Award Data

There is an increasing need to understand the impacts particles emitted by both natural and human activities have on cloud properties, precipitation and climate. DOE has identified a need to improve the measurement capability of observational platforms, particularly in the Arctic region. One barrier to progress in understanding the interactions of particles and clouds and the importance of cloud c ...

The new purity requirements SAE J7219, ISO 14687-2 and ISO 14687 (Table I and Figure 1 below) place a three orders of magnitude increase on the accuracy of the instrumentation that is necessary to detect these extremely low levels of several critical contaminants. The design and verification of the conceptual approach of a cost-effective and reliable instrument that can sample the hydrogen at the ...

State of the art yttria stabilized zirconia (YSZ) based thermal barrier coatings (TBCs) are typically limited to maximum use temperatures of 1200-1300C. A thermal barrier coating (TBC) with a 1500C temperature capability would be a major gas turbine materials breakthrough. New coatings with a 200C temperature advantage can be used by the gas turbine industry to significantly increase turbine effi ...

Problem Statement: Real-time analysis and monitoring of networks is crucial for threat detection. Networks are ubiquitous in todays world and can appear in many formats and to name a few we have: communication networks, social networks, and power networks. In many instances it is important to know who the key players are in the network these can be people, computers, or relay stations. One of the ...

Problem Statement: Since the initial development stages of Atomic Force Microscope, AFMs with optical readout have become the center of attraction for researchers in the field. Despite offering high sensitivity and satisfactory performance, the optical setup is bulky and houses sophisticated and costly optical elements and assemblies that are highly sensitive and inconvenient to work with. This li ...

Statement of the problem or situation that is being addressed - typically, one to three sentences. Solid state lighting (SSL) is a fast growing technology, which is starting to replace conventional lighting products such as fluorescent and incandescent bulbs. While the current efficiency of some commercial SSL products has surpassed those of most traditional lighting, it is still far below what th ...

Statement of the problem or situation that is being addressed: In this project, we propose to develop a high repetition rate, 100 nm ultrafast source for spectroscopy, and imaging using Ytterbium laser technology for hollow core fiber resonant enhanced 5th harmonic generation. Currently, there are no commercial or scientific sources with the combination of high (100kHz 1MHz) repetition rate, and ...

Statement of the problem or situation that is being addressed: In this project, we propose to develop waveguides specific to high harmonic generation, that are more efficient than standard HHG waveguides, can handle pressures in excess of > 30 bar, minimize losses for wavelengths > 1 m, and can be manufactured with ultrafast micromachining. Current waveguides using hollow core fused silica are a g ...

Statement of the problem or situation that is being addressed: A major challenge in successful development of unitized regenerative fuel cells (URFCs) is the bifunctional air/oxygen electrode. In proton exchange membrane-based systems, the number of stable elements at electrolysis potentials is extremely limited, restricting the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) / oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) cat ...

Statement of the Problem or Situation that is Being Addressed - Solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) offer exceptional promise for electrical power generation with reduced carbon footprint, but SOFC reliability must be improved for the technology to be widely commercialized. Strontium based ceramic cathodes e.g. lanthanum strontium iron cobalt oxide (LSFC) enable good performance, but cathode degradatio ...