Award Data

Despite significant advancement in PV technology and efficiency, qualification testing and market penetration, actual performance in the field of operation under a myriad of environemental constraints remains an important topic. PV arrays are subject to degradation mechanisms that can significantly impact power production capability. For revenue-critical PV arrays, detection of underperformance an ...

The demands of the solar energy market require the development of advanced photovoltaic technologies. The DOE is seeking to develop organic PV technologies that are more efficient, long lasting and cost competitive to traditional ones. Organic PV (OPVs) have become well recognizedas an important candidate for future solar power products, although their efficiency is not exceeding 6-7%. The overal ...

Development of accelerator structures that can sustain acceleration gradients up to 150 MeV/m are required in order to build a future multi-TeV collider with an energy reach beyond present or planned electron-positron colliders. Limitations for operation with high acceleration gradient arise from RF breakdown. High-melting-point insulated coatings are to be applied first to test samples and to p ...

Although carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology has received the most attention for its potential to reduce emissions, processes that convert CO2 into a useful product can provide a positive return on investment and not just be an unrecoverable cost. Compared to CCS technology, the potential revenue generated by the use of CO2-based product is likely to grow popular with time while reducing ...

Bright coherent light sources in the soft x-ray region of the spectrum are useful for a variety of applications of interest to DOE in the basic sciences, nanoscience and biology, and for technological applications. At Free-Electron Laser Facilities, peak power output of the x-ray pulses is enhanced by using a mid-infrared laser pulse instead of a near-infrared pulse. The current front end for mid- ...

Many important technology challenges today such as the capacity and life time of batteries require new characterization techniques to understand and improve performance. In the STTR Phase II project, novel x-ray microscope techniques and software are developed to be able to image samples in three dimensions and determine chemical composition and function on a microscopic level. As known from ubi ...

Infrared spectroscopy is the most widely used technique for chemical characterization with a worldwide market of over $1B annually. Conventional infrared spectroscopy suffers, however, from fundamental spatial resolution limits that prohibit its application at the nanoscale. This has prevented widespread use of IR spectroscopy in the growing field of nanoscale materials. The atomic force microsc ...

Current state-of-the-art SRF accelerating cavities require the use of many complex and expensive techniques throughout their fabrication/performance cycle. This project will utilize a novel Additive Manufacturing (AM) process to produce nearly monolithic SRF niobium cavities of arbitrary shape with features such as optimized wall thickness and/or integrated stiffeners, greatly reducing the cost a ...

The economical use of hydrogen as a transportation and stationary power fuel remains a long-term DOE objective. Energy storage applications in Europe such as wind capture and improved biogas conversion efficiency are also driving significant interest in hydrogen production from renewable sources. New and efficient catalytic processes for hydrogen generation are therefore needed to achieve produc ...

Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) are one of the most compelling options for meeting the growing clean energy demands of the U.S. While safer and costing less to build and operate than their conventional counterparts, the unique requirements of SMRs pose significant challenges to the maintenance of their I & amp;C systems, especially due to the likelihood of fewer process sensors. Lacking the sensor ...