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The article describes the somatic polymorphism in Crotalaria retusa L. seeds. Each individual may produce yellow dormant seeds, brown quiescent seeds and unviable dark brown ones. Therefore, regarding physiology it is a dimorphism. We show that autogamy reduces dimorphism, favoring the formation of dormant seeds. However, the significant variation in dimorphism is seasonal as consequence of increased viability of dormant seeds under drier weather conditions. The variation is a phenotypic response to changes of humidity in the environment during plant reproduction, a mechanism inducing the prevalence of dormant seeds in the dry season and quiescent seeds during the rainy season. The seasonal alternation between dormancy and quiescence in seasonally dry environments has an apparent adaptive value. The chromatic polymorphism increases on the more humid coast and during the rainy season, due to increased mortality of dormant seeds under wetter weather conditions. Unviable seeds accumulate oxidized phenols in their seed coat that possibly act as induced chemical defenses. Its proportion increases with humidity, accentuating polymorphism, also in response to the increase in the predation rate by larvae of U. ornatrix during the rainy season.

Optic neuropathy resulting in permanent visual loss is an infrequent delayed complication of radiation therapy. Misdiagnosis of such a lesion may be due to the aspecifical clinical course, the usual tardive appearance and to a possible role of the initial pathology in visual pathways impairment. A radiation optic neuropathy must be suspected when visual disturbances appear in patients submitted to radiotherapy for sellar or skull base pathologies. Contrast-enhanced MR is the examination of choice because it will delineate the radiation-induced lesion and rule out compression of the optic nerves or optic chiasm by the tumoral pathology. The radionecrotic lesion at MR is characterized by segmental swelling with gadolinium enhancement of the visual pathways. Two patients with rapid visual loss about one year after radiotherapy are described. Corticoids and hyperbaric oxygen therapy may be useful in the treatment. The severity of this complication focuses on a strict use of radiotherapy for benign lesions of the sellar and parasellar region.

Editor Nunziata C.

Detailed shear-wave velocity profiles versus depth have been obtained in typical lithostratigraphies of Napoli. FTAN and hedgehog methods have been applied to Rayleigh surface waves recorded in refraction seismic surveys. The comparison with literature measurements shows good agreement with nearby down- and cross-hole tests. The pumiceous and lapilli content, and the different welding and alteration degree of the Neapolitan pyroclastic soils cause a strong scattering of the shear-wave velocities (VS) bore-hole measurements, even for the same formation. Surface measurements, based on FTAN-hedgehog methods, determine average VS along travel paths of about 100 m, give results that are comparable with down- and cross-hole velocity profiles, and have the additional advantage of being less scattered, and thus more representative of average properties than bore-hole measurements. The results of surface measurements should be preferred in the computation of realistic seismograms and are particularly suitable in urban areas, as they are not destructive and need just one receiver.

Conference code: 104245

Commissione per la Garanzia dell’Informazione Statistica (CGIS), Presidenza del Consiglio dei Ministri, p. 243

Media Lario Technologies (MLT) uses its proprietary replication by electroforming technology to manufacture grazing incidence collectors in support of the EUVL technology roadmap. With the experience of more than 20 alpha and preproduction collectors installed to date, and with the development results of the Advanced Cooling Architecture (ACA) for High Volume Manufacturing (HVM) collector generation, we present optical, lifetime, and thermo-optical performance of the grazing incidence collectors, meeting the requirements of HVM scanners for a throughput target of more than 100 wafers per hour. The ruthenium reflective layer of the grazing incidence collector is very forgiving to the hostile environment of the plasma sources, as proven by the installed base with 1-year lifetime expectancy. On the contrary, the multilayer-based collector is vulnerable to Sn deposition and ion bombardment, and the need to mitigate this issue has led to a steady increase of the complexity of the LPP source architecture. With the awareness that the source and collector module is the major risk against the timely adoption of EUVL in HVM, we propose a new paradigm that, by using the field-proven design simplicity and robustness of the grazing incidence collector in both LDP and LPP sources, effectively reduces the risk of both source architectures and improves their reliability.

Casacchia O. e Strozza S. sono autori rispettivamente dei paragrafi 6 e 5

This special issue contains a collection of papers describing results that were presented at the Second Topical Meeting on Soft-X-Ray Projection Lithography sponsored by the Optical Society of America and held 6–8 April 1992 in Monterey, California, along with several additional papers submitted after that meeting. These papers are being published in this collection to make them readily available to a larger audience than would normally occur with a proceedings and also to take advantage of the critical review process.

We present a protocol for the design of an illumination system (front end) for a soft-x-ray projection lithography tool. The protocol is illustrated by specific front-end designs. The most complete design analysis is for a laser-driven system. Other drivers; undulator, synchrotron orbital radiation, and plasma discharge, are also discussed.

Techniques are described for at-wavelength interferometry of multilayer coated optics designed for use in extreme-ultraviolet lithography. Broadly tunable undulator radiation, which covers the spectral region from 45 to 400 A, is described. The coherent power available at these wavelengths is described, and several types of interferometer that might be suitable at these short wavelengths are also described.

We report an explicit demonstration of classical guided-wave propagation at XUV and soft-x-ray wavelengths. Experiments were performed using narrow-band synchrotron radiation at 5, 20.8, 21, and 30 nm. Free-standing gold transmission gratings served as waveguide structures. These structures had a 300-nm grating period with waveguide channel widths as small as 100 nm and were as thick as 700 nm in the direction of guided-wave transmission. Guided-wave phenomena were manifest in strongly asymmetric diffraction patterns resulting from the angular tilt of the transmission-grating normal from the incident-beam direction.

We report the first demonstration to our knowledge of multipass amplification of soft x rays. A gain medium of neonlike selenium ions was placed within a resonant cavity composed of a multilayer mirror and a beam splitter designed for normal-incidence use at the 20.63- and 20.96-nm laser lines of the neonlike selenium. The laser-cavity output was time resolved and exhibited three distinct temporal components identifiable as the single-, double-, and triple-pass amplified emission. In these experiments, multipass amplification was limited by the finite duration of the gain medium.