Vitality is a fundamental trait for the development of a plant. It is known to depend on various factors, such as climate, soil, and the plant’s genetics, but the progressive depletion of soil nutrients make it a priority for the industry to pinpoint which of the controllable qualities of a seed have the biggest impact on vitality. This work describes techniques applied in a high-throughput phenotyping project, the first of this magnitude for a complex plant, the potato (solanum tuberosum). We also present the results of an analysis of associations between the chemical composition of the seed potatoes and field performance, solving the arising underdetermined linear systems by means of PLS regression. We show that some but not all of the chemical data is strongly associated to vitality.

This paper presents a modified self-consistent drift-diffusion-reaction model suitable for the analysis of electron-beam irradiated insulators at both short and long time scales. A novel boundary condition is employed that takes into account the reverse electron current and a fully dynamic trap-assisted generation-recombination mechanism is implemented. Sensitivity of the model with respect to material parameters is investigated and a calibration procedure is developed that reproduces experimental yield-energy curves for uncharged insulators. Long-time charging and yield variations are analyzed for stationary defocused and focused beams as well as moving beams dynamically scanning composite insulators.

By placing, in vacuum, a stack of transmission dynodes (tynodes) on top of a CMOS pixel chip, a single free electron detector could be made with outstanding performance in terms of spatial and time resolution. The essential object is the tynode: an ultra thin membrane, which emits, at the impact of an energetic electron on one side, a multiple of electrons at the other side. The electron yields of tynodes have been calculated by means of GEANT-4 Monte Carlo simulations, applying special low-energy extensions. The results are in line with another simulation based on a continuous charge-diffusion model. By means of Micro Electro Mechanical System (MEMS) technology, tynodes and test samples have been realized. The secondary electron yield of several samples has been measured in three different setups. Finally, several possibilities to improve the yield are presented.