Foxtail millet, common millet and Japanese barnyard millet have traditionally been important food sources in East Asian countries. Although waxy types of foxtail and common millet have been identified, a waxy mutant of the allohexaploid crop Japanese barnyard millet has not yet been reported. However, several Japanese landraces have been identified that have approximately half the level of amylose found in other varieties. We employed one of the low amylose landraces, 'Noge-Hie', to produce waxy Japanese barnyard millet using a c-radiation treatment. The seeds from a single M 2 plant stained red-brown with iodine solution, indicating the starch in the seeds lacked amylose. Colorimetric tests indicated that amylose was not present in endosperm tissue of the mutant, and analysis of starch granule bound proteins showed that waxy (Wx) protein was absent from the starch granules. The waxy trait was stably inherited in subsequent generations. Additionally, a PCR-based analysis demonstrated the presence of three separate waxy genes in the millet, and indicated that the low amylose landraces carry a deletion in one of these three genes.

A plasma jet based on a high-current pseudo-spark discharge has been developed. A pseudo-spark discharge (PSD) is a high-current glow-like discharge, which is formed on the left side of the minimum of the Paschen curve. Although the discharge current exceeds several tens of kiloamperes, the discharge retains the glow mode because of the hollow cathode effect. The PSD is formed with a large number of arc channels, which are usually narrow. Consequently, the PSD has a large cross section. In this study, the PSD anode has a hole with a larger diameter than that of the cathode in order to generate a plasma jet. The plasma is effectively accelerated by the electromagnetic force due to the modified shape of electrodes. The electron temperature and density of the plasma jet were measured by a double probe technique. At the discharge current of 10 kA, the temperature of the plasma jet reached approximately 1.9 eV and the density was of the order of 1014 cm-3 at the distance of 72 mm from the anode.

Diamond-like carbon (DLC) films have been deposited onto Si substrate from hydrogen dilution methane gas using pseudo-spark discharge plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PSD PECVD) method. It could be observed that the deposition rate of the PSD PECVD system is high, yielding DLC film of thickness 120 µm after 1000 times of discharge. The structure of the DLC films, as analyzed by Raman spectroscopy, indicates D-and G-bands that are typical of amorphous carbon films. The hardness of the deposited DLC films is calculated to be about 7.1 GPa on a Nanoindentation test.

No abstract

No abstract