Award Data

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 laser plasma accelerator (LPA) is a very promising technology for generating gamma rays for the detection of contraband bulk nuclear materials, but is currently limited by the rate at which the beam can be pulsed. Erosion of the capillary plasma channel is the main limiting factor and can be mitigated through the use of artificial diamond to construct the channel. Computational modeling and ...

The DOEs & quot;Monitoring Verification and Accounting (MVA) program goal is to confirm permanent storage of CO2 in geologic formations by real-time monitoring should CO2 leak. Remote technologies, effective for atmospheric or above ground CO2 monitoring, are ineffective for subsurface, and it is where leakage can be detected first. By the time leaked CO2 slowly appears on the surface, CO2 may hav ...

Due to huge levels of computing parallelism and higher performance per watt, comuting accelerators are crucial for increasing HPC efficiency. This is economically significant for small and medium size manufacturing companies (SMMs) and essential for transition to Exascale computing. However, due to high procurement costs, in-house maintenance of an accelerated HPC cluster is prohibitive for many ...

The feasibility for fusion as a practical energy source needs to be enhanced significantly by removing some of the restrictions that low-temperature superconductors put on the fusion magnet systems. This can be done by using high-temperature superconductors, allowing for much larger temperature margins, a higher magnet performance and less mechanical degradation during operation. There are curren ...

Development of a solid with high conductivity of Mg2+ cations will allow application of that substance as membrane in magnesium-air batteries. These batteries will be much cheaper, safer, and at the same time store much more energy than lead-, lithium- or sodium batteries with the same weight. Such batteries would be ideal for electric vehicles and for the off-peak storage of renewable elect ...

The main focus of this STTR is to design, develop, and evaluate high temperature capacitors using novel thermal spray coating processes, which will allow the devices to meet the performance requirements. Multilayer coating architecture will be adopted and the electrodes and dielectric material selections will be screened in Phase I to note material compatibility and high temperature performance. ...

The extreme operating conditions experienced by many moving mechanical components in aerospace and automotive engines require the uses of high-performance materials and lubricants. Current oil-based lubricants degrade rapidly under such conditions and become useless, especially at high temperatures. As a result, many moving components of engines that are run at high temperatures to impro ...