated, and moisture content of stabilised specimens was observed to evaluate the performance of stabilisation effort. Unconfined compressive strength (UCS) of treated specimens was observed to be higher than untreated specimens with the highest increase of UCS up to 469%. However, CaCO3 precipitation amount for this study was observed to decrease with increasing surcharge preload.

Thomson scattering X-ray sources are compact and affordable facilities that produce short duration, high brightness X-ray pulses enabling new experimental capacities in ultra-fast science studies, and also medical and industrial applications. Such a facility has been built at the Accelerator Laboratory of Tsinghua University, and upgrade is in progress. In this paper, we present a proposed layout of the upgrade with design parameters by simulation, aiming at high X-ray pulses flux and brightness, and also enabling advanced dynamics studies and applications of the electron beam. Design and construction status of main subsystems are also presented.

Measurement of emittance for a space-charge dominated electron beam from a photocathode rf gun is performed by employing the multislit-based method at Accelerator Laboratory of Tsinghua University. We present the design considerations on the multislit system and the experimental results, with special attention to the study of space charge induced emittance growth. The experimental results are in reasonable agreement with the PARMELA simulations.

In this paper, a liquid crystal microlens array with a curved electrode is designed and fabricated. The fabrication process consists of two parts: fabricating the microlens array and assembling the liquid crystal cell. The first process utilizes the hydrophilic confinement effect, an inkjet printer, and the replication process to fabricate a microlens array on a glass substrate. A transparent, organic, conductive poly (3, 4-ethylenedioxythiophene): poly (styrenesulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS) is spin-coated on the microlens array as a curved electrode, and the microlens array is further flattened by SU-8 photoresist. It is then assembled with indium tin oxide glass. Interference patterns for the liquid crystal microlens array are measured and agree well with theoretical calculations. From interference patterns, the focusing power range is measured to be from −47.28 to −331 diopters under 10 V, which corresponds to focal length from −2.12 cm to −0.3 cm at 532 nm wavelength. This technology could be useful for optical zoom systems or focus-tunable lens applications.

A TW (Tera Watt) laser system based on Ti:sapphire mainly for the Tsinghua Thomson scattering X-ray light source (TTX) is being built. Both UV (ultraviolet) laser pulse for driving the photocathode radio-frequency (RF) gun and the IR (infrared) laser pulse as the electron-beam-scattered-light are provided by the system. Efforts have also been made in laser pulse shaping and laser beam transport to optimize the high-brightness electron beam production by the photocathode RF gun.

Time-resolved MeV ultra-fast electron diffraction (UED) is a powerful tool for structure dynamics studies. In this paper, we present a design of a MeV UED facility based on a photocathode RF gun at Tsinghua University. Electron beam qualities are optimized with numerical simulations, indicating that resolutions of 250 fs and 0.01 A, and bunch charge exceeding 105 electrons are expected with technically achievable machine parameters. Status of experiment preparation is also presented.

We present two types of optics for the lattice of a compact storage ring for a Compton X-ray source. The optics design for different operation modes of the storage ring are discussed in detail. For the pulse mode optics, an IBS-suppression scheme is applied to optimize the optics for lower IBS emittance growth rate; as for the steady mode, the method to control momentum compact factor is adopted [Gladkikh P, Phys. Rev. ST Accel. Beams 8, 050702] to obtain stability of the electron beam.