Award Data

The spatiotemporal quantification of coupled hydro-biogeochemical processes between soil, plant, and atmosphere requires advances in remote sensing technologies and in understanding the link between the measured signals (ie spectral traits) and the hydro-biochemical properties While current UAV-based remote sensing technologies provide spectral reflectance in the visible- short wave infrared (VSWI ...

Solar fuels production is necessary for the future of the global economy New highly conductive and stable polymer-electrolytes with low light absorption are required for efficient and cost- effective solar fuels generation Opus 12 will work with Prof Chulsung Bae at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) to further develop the existing polymer-electrolyte chemistry to meet the demands of this chal ...

To meet performance and cost targets for electric vehicles, substantial improvement is still required in lithium-ion batteries. A low-cost, high-capacity silicon anode will greatly aid in this effort, but current methods for generating functional nano-silicon for anodes use expensive metallurgical, templating, gaseous, or other top-down engineering processes. This project proposes to use the natur ...

Many energy conversion and transfer processes critically depend on the material nanostructure details and its response to external excitation fields Surface and volume defect formation and migration have a profound impact on the opto-electro-thermo-mechanical properties of materials Understanding these processes requires a unique combination of advanced atomic-scale imaging with controlled nanosca ...

We are suggesting a unique hybrid wellbore health estimation solution, based on combining finite element analysis with machine learning. The access to underground energy resources is mainly provided by wellbores. It is estimated that more than 90% of the US total energy supply depends on some form of wellbore and the number of wells drilled will continue to increase. Ensuring long term integrity i ...

Although thermal and cold neutron scattering is widely used and is critical for success in many areas of materials science and engineering, relatively low neutron fluxes severely limit applications of not only laboratory neutrons generators, but also large national neutron facilities State-of-the-art thermal and cold neutron sources are large expensive national facilities, which serve diverse comm ...

Controlled thermonuclear fusion promises to radically transform our society, providing nearly limitless renewal energy. Cost-competitive fusion requires plasma facing components (PFC) which can sustain extreme photon and energetic particle fluxes over a lifetime of years, as these components will dictate the maintenance and overhaul periods of future reactors. Robust, scalable PFCs manufacturing m ...

Fiber optic-based sensing devices and systems allow for electromagnetic interference-immune interrogation of temperature and strain distribution within the cryomodule coil winding pack of superconducting magnets. A specific use of fiber sensors is for rapid and redundant quench detection. Novel fiber-optic sensors may also be used for precision measurement of distributed and local temperature and/ ...

The development of a multi-TeV e+e- linear collider is a key priority set by the P5 panel, which established the long-term strategy of the U.S. HEP program. A Two-Beam Acceleration (TBA) is one of the most promising approaches for this facility due to its potential for achieving high efficiency and the ability to accelerate particles with positive and negative charges. However, there are still cha ...

Large size diffraction-grade diamond is needed for high scientific impact applications at synchrotron and Free-Electron Laser (FEL) X-ray sources, stemming from diamond’s unique physical properties in low atomic number and extremely high thermal diffusivity Sufficiently large diffraction-grade diamond crystals, similar in crystalline quality to that of silicon, are required for the fabrication o ...