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The Department of Energy has identified a need for a single-polarization, mode-locked, high-power, 2-micron fiber laser for an advanced laser electron accelerator. The 2-micron laser wavelength would allow for both larger accelerator dimensions and the acceleration of more charge, compared to the 0.8 micron Ti:Sapphire laser. Another advantage of the 2-micron wavelength is the possibility of using ...

The ability of nuclear physics research to continue to make a significant impact on the scientific community relies on advances in accelerator performance, particularly on improvements in superconducting radio frequency (SRF) cavities. In order to obtain optimal performance, the inner surfaces of the SRF cavities must be clean, smooth, and free of damage. However, current methods of treating the s ...

Current methods to break-down biomass into simple sugars for fermentation constitute the core barrier to the production of ethanol with minimal energy and water input, and waste output. In particular, the present practice of enzymatically hydrolyzing biomass into its constituent sugars in aqueous media suffers from slow reaction rates. This project will develop an ionic liquid pretreatment process ...

Both private companies and government agencies are faced with an enormous amount of text documents that are distributed over a network of computers and databases. Searching for specific documents is essential to the success of these organizations. Websites such as ScienceEducation.gov indicate that it is beneficial for content to be categorized to make it easier for users to find relevant informat ...

The Department of Energy provides scientists, researchers, and the public with search engine access to high quality scientific and technical content. Because much of the content is highly technical in nature, many users require encyclopedia-quality background information. This project will develop and deploy software that integrates the best scientific and technical reference articles from Wikiped ...

The primary industrial hydrogen production method today is Steam Methane Reforming (SMR) of natural gas (NG) at medium centralized facilities. This method has several shortcomings: (1) the natural gas feedstock is not renewable, (2) carbon emissions require costly mitigation systems to be compliant with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations, (3) reformation results in a dilute hyd ...

Because environmental mercury poses significant challenges to global public health, reducing mercury levels in air, soil, and water is an international priority. However, the widespread distribution of mercury (Hg) through the atmosphere makes current methods of addressing Hg contamination ¿ such as excavation and replacement of soil, or pump-and-treat techniques for water ¿ too expensive to be ...

As the dimensions of accelerating structures become smaller, or as beam intensities become higher, the transverse wakefields driven by the beam become quite large, even for a slight misalignment of the beam from the geometric axis. These deflection modes can cause inter-bunch beam breakup and intra-bunch head-tail instabilities along the beam path. This project will design a cylindrical dielectric ...

This project will develop a diamond-based accelerating structure that can sustain an accelerating gradient larger than 600 MV/m, which would significantly exceed the limits of conventional accelerating structures. Multipacting will be suppressed by dehydrogenation of the diamond surface. In Phase I, a cylindrical diamond-based dielectric loaded accelerator structure will be designed, developed, an ...

The detection of charged particles through Cherenkov radiation has been a powerful technique in particle, nuclear, and beam physics. Use of a dielectric radiator with engineered dispersive properties permits more information about the radiating particle to be obtained than from a simple linear medium. This project will numerically model, construct, and test Cherenkov radiators that are based on th ...