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At least 523 records · Page 29

Climate change impacts on the energy system: a model comparison

Increasing renewable energy use is an essential strategy for mitigating climate change. Nevertheless, the sensitivity of renewable energy to climatic conditions means that the energy system’s vulnerability to climate change can also become larger. In this research, we used two integrated assessment models and data from four climate models to analyse climate change impacts on primary energy use at a global and regional scale under a low-level (RCP2.6) and a medium-level (RCP6.0) climate change scenario. The impacts are analysed on the energy system focusing on four renewable sources (wind, solar, hydropower, and biomass). Globally, small climate impacts on renewable primary energy use are found in both models (5% for RCP2.6 and 6% for RCP6.0). These impacts lead to a decrease in the use of fossil sources for most regions, especially for North America and Europe under the RCP60 scenario. Overall, IMAGE and GCAM provide a similar signal impact response for most regions. E.g. in Asia (excluding China and India), climate change induces an increase in wind and hydropower use under the RCP6.0 scenarios; however, for India, a decrease in solar energy use can be expected under both scenarios and models.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Predicting the influence of particle size on the glass transition temperature and viscosity of secondary organic material

Abstract Atmospheric aerosols can assume liquid, amorphous semi-solid or glassy, and crystalline phase states. Particle phase state plays a critical role in understanding and predicting aerosol impacts on human health, visibility, cloud formation, and climate. Melting point depression increases with decreasing particle diameter and is predicted by the Gibbs–Thompson relationship. This work reviews existing data on the melting point depression to constrain a simple parameterization of the process. The parameter $$\xi $$ ξ describes the degree to which particle size lowers the melting point and is found to vary between 300 and 1800 K nm for a wide range of particle compositions. The parameterization is used together with existing frameworks for modeling the temperature and RH dependence of viscosity to predict the influence of particle size on the glass transition temperature and viscosity of secondary organic aerosol formed from the oxidation of $$\alpha $$ α -pinene. Literature data are broadly consistent with the predictions. The model predicts a sharp decrease in viscosity for particles less than 100 nm in diameter. It is computationally efficient and suitable for inclusion in models to evaluate the potential influence of the phase change on atmospheric processes. New experimental data of the size-dependence of particle viscosity for atmospheric aerosol mimics are needed to thoroughly validate the predictions.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Validation of Recent Changes in Actinide Evaluations U-235, U-233, Pu-239 [Slides]

This presentation discusses U-235 updates, including fluctuations in the fission cross section in the URR range that were refined to represent measured data following the Paradela et al. evaluation. There were small changes to the low-energy resonances to improve the fit to measured capture data from RPI (capture reduced by 5% from 0.06-7.8 eV, by 7.7% from 7.8-11 eV) and there was a very small change to the thermal nu-bar within uncertainties. Discrete level data are stored in MF=6 (format requirement, no impact on calculations) and issues leading to negative eigenvalues in cross-covariances in the RR have been sorted out. In conclusion, many improvements were made to evaluated nuclear data of actinides in the resonance region and above, such as minor changes to U-235 including assessment of changes that depend on the finalization of the O-16 evaluation. U-233 improvements show significant progress in performance and some further improvement might be needed at intermediate energies. Pu-239 ORNL/IAEA evaluation is promising; however, more work is needed.

07 ISOTOPE AND RADIATION SOURCES↗

The Latent Dirichlet Allocation model applied to airborne LiDAR data: A case study on mapping forest degradation associated with fragmentation and fire in the Amazon region

1. LiDAR data are being increasingly used to provide a detailed characterization of the vertical profile of forests. This characterization enables the generation of new insights on the influence of environmental drivers and anthropogenic disturbances on forest structure as well as on how forest structure influences important ecosystem functions and services. Unfortunately, extracting information from LiDAR data in a way that enables the spatial visualization of forest structure, as well as its temporal changes, is challenging due to the high dimensionality of these data. 2. In this study, we show how the Latent Dirichlet Allocation model applied to LiDAR data (LidarLDA) can be used to identify forest structural types and how the relative abundance of these forest types changes throughout the landscape. The code to fit this model is made available through the open-source r package LidarLDA in github. We illustrate the use of LidarLDA both with simulated data and data from a large-scale fire experiment in the Brazilian Amazon region. 3. Using simulated data, we demonstrate that LidarLDA accurately identifies the number of forest types as well as their spatial distribution and absorptance probabilities. For the empirical data, we found that LidarLDA detects both landscape-level patterns in forest structure as well as the strong interacting effect of fire and forest fragmentation on forest structure based on the experimental fire plots. More specifically, LidarLDA reveals that proximity to forest edge exacerbates the impact of fires, and that burned forests remain structurally different from unburned areas for at least 7 years, even when burned only once. Importantly, LidarLDA generates insights on the 3D structure of forest that cannot be obtained using more standard approaches that just focus on top-of-the-canopy information (e.g. canopy height models based on LiDAR data). 4. By enabling the mapping of forest structure and its temporal changes, we believe that LidarLDA will be of broad utility to the ecological research community.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Acceleration of Crystallization Kinetics in Ge‐Sb‐Te‐Based Phase‐Change Materials by Substitution of Ge by Sn

Abstract Thin films of (Ge 1– x Sn x ) 8 Sb 2 Te 11 are prepared to study the impact of Sn‐substitution on properties relevant for application in phase‐change memory, a next‐generation electronic data storage technology. It is expected that substitution decreases the crystallization temperature, but it is not known how the maximum crystallization rate is affected. Ge 8 Sb 2 Te 11 is chosen from the (GeTe) y (Sb 2 Te 3 ) 1– y system of phase‐change materials as a starting point due to its higher crystallization temperature as compared to the common material Ge 2 Sb 2 Te 5 . In situ X‐ray diffraction at 5 K min −1 heating rate is performed to determine the crystallization temperature and the resulting structure. To measure the maximum crystallization rate, femtosecond optical pulses that heat the material repetitively and monitor the resulting increase of optical reflectance are used. Glasses over the entire composition range are prepared using a melt‐quenching process. While at x = 0, 97, subsequent pulses are required for crystallization, one single pulse is enough to achieve the same effect at x = 0.5. The samples are further characterized by optical ellipsometry and calorimetry. The combined electrical and optical contrast and the ability to cycle between states with single femtosecond pulses renders Ge 4 Sn 4 Sb 2 Te 11 promising for photonics applications.

Zalden, Peter↗

Microbiome Adaptation Could Amplify Modeled Projections of Global Soil Carbon Loss With Climate Warming

Warming alters soil microbial traits through ecological and evolutionary processes, directly influencing the decomposition of organic matter, which significantly affects global soil carbon emissions. Yet, soil carbon models largely ignore these processes and their implications for global responses to warming. Here, we incorporate eco-evolutionary theory into a mechanistic model describing microbial soil carbon decomposition to address the question of whether such processes could have consequential effects on climate carbon feedbacks globally. We assume that a key trait of microbes, their resource allocation to production of exoenzymes (which facilitate decomposition of organic matter)—is optimized to environmental temperatures by natural selection. We find that eco-evolutionary optimization results in microbes allocating more resources to enzyme production under warming. When applied at the global scale, eco-evolutionary optimization enhances the biological realism of soil carbon models and significantly amplifies global soil carbon loss by 2100. Our results highlight the significant potential of microbial eco-evolutionary responses to influence carbon cycle feedbacks to climate change, and motivate an urgent need for more comprehensive data to accurately quantify the adaptive potential of microbiomes in response to climate change.

Biodiversity & Conservation↗

Online Data-Enabled Predictive Control

We develop an online data-enabled predictive (ODeePC) control method for trajectory tracking of unknown systems, building upon the recently proposed DeePC. Our proposed ODeePC method leverages a primal-dual algorithm with real-time measurement feedback to iteratively compute the corresponding real-time optimal control policy as system conditions change. Specifically, our developed ODeePC: a) records data from the unknown system and updates the underlying primal-dual algorithm dynamically, b) can track changes in the system's operating point and adjust the control inputs, and c) is computationally efficient as it deploys a Fast Fourier Transform-based algorithm enabling the fast computation of the product of a non-square Hankel matrix with a vector. We provide theoretical guarantees regarding the asymptotic behavior of ODeePC and demonstrate its performance through a power system application.

61 RADIATION PROTECTION AND DOSIMETRY↗

Changes in active-site geometry on X-ray photoreduction of a lytic polysaccharide monooxygenase active-site copper and saccharide binding

The recently discovered lytic polysaccharide monooxygenases (LPMOs) are Cu-containing enzymes capable of degrading polysaccharide substrates oxidatively. The generally accepted first step in the LPMO reaction is the reduction of the active-site metal ion from Cu 2+ to Cu + . Here we have used a systematic diffraction data collection method to monitor structural changes in two AA9 LPMOs, one from Lentinus similis (LsAA9_A) and one from Thermoascus auranti­acus (TaAA9_A), as the active-site Cu is photoreduced in the X-ray beam. For LsAA9_A, the protein produced in two different recombinant systems was crystallized to probe the effect of post-translational modifications and different crystallization conditions on the active site and metal photoreduction. We can recommend that crystallographic studies of AA9 LPMOs wishing to address the Cu 2+ form use a total X-ray dose below 3 × 10 4 Gy, while the Cu + form can be attained using 1 × 10 6 Gy. In all cases, we observe the transition from a hexa­coordinated Cu site with two solvent-facing ligands to a T-shaped geometry with no exogenous ligands, and a clear increase of the θ 2 parameter and a decrease of the θ 3 parameter by averages of 9.2° and 8.4°, respectively, but also a slight increase in θ T . Thus, the θ 2 and θ 3 parameters are helpful diagnostics for the oxidation state of the metal in a His-brace protein. On binding of cello-oligosaccharides to LsAA9_A, regardless of the production source, the θ T parameter increases, making the Cu site less planar, while the active-site Tyr—Cu distance decreases reproducibly for the Cu 2+ form. Thus, the θ T increase found on copper reduction may bring LsAA9_A closer to an oligosaccharide-bound state and contribute to the observed higher affinity of reduced LsAA9_A for cellulosic substrates.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Geospatial Diffusion for Land Cover Imperviousness Change Forecasting

Land-use and land-cover (LULC) has a significant effect on several Earth system processes. For example, impervious surfaces reduce infiltration and speed water flow, impacting regional hydrology and flood risk. While Earth System models have improved forecasting hydrologic and atmospheric processes at higher resolutions, the ability to forecast LULC change has lagged behind. In this paper, we propose a new paradigm exploiting Generative AI (GenAI) for land cover change forecasting by framing it as a data synthesis problem conditioned on historical and auxiliary data-sources. To demonstrate the feasibility of our methodology, we perform experiments where a diffusion model is trained for decadal forecasting of imperviousness change across the entire United States. We find that our model yields MAE lower than a no-change baseline for resolutions ≥ 0.7 X 0.7km2 on average, demonstrating its ability to capture and project accurate spatiotemporal patterns. Finally, we discuss future research to incorporate Earth's physical properties and enabling scenario simulations via driver variables.

Varshney, Debvrat [ORNL] (ORCID:0000000188981736)↗

Remodeling of the Histoplasma Capsulatum Membrane Induced by Monoclonal Antibodies

Antibodies play a central role in host immunity by directly inactivating or recognizing an invading pathogen to enhance different immune responses to combat the invader. However, the cellular responses of pathogens to the presence of antibodies are not well-characterized. Here, we used different mass spectrometry techniques to study the cellular responses of the pathogenic fungus Histoplasma capsulatum to monoclonal antibodies (mAb) against HSP60, the surface protein involved in infection. A proteomic analysis of H. capsulatum yeast cells revealed that mAb binding regulates a variety of metabolic and signaling pathways, including fatty acid metabolism, sterol metabolism, MAPK signaling and ubiquitin-mediated proteolysis. The regulation of the fatty acid metabolism was accompanied by increases in the level of polyunsaturated fatty acids, which further augmented the degree of unsaturated lipids in H. capsulatum’s membranes and energy storage lipids, such as triacylglycerols, phosphatidylcholines, phosphatidylethanolamines and phosphatidylinositols. MAb treatment also regulated sterol metabolism by increasing the levels of cholesterol and ergosterol in the cells. We also showed that global changes in the lipid profiles resulted in an increased susceptibility of H. capsulatum to the ergosterol-targeting drug amphotericin B. Overall, our data showed that mAb induction of global changes in the composition of H. capsulatum membranes can potentially impact antifungal treatment during histoplasmosis.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

Errant Beam Prognostics with Machine Leaning at SNS Accelerator

Particle Accelerators are complex machine with many pieces of equipment running in synchronization to deliver required beam. However, faults in particle accelerators reduce the availability of the beam for experiments affecting the overall science output. To avoid these faults, we apply anomaly detection techniques to predict any unusual behavior and perform preemptive actions to improve the total availability. Many researchers have adopted semi-supervised Machine Learning (ML) methods such as auto-encoders and variational auto-encoders for such tasks. However, supervised ML techniques designed for similarity learning such as Siamese Neural Network (SNN) can outperform semi-supervised or unsupervised methods for anomaly prediction. One of the challenges associated with application of ML models to particle accelerators is the variability in observed data over time due to system configuration changes. We employ conditional models such as Conditional Siamese Neural Networks (CSNN), and Conditional-VAE (CVAE) to learn the variability in the data by using beam configuration parameters as conditional input. We apply these models for errant beam prediction at Spallation Neutron Source accelerator under different system configurations and compare their performance. We demonstrate that CSNN outperforms CVAE in our application. This talk will present the data source, collection, analysis, data-preparation, model development, hyper-parameter studies and the results.

Rajput, Kishansingh↗

Dataset: "Widespread Drought-driven Declines in Streamflows and Water quality in the Upper Colorado River Basin (1998-2022)"

This data package contains the associated data and scripts for Nagamoto, E., Ombadi, M., Ciulla, F. et al. Widespread drought-driven declines in streamflows and water quality in the Upper Colorado River Basin during 1998-2022. Commun Earth Environ 7, 734 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-026-03890-5. This purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of the 21st century drought on water quantity and quality at catchments throughout the Upper Colorado River Basin (UCRB). We used stream flow, water temperature, specific conductance, air temperature, precipitation, and catchment attribute data for over 200 sites in the UCRB, collected from the National Water Information System using Basin3D (Varadharajan, 2023), GAGESII (Falcone, 2010), and the Google Earth Engine. We identified years of severe drought between 1998 and 2022 using the Standardized Precipitation Evaporation Index (SPEI), then calculated the relative change percentage of the stream flow, water temperature, and specific conductance from drought versus non-drought years. We used the attribute information from GAGESII to investigate what physical traits of catchments are associated streamflow vulnerability (greater relative change) or resilience to drought. We used land cover data from the National Land Cover Database (USGS, 2024) to assess any changes to physical attributes that may not be represented in the static attributes information in GAGESII. To increase data availability, we modeled stream temperature using methods from Willard, 2023. While the study period is water years 1998 to 2022, the raw water quantity and quality data extends to 1950 and the meteorological data extends to 1980. The data and code can be downloaded via the UCRB_drought.zip. Within the zip, the files are organized as follows: - INPUTS: Contains all input data used in UCRB_Drought_Workflow.ipynb - OUTPUTS: Contains all intermediate data created from UCRB_Drought_Workflow.ipynb as well as final products including the calculated Standardized Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) - climatic_variables: The code used to collect meteorologic data from Google Earth Engine - feature_importance: The code used for the catchment attributes analysis - preprocessing: Code used in UCRB_Drought_Workflow_Preprocessing.ipynb - pyeto: Code used in UCRB_Drought_Workflow_Preprocessing.ipynb - calculations: Code used in UCRB_Drought_Workflow_Impacts.ipynb - plotting: Code used in UCRB_Drought_Workflow_Impacts.ipynb - README.md - UCRB_Drought_Workflow_Preprocessing.ipynb: The code used to prep raw data for the analysis - UCRB_Drought_Workflow_Impact.ipynb: The code which uses the prepped raw data for analysis, and plots all figures - requirements_ucrb-drought_v2.yml: The requirements file to create a virtual environment and Jupyter Lab kernel to run the code The INPUTS folder is organized into the following major directories and sub-directories. The "RDC_WT_SC_RAW" folder contains raw data for streamflow, water temperature, and specific conductance in a ".h5" file. The "NLCD_RAW" folder contains ".csv" files with annual land cover percentages for counties within the UCRB. The "MET_RAW" folder contains a ".csv" file with monthly meteorological data (air temperature and precipitation) for the sites in the UCRB which was obtained from code in the climatic_variables folder. The "GAGESII" folder contains ".csv" files with physical catchment attribute variables for catchments across the country. The "WT_LSTM_data" folder contains ".csv" files with calculated WT (Willard, 2023) and the associated RMSEs. The "Upper_Colorado_River_Basin_Boundary" folder contains geographic data including a shapefile for plotting in the UCRB_Drought_Workflow.ipynb. The "RESERVOIRS_RAW" folder contains ".csv" files for each reservoir in the UCRB with daily reservoir storage. There are also two files in the INPUTS folder that have combined reservoir storage data and reservoir metadata. The OUTPUTS folder is organized into the following major directories and sub-directories. The "RDC_WT_SC_data" folder contains a folder "Water_year" with the associated cleaned data, metadata, and data availability information in ".csv" files, a folder "Median_Relchange" with the relative change comparing drought to non-drought years in ".csv" files, and a folder "Peak95_Min5_Relchange" that has ".csv" files for the relative change in peak (95th %) and minimum (5th %) variables. The "NLCD_data" folder contains the difference in land cover from the beginning to end of the study period and the percentage of the county that is within UCRB bounds can be found in Nagamoto et al (2025)). The "MET_data" folder contains separated monthly air temperature and precipitation data and the calculated PET in ".csv" files. The "SPEI_data" folder contains ".csv" files with calculated SPEI values (one restricted to the study period and the other with information from the entire MET data period). The "Paper_Tables" folder contains two ".csv" files containing site information and data availability and information about the GAGESII trait aggregated categories. The base directory includes the file “flmd.csv” for a list and description of all files and the file “dd.csv” for data dictionaries. Scripts for preprocessing, analysis, and figure generation are located in the associated GitHub repository found at [https://github.com/iNAIADS/drought-impacts/tree/develop/UCRB-drought]. UPDATE 1: Title and code file updated to match submitted manuscript 10-15-2025. UPDATE 2: Code and data files updated to match revised manuscript 3-4-2026. UPDATE 3: Code and data files updated to match revised manuscript 6-7-2026. ** NOTE: DD and FLMD have not been updated yet. UPDATE 4: Added associated Manuscript information and DD and FLMD have been updated. To cite this code, please use the following BibTeX: @misc{nagamoto2025drought, author = {Emily Nagamoto and Fabio Ciulla and Mohammad Ombadi and Jared Willard and Rosemary Carroll and Charuleka Varadharajan}, title = {Dataset: "Widespread Drought-driven Declines in Streamflows and Water quality in the Upper Colorado River Basin (1998-2022)"}, year = {2025}, doi = {10.15485/2551894}, publisher = {ESS-DIVE Repository}, url = {https://data.ess-dive.lbl.gov/datasets/doi:10.15485/2551894} }

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Informing forest carbon inventories under the Paris Agreement using ground-based forest monitoring data

Human interactions with forests have shaped Earth's climate for millennia and will continue to do so as we target net-zero emission goals. Accurately characterizing these climate impacts requires making reliable forest carbon data available for forest monitoring and planning. Here, we develop a semi-automated process for submitting forest carbon measurements from the largest relevant scientific database to the International Panel on Climate Change's Emission Factor Database, which currently has sparse forest carbon data. Building this bridge from scientific research to international policy is an important step towards managing forests in a net-zero motivated future. Humans have been influencing Earth's climate via transformative impacts on forests for millennia, and forests are now recognized as critical to climate change mitigation under the Paris Agreement. The efficacy of climate change mitigation planning and reporting depends on quality data on forest carbon (C) stocks and changes. The Emission Factor Database (EFDB) of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is intended to be a definitive source for such data, but needs comprehensive and well-documented data to be so. To facilitate submission of forest C estimates from scientific studies to EFDB, we develop and document a process for semi-automated data submission from the Global Forest C database (ForC v4.0), which is the largest compilation of ground-based forest C estimates. We then assess the data currently available through ForC and provide recommendations for improving forest data collection, analysis, and reporting. As of September 2024, ForC contained ~19,286 records potentially relevant to EFDB, 1068 of which had been submitted and posted to EFDB. These represented 19% of the total EFDB records for forest land. Records were unevenly distributed across variables and geographic regions. ForC records (37%) reviewed could not be submitted because the original publication lacked required information. In the future, ground-based forest C estimates should target gaps in the record, and studies should ensure that they report all information necessary for inclusion in EFDB. Given that climate change is rapidly impacting the world's forests, timely reporting of recent estimates will be critical to accurate forest C inventories.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Effects of fire and fire-induced changes in soil properties on post-burn soil respiration

Boreal forests cover vast areas of land in the northern hemisphere and store large amounts of carbon (C) both aboveground and belowground. Wildfires, which are a primary ecosystem disturbance of boreal forests, affect soil C via combustion and transformation of organic matter during the fire itself and via changes in plant growth and microbial activity post-fire. Wildfire regimes in many areas of the boreal forests of North America are shifting towards more frequent and severe fires driven by changing climate. As wildfire regimes shift and the effects of fire on belowground microbial community composition are becoming clearer, there is a need to link fire-induced changes in soil properties to changes in microbial functions, such as respiration, in order to better predict the impact of future fires on C cycling. We used laboratory burns to simulate boreal crown fires on both organic-rich and sandy soil cores collected from Wood Buffalo National Park, Alberta, Canada, to measure the effects of burning on soil properties including pH, total C, and total nitrogen (N). We used 70-day soil incubations and two-pool exponential decay models to characterize the impacts of burning and its resulting changes in soil properties on soil respiration. Laboratory burns successfully captured a range of soil temperatures that were realistic for natural wildfire events. We found that burning increased pH and caused small decreases in C:N in organic soil. Overall, respiration per gram total (post-burn) C in burned soil cores was 16% lower than in corresponding unburned control cores, indicating that soil C lost during a burn may be partially offset by burn-induced decreases in respiration rates. Simultaneously, burning altered how remaining C cycled, causing an increase in the proportion of C represented in the modeled slow-cycling vs. fast-cycling C pool as well as an increase in fast-cycling C decomposition rates. Together, our findings imply that C storage in boreal forests following wildfires will be driven by the combination of C losses during the fire itself as well as fire-induced changes to the soil C pool that modulate post-fire respiration rates. Moving forward, we will pair these results with soil microbial community data to understand how fire-induced changes in microbial community composition may influence respiration.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

Effect of Anode Porosity and Temperature on the Performance and Lithium Plating During Fast-Charging of Lithium-Ion Cells

Twenty-four single-layer approximate to 32 mAh pouch cells are tested to determine the effect of electrode porosity on lithium plating. Twelve cells contain a graphite electrode that is 26% porous, and 47% for the other twelve. The cells are cycled using a 6-C charge and a C/2 discharge protocol at temperatures in the range of 20-50 degrees C. A macro-homogeneous electrochemical model and microstructure analysis tool set are used to help interpret experimental observations for the effect of anode porosity and ambient temperature on fast-charging performance. Additionally, comparison between the two also highlights gaps in current theoretical understanding that need to be addressed. In post-test examination, lithium plating is seen in all cells, regardless of porosity. Elevated temperature is shown to reduce the amount of lithium plating and improve initial fast-charge capacity, but also changes the rate of other, less well-understood degradation mechanisms. Apparent kinetic rate laws, At + Bt 1/2 , where A and B are constants, can be fit to most of the capacity loss and resistance increase data. The relative magnitudes of A and B change with temperature and porosity. The capacity loss data at 50 degrees C from the high-porosity cells are fit by a logistics rate law.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗

Toward memory-efficient melt pool monitoring: a classification framework using event-based imaging and sparse sensing technique

Vision sensors like CMOS and CCD cameras are often used for in-process monitoring of melt pools in laser-based additive and welding processes, but they require transferring large amounts of data and computational processing resources. Event-based neuromorphic imagery, on the other hand, detects only the change in pixel intensity, thus potentially reducing the data amount and latency. With an event imager, this study develops a framework for melt pool condition classification, including image construction, time scale selection, optimal pixel selection, and sparse classification, to achieve a highly memory-efficient scheme. These are based on sparse sensing techniques with singular value decomposition (SVD) and QR pivoting, the two fundamental matrix transformations for linear dimensionality reduction. The framework is then validated by classifying a controlled experiment by exciting various mode shapes of liquid gallium pools of varying depths (3, 6, and 8 mm). At 200 pixels, the classifier can reach overall accuracy of 75%, while at 2000 pixels (0.013% of the total possible pixels), the accuracy is nearly 90% (89.86%). At the same number of pixels, random selection can only achieve 46% and 67%, respectively. The memory savings of the sparsely sampled event data compared to a conventional imager is about 500 times. In addition to performance, implementation and limitations of the framework are also discussed.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Phase‐Change‐Memory Process at the Limit: A Proposal for Utilizing Monolayer Sb 2 Te 3

Abstract One central task of developing nonvolatile phase change memory (PCM) is to improve its scalability for high‐density data integration. In this work, by first‐principles molecular dynamics, to date the thinnest PCM material possible (0.8 nm), namely, a monolayer Sb 2 Te 3 , is proposed. Importantly, its SET (crystallization) process is a fast one‐step transition from amorphous to hexagonal phase without the usual intermediate cubic phase. An increased spatial localization of electrons due to geometrical confinement is found to be beneficial for keeping the data nonvolatile in the amorphous phase at the 2D limit. The substrate and superstrate can be utilized to control the phase change behavior: e.g., with passivated SiO 2 (001) surfaces or hexagonal Boron Nitride, the monolayer Sb 2 Te 3 can reach SET recrystallization in 0.54 ns or even as fast as 0.12 ns, but with unpassivated SiO 2 (001), this would not be possible. Besides, working with small volume PCM materials is also a natural way to lower power consumption. Therefore, the proposed PCM working process at the 2D limit will be an important potential strategy of scaling the current PCM materials for ultrahigh‐density data storage.

2D limit↗