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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 73 records · Page 4
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2026

Data-Driven Optimization of Pixelated CdZnTe Spectrometers for Uranium Enrichment Assay

Here, in recent work [Vavrek et al. (2025)], we developed the performance optimization framework spectre-ml for gamma spectrometers with variable performance across many readout channels. The framework uses non-negative matrix factorization (NMF) and clustering to learn groups of similarly-performing channels and sweep through various learned channel combinations to optimize the performance tradeoff of including worse-performing channels for better total efficiency. In this work, we integrate the pyGEM uranium enrichment assay code with our spectre-ml framework, and show that the U-235 enrichment relative uncertainty can be directly used as an optimization target. We find that this optimization reduces relative uncertainties after a 30 -minute measurement by an average of 20%, as tested on six different H3D M400 CdZnTe spectrometers, which can significantly improve uranium non-destructive assay measurement times in nuclear safeguards contexts. Additionally, this work demonstrates that the spect re-ml optimization framework can accommodate arbitrary end-user spectroscopic analysis code and performance metrics, enabling future optimizations for complex Pu spectra.

Gamma-ray detection↗
DOE OSTI2025

Unfolding Structure Formation in the Dark Universe via Weak Gravitational Lensing: from Pixels to Cosmology in the Dark Energy Survey and Roman Space Telescope

Weak gravitational lensing (deflection of light from distant galaxies due to the gravitational potential of intervening mass) is one of the most exciting probes in cosmology as it is sensitive both to the growth of the large-scale structure and the expansion history of the Universe. We can measure the coherent distortion of galaxy shapes (which we call cosmic shear) and infer the matter distribution. With next-generation imaging surveys such as the Vera C. Rubin Observatory Legacy Survey of Space and Time (Rubin LSST) and the Nancy G. Roman Space Telescope (Roman), there is immense new promise in understanding the fundamental nature of dark matter and dark energy. With datasets from current experiments like the Dark Energy Survey (DES), we see apparent cosmological tensions between experiments that may either be real and indicate new physics or new systematics we do not yet understand. LSST and Roman will increase the number of galaxies we have observed by an order of magnitude, leading to improved constraints on our cosmological model by up to 300%. These experiments will have the potential to prove if these cosmological tensions are real. However, our control of systematic uncertainties must also improve by similar levels to achieve the promise of what these missions can deliver. To achieve these scientific outcomes, the challenges of determining galaxy shapes and redshifts and modeling the impact of astrophysical effects must be solved. My PhD has focused on enabling weak lensing science in DES and Roman. I co-led the shear analysis teams in DES to produce the largest weak lensing galaxy sample, as well as the final DES cosmological analysis of cosmic shear. For Roman, I have led two papers characterizing and mitigating shear-related systematics with image simulations.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2025

The ETROC2 as the Final Version for CMS Endcap Timing Layer (ETL) Upgrade

The ETROC (Endcap Timing Readout Chip) is being developed for the LGAD-based CMS Endcap Timing Layer (ETL) at HL-LHC. The ETL on each side of the interaction region will be instrumented with a two-disk system of MIP-sensitive LGAD (Low Gain Avalanche Diodes) silicon devices, read out by ETROCs for precision timing measurement with down to ~30 ps timing resolution per track. The ETROC is designed to handle a 16 x 16 pixel cell matrix, with each pixel being 1.3 mm x 1.3 mm to match the LGAD sensor pixel size. The front-end design for preamplifier and discriminator has been specifically optimized for the reduced LGAD signals, with enough flexibilities to meet the ETL specific needs for time resolution, power budget and radiation profile. The ETROC chip is implemented in a commercial 65nm CMOS process. Each channel consists of a preamplifier, a discriminator, a TDC used for TOA (Time Of Arrival) and TOT (Time Over Threshold) measurements, and a memory for data storage and readout. An in-pixel auto threshold calibration is included, along with a self-testing pattern generator. The TOT is used for time-walk correction of the TOA measurement. The detailed hit information (TOA and TOT) from each cell will be read out from a local circular buffer after each Level-1 Accept (about 1 MHz). In addition, a charge injection circuit is implemented to allow for testing and calibration. For more detailed monitoring of the signal pulses, waveform sampling circuits are included for one pixel. The clock distribution is based on a 16x16 H-tree design with a shielding structure to alleviate potential interference. The global peripheral circuits include a PLL, a phase shifter, an I2C slave controller, a fast control block, a global readout, and a data driver along with an efuse and temperature sensor. The ETROC builds event data frames for each L1A selected event and is also capable of providing L1 trigger information for user-defined delayed hits. The main design challenge is how to extract precision timing information from the small LGAD signals in the presence of high irradiation fluence, while keeping the power consumption and digital activity low. The ETL design goal for the time resolution of 50 ps per hit is required to achieve a 35 ps arrival time measurement for a MIP particle, which has its track registered in two ETL disk layers. The LGAD contribution is known to be about 30 ps, this means that the jitter from the ETROC has to be kept below 40 ps. The ETROC2 is the first full size full functionality prototype design fully compatible with the final chip specifications for CMS ETL and now becomes the final version. The ETROC2 chips have been extensively tested. We will present here new testing results including the bump bonding yield improvement study, the time walk correction (TWC) generality study with one pixel TWC applying to all pixels, the final SEU testing using both heavy ion and proton beam, more beam test studies including different sensors, and readiness for the ETROC2 production for CMS ETL upgrade.

Liu, Tiehui [Fermilab] (ORCID:0009000765225605)↗
DOE OSTI2026

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↗
DOE OSTI2023

The brighter-fatter effect in the JWST MIRI Si:As IBC detectors: I. Observations, impact on science, and modeling

Context.The Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) on board theJames WebbSpace Telescope (JWST) uses three Si:As impurity band conduction (IBC) detector arrays. The output voltage level of each MIRI detector pixel is digitally recorded by sampling up the ramp. For uniform or low-contrast illumination, the pixel ramps become nonlinear in a predictable way, but in areas of high contrast, the nonlinearity curve becomes much more complex. The origin of the effect is poorly understood and currently not calibrated out of the data. Aims.We provide observational evidence of the brighter-fatter effect (BFE) in MIRI conventional and high-contrast coronagraphic imaging, low-resolution spectroscopy, and medium-resolution spectroscopy data, and we investigate the physical mechanism that gives rise to the effect on the MIRI detector pixel raw voltage integration ramps. Methods.We used public data from the JWST/MIRI commissioning and Cycle 1 phase. We also developed a numerical electrostatic model of the MIRI detectors using a modified version of the publicPoisson_CCDcode. Results.We find that the physical mechanism behind the BFE manifesting in MIRI data is fundamentally different to that of charge-coupled devices and photodiode arrays such as the Hawaii-XRG near-infrared detectors used by the NIRISS, NIRCam, and NIRSpec instruments on board JWST. Observationally, the BFE makes the JWST MIRI data yield 10–25% larger point sources and spectral line profiles as a function of the relative level of de-biasing of neighboring detector pixels. This broadening impacts the MIRI absolute flux calibration, time-series observations of faint companions, and point spread function modeling and subtraction. We also find that the intra-pixel 2D profile of the shrinking Si:As IBC detector depletion region directly impacts the accuracy of the pixel ramp nonlinearity calibration model.

Astronomy & Astrophysics↗
DOE OSTI2025

Super-Resolution Ptychography with Small Segmented Detectors

To overcome the spatial resolution limit set by aperture-limited diffraction in traditional scanning transmission electron microscopy, microscopists have developed ptychography enabled by iterative phase retrieval algorithms and high-dynamic-range pixel array detectors. Current detector designs are limited by the data rate off chip, so a high-pixel-count detector has a proportionally lower frame rate than the few-segment detectors used for differential phase contrast (DPC) imaging. This slower acquisition speed leads to heightened vulnerability to scan noise, drift, and potential sample damage. This creates opportunities for repurposing fast segmented detectors for ptychography by trading a reduction in reciprocal space pixels for an increase in real space pixels. Here, we explore a strategy of oversampling in real space and instead apply detector pixel upsampling during the reconstruction process. Further, we demonstrate the viability of achieving super-resolution ptychography on thin objects using only 2 × 2 detector pixels, surpassing the resolution of integrated DPC (iDPC) imaging. With optimization using simulated datasets and experiments on MoTe 2 /WSe 2 bilayer moiré superlattices, we achieved super-resolution ptychography reconstructions under rapid acquisition conditions (37.5 pA, 1 μs dwell time), yielding over 50% improvements in contrast and information limit compared to annular dark field and iDPC imaging on the same detectors.

2D materials↗
DOE OSTI2025

Pxl

The code consists of several scripts. The image is fetched from a predefined URL, downloaded, and is displayed in the virtual environment at a predefined location. The image is also dynamically scaled to fit in the virtual environment depending on its size. The image is sent to have each pixel's value written to a CSV file. While the CSV is being written, a dictionary is populated with values that map each pixel to a temperature reading. The image's height, width, position and references to its corners are sent to make a button that is the same size as the image and placed right behind the image in the virtual scene. The button defines behavior that should be triggered when the user pushes the image. Unity provides visual cues that alert the user when they are about to touch something in the virtual environment. The code holds references to the cues for the left and right hands. The button queries the cue tracker and receives the position of the active cue in the form of a 3D vector. The 3D vector is compared to the bottom left corner of the image to transform the world space coordinates of the cue to the pixel space of the image. The specific pixel is approximated relative to how far left and up the user touched from the bottom left corner of the image. The approximated pixel value, which is represented as a coordinate in 2D space, is used to retrieve the temperature value associated with the approximated pixel. A window of text is then updated to display the temperature reading.

. Otis, KrystianeS [Idaho National Laboratory (INL↗
DOE OSTI2026

Evaluation of an event-driven 3FI ASIC for spectroscopic X-ray detection with synchrotron radiation

The novel design and evaluation on the NSLS-II beamline of the 3FI application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) bump-bonded to a simple, planar, 2D segmented silicon sensor are presented. The ASIC was developed for full-field fluorescence spectral X-ray imaging (3FI). It is a small-scale prototype that features a square array of 32 × 32 pixels, and the size of the pixels is 100 µm × 100 µm. The ASIC was implemented in a 65 nm CMOS integrated circuit fabrication process. Each pixel incorporates a charge-sensitive amplifier, a shaping filter, a discriminator, a peak detector and a sample-and-hold circuit, allowing detection of events and storage of signal amplitudes. The system operates in a frameless event-driven readout mode, outputting analog values for threshold-triggered events, allowing high-speed multi-element X-ray fluorescence data acquisition. The 3FI ASIC achieves per-channel spectrometric performance at a power consumption of only 200 µW per pixel, with nearly all dissipation confined to the analog front-end. An energy resolution is measured at the level of 308 eV full width at half-maximum (FWHM) at 8.04 keV (Cu Kα), and 138 eV FWHM at 3.69 keV (Ca Kα). This per-pixel capability makes the prototype suitable for in situ trace element microanalysis in biological and environmental studies. Moreover, the frameless architecture of the detector is designed to address limitations of conventional X-ray fluorescence microscopy, which typically requires mechanical scanning, by enabling continuous high-throughput data acquisition in future full-field implementations.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗
DOE OSTI2024

Signatures of Thermal and Electrical Crosstalk in a Microwave Multiplexed Hard X-ray Transition Edge Sensor Array

We investigate the crosstalk between Transition-Edge Sensor (TES) pixels in a 24-pixel hard X-ray spectrometer array fabricated at the Advanced Photon Source, Argonne National Laboratory. Analysis shows thermal cross talk, possibly associated with insufficient thermalization, and rare but larger in magnitude electrical crosstalk between specific perpetrator-victim pixel combinations, potentially due to defects in the bias wiring or microwave multiplexing circuit. We use a method based on group-triggering and averaging to isolate the crosstalk response despite only having access to X-ray photon illumination uniform across the entire array. This allows us to identify thermal and electrical crosstalk between pixel pairs in repeated measurements to the level of 1 part in 1000 or better. In the array under study, the magnitude of observed crosstalk is small but comparable to the resolving power of this pixel design (E/Delta E similar to\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$E/\Delta {}E \sim$$\end{document} 1000 at 20 keV) and so potentially responsible for a degradation in energy resolution of the array at high incident photon rates. Having proven the methods to identify and quantify crosstalk in our setup, we can now consider mitigations.

Triamkitsawat, Panthita↗