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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 865 records · Page 48
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2016

Growing barium hexaferrite (BaFe{sub 12}O{sub 19}) thin films using chemical solution deposition

Barium hexaferrite (BaFe{sub 12}O{sub 19}, or simply known as BaM) thin films has been recognized as a potential candidate for microwave-based devices, magnetic recording media and data storage. To grow BaM thin films, chemical solution deposition is conducted using the aqueous solution of metal nitrates, which involves spin coatings on Si substrates. Furthermore, Thermal Gravimeter Analysis (TGA), X-Ray Diffractometer (XRD), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Vibrating Sample Magnetometer (VSM) are applied to evaluate the decomposition behavior, structure, morphology, and magnetic properties of BaM thin films. Additionally, the effects of number of layers variation are also investigated. Finally, magnetic properties analysis indicates the isotropic nature of the films.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2016

Element-resolved atomic structure imaging of rocksalt Ge{sub 2}Sb{sub 2}Te{sub 5} phase-change material

Disorder-induced electron localization and metal-insulator transitions (MITs) have been a very active research field starting from the seminal paper by Anderson half a century ago. However, pure Anderson insulators are very difficult to identify due to ubiquitous electron-correlation effects. Recently, an MIT has been observed in electrical transport measurements on the crystalline state of phase-change GeSbTe compounds, which appears to be exclusively disorder driven. Subsequent density functional theory simulations have identified vacancy disorder to localize electrons at the Fermi level. Here, we report a direct atomic scale chemical identification experiment on the rocksalt structure obtained upon crystallization of amorphous Ge{sub 2}Sb{sub 2}Te{sub 5}. Our results confirm the two-sublattice structure resolving the distribution of chemical species and demonstrate the existence of atomic disorder on the Ge/Sb/vacancy sublattice. Moreover, we identify a gradual vacancy ordering process upon further annealing. These findings not only provide a structural underpinning of the observed Anderson localization but also have implications for the development of novel multi-level data storage within the crystalline phases.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2016

Metal oxide semiconductor thin-film transistors for flexible electronics

The field of flexible electronics has rapidly expanded over the last decades, pioneering novel applications, such as wearable and textile integrated devices, seamless and embedded patch-like systems, soft electronic skins, as well as imperceptible and transient implants. The possibility to revolutionize our daily life with such disruptive appliances has fueled the quest for electronic devices which yield good electrical and mechanical performance and are at the same time light-weight, transparent, conformable, stretchable, and even biodegradable. Flexible metal oxide semiconductor thin-film transistors (TFTs) can fulfill all these requirements and are therefore considered the most promising technology for tomorrow's electronics. This review reflects the establishment of flexible metal oxide semiconductor TFTs, from the development of single devices, large-area circuits, up to entirely integrated systems. First, an introduction on metal oxide semiconductor TFTs is given, where the history of the field is revisited, the TFT configurations and operating principles are presented, and the main issues and technological challenges faced in the area are analyzed. Then, the recent advances achieved for flexible n-type metal oxide semiconductor TFTs manufactured by physical vapor deposition methods and solution-processing techniques are summarized. In particular, the ability of flexible metal oxide semiconductor TFTs to combine low temperature fabrication, high carrier mobility, large frequency operation, extreme mechanical bendability, together with transparency, conformability, stretchability, and water dissolubility is shown. Afterward, a detailed analysis of the most promising metal oxide semiconducting materials developed to realize the state-of-the-art flexible p-type TFTs is given. Next, the recent progresses obtained for flexible metal oxide semiconductor-based electronic circuits, realized with both unipolar and complementary technology, are reported. In particular, the realization of large-area digital circuitry like flexible near field communication tags and analog integrated circuits such as bendable operational amplifiers is presented. The last topic of this review is devoted for emerging flexible electronic systems, from foldable displays, power transmission elements to integrated systems for large-area sensing and data storage and transmission. Finally, the conclusions are drawn and an outlook over the field with a prediction for the future is provided.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2019

Shear strain-induced anisotropic domain evolution in mixed-phase BiFeO 3 epitaxial films

Understanding and controlling the domain evolution under external stimuli in multiferroic thin films is critical to realizing nano-electronic devices, including for non-volatile memory, data storage, sensors, and optoelectronics. In this article, we studied the shear-strain effect on the domain evolution with temperature in highly strained BiFeO 3 thin films on rhombohedral LaAlO 3 sub-strates using a high-resolution synchrotron X-ray diffraction three dimensional-reciprocal space mapping (3D-RSM) technique. The results revealed significant biaxial, anisotropic, evolution behaviors of the mixed-phase ( M C + R' / T' phases) BiFeO 3 ferro-electric domains along the in-plane [100] and [010] axes. These biaxial, anisotropic, evolution behaviors were attributed to the shear-strain-modulated transition pathways of the mixed-phase ferroelectric domains. This viewpoint was further verified in the BiFeO 3 /LaSrAlO 4 (001) system in which no anisotropic evolution behaviors of the mixed-phase domains were found. This work sheds light on the quantitative analysis of domain evolution in multi-domain systems and demonstrates that the shear-strain effect could act as an effective tool to manipulate the domain behavior and control novel functionalities of ferroelectric thin films.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2019

Understanding the switching mechanism of interfacial phase change memory

Phase Change Memory (PCM) is a top candidate for next generation data storage, but it typically suffers from high switching (RESET) current density (20–30 MA/cm 2 ). Interfacial Phase Change Memory (IPCM) is a type of PCM using multilayers of Sb 2 Te 3 /GeTe, with up to 100× lower reported RESET current compared to the standard Ge 2 Sb 2 Te 5 -based PCM. Several hypotheses involving fundamentally new switching mechanisms have been proposed to explain the low switching current densities, but consensus is lacking. Here, we investigate IPCM switching by analyzing its thermal, electrical, and fabrication dependencies. First, we measure the effective thermal conductivity (~0.4 W m -1 K -1 ) and thermal boundary resistance (~3.4 m 2 K GW -1 ) of Sb 2 Te 3 /GeTe multilayers. Simulations show that IPCM thermal properties account only for an ~13% reduction of current vs standard PCM and cannot explain previously reported results. Interestingly, electrical measurements reveal that our IPCM RESET indeed occurs by a melt-quench process, similar to PCM. Finally, we find that high deposition temperature causes defects including surface roughness and voids within the multilayer films. Thus, the substantial RESET current reduction of IPCM appears to be caused by voids within the multilayers, which migrate to the bottom electrode interface by thermophoresis, reducing the effective contact area. These results shed light on the IPCM switching mechanism, indicating that an improved control of layer deposition is necessary to obtain reliable switching.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2021

Synthesis, engineering, and theory of 2D van der Waals magnets

The recent discovery of magnetism in monolayers of two-dimensional van der Waals materials has opened new venues in materials science and condensed matter physics. Until recently, two-dimensional magnetism remained elusive: Spontaneous magnetic order is a routine instance in three-dimensional materials but it is not a priori guaranteed in the two-dimensional world. Since the 2016 discovery of antiferromagnetism in monolayer FePS 3 by two groups and the subsequent demonstration of ferromagnetic order in monolayer CrI 3 and bilayer Cr 2 Ge 2 Te 6 , the field changed dramatically. Within several years of scientific discoveries focused on 2D magnets, novel opportunities have opened up in the field of spintronics, namely spin pumping devices, spin transfer torque, and tunneling. In this review, we describe the state of the art of the nascent field of magnetic two-dimensional materials focusing on synthesis, engineering, and theory aspects. Finally, we also discuss challenges and some of the many different promising directions for future work, highlighting unique applications that may extend even to other realms, including sensing and data storage.

2D materials↗
DOE OSTI2023

A room temperature exchange bias effect caused by the coexisting martensitic phase structures in Ni50Mn38Sb12−xGax polycrystalline Heusler alloys

The exchange bias effect is the physical cornerstone of applications, such as spin valves, ultra-high-density data storage, and magnetic tunnel junctions. This work studied the room temperature exchange bias effect by constructing a Ni50Mn38Sb12−xGax alloy system with coexisting martensitic phase structures. The study found that the exchange bias effect shows a non-monotonic change with the variation of Ga composition at 300 K, and an obvious room temperature exchange bias effect appears in the alloys with coexisting phase structures of 4O and L10, which is due to the strong exchange coupling between ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic. Further research on the exchange bias effect and temperature shows that the blocking temperature is 420 K, and the exchange bias can stably exist in a temperature range of ∼200 K around room temperature. This work provides a method to engineer exchange bias effects at room temperature.

Physics↗
DOE OSTI2025

From prediction to experimental realization of ferroelectric wurtzite Al1− x Gd x N alloys

AlN-based alloys find widespread application in high-power microelectronics, optoelectronics, and electromechanics. The realization of ferroelectricity in wurtzite AlN-based heterostructural alloys has opened up the possibility of directly integrating ferroelectrics with conventional microelectronics based on tetrahedral semiconductors, such as Si, SiC, and III–Vs, enabling compute-in-memory architectures, high-density data storage, and more. The discovery of AlN-based wurtzite ferroelectrics has been driven to date by chemical intuition and empirical explorations. Here, we demonstrate the computationally-guided discovery and experimental demonstration of new ferroelectric wurtzite Al1−xGdxN alloys. First-principles calculations indicate that the minimum energy pathway for switching changes from a collective to an individual switching process with a lower overall energy barrier, at a rare-earth fraction x with x > 0.10–0.15. Experimentally, ferroelectric switching is observed at room temperature in Al1−xGdxN films with x > 0.12, which strongly supports the switching mechanisms in wurtzite ferroelectrics proposed previously [Lee et al., Sci. Adv. 10, eadl0848 (2024)]. This is also the first demonstration of ferroelectricity in an AlN-based alloy with a magnetic rare-earth element, which could pave the way for additional functionalities such as multiferroicity and opto-ferroelectricity in this exciting class of AlN-based materials.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2025

Direct measurement of reduced exchange stiffness and its impact on magnetic vortex behavior in PyGd alloys

Thin films composed of sputtered transition metal/rare earth (TM/RE) ferrimagnets have emerged as promising building blocks for future spintronic devices, offering tunable magnetic properties critical for data storage, memory, and logic applications. However, understanding how the combination of TM and RE elements influences effective magnetic properties, such as exchange stiffness (Aex), remains challenging. Magnetic vortices provide a versatile tool for probing these properties in thin film systems. By combining magnetic imaging via soft x-ray microscopy and micromagnetic modeling, we quantify the effective exchange stiffness in PyGd ferrimagnetic disks with varying Gd concentrations. Our results indicate a reduction in Aex to below 3 pJ/m for a 20% Gd concentration when compared to reference Py, and values below 2 pJ/m for 30% Gd, reflecting weak Ni–Gd exchange coupling. These findings highlight the critical role of rare earth content in tuning the exchange stiffness. The reduced exchange stiffness facilitates a linear field response of the magnetization up to the edge of the disk, as well as significant deformations in the vortex core itself when compared to films with larger Aex. Our results are in line with, albeit lower than, recent measurements of the exchange stiffness in intermixed PyGd. This reduced exchange stiffness has implications for the development of spintronic devices based on ferrimagnetic skyrmions.

Jacob, Liyan↗
DOE OSTI2012

Pressure tunes electrical resistivity by four orders of magnitude in amorphous Ge[subscript 2]Sb[subscript 2]Te[subscript 5] phase-change memory alloy

Ge-Sb-Te-based phase-change memory is one of the most promising candidates to succeed the current flash memories. The application of phase-change materials for data storage and memory devices takes advantage of the fast phase transition (on the order of nanoseconds) and the large property contrasts (e.g., several orders of magnitude difference in electrical resistivity) between the amorphous and the crystalline states. Despite the importance of Ge-Sb-Te alloys and the intense research they have received, the possible phases in the temperature-pressure diagram, as well as the corresponding structure-property correlations, remain to be systematically explored. In this study, by subjecting the amorphous Ge{sub 2}Sb{sub 2}Te{sub 5} (a-GST) to hydrostatic-like pressure (P), the thermodynamic variable alternative to temperature, we are able to tune its electrical resistivity by several orders of magnitude, similar to the resistivity contrast corresponding to the usually investigated amorphous-to-crystalline (a-GST to rock-salt GST) transition used in current phase-change memories. In particular, the electrical resistivity drops precipitously in the P = 0 to 8 GPa regime. A prominent structural signature representing the underlying evolution in atomic arrangements and bonding in this pressure regime, as revealed by the ab initio molecular dynamics simulations, is the reduction of low-electron-density regions, which contributes to the narrowing of band gap and delocalization of trapped electrons. At P > 8 GPa, we have observed major changes of the average local structures (bond angle and coordination numbers), gradually transforming the a-GST into a high-density, metallic-like state. This high-pressure glass is characterized by local motifs that bear similarities to the body-centered-cubic GST (bcc-GST) it eventually crystallizes into at 28 GPa, and hence represents a bcc-type polyamorph of a-GST.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2018

Topological transformations of Hopf solitons in chiral ferromagnets and liquid crystals

Significance While arising in theories in many branches of science, from particle physics to condensed matter and cosmology, stable three-dimensional topological solitons remained experimentally elusive until very recently. We now show that such solitons can be electrically and magnetically switched between states with the same or different Hopf indices. Richness and robustness of this switching promise technological applications in the new breeds of information displays and data storage devices, as well as may provide a test ground and new inspirations for the mathematical knot theory.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2020

A methodology for generating reduced-order models for large-scale buildings using the Krylov subspace method

Developing a computationally efficient but accurate building energy simulation (BES) model is important for many purposes. Model order reduction (MOR) methods are attractive and much more reliable than identification approaches, since it directly extract a lower-dimensional model from a detailed physics-based model without any pre-simulations. However, because of computational and data storage requirements, there are challenges of applying these methods to a large-scale building. To overcome the problem, this work introduces the Krylov subspace method to the building science field. Technical issues of applying the method to building applications are addressed and a suitable algorithm that overcomes those challenges is presented. Furthermore, to demonstrate the reliability of the algorithm, comparisons between the resulted reduced-order model (ROM) and a high-fidelity model from a commercial BES software for a 60-zone case study building are provided. The ROM was a factor of 100 faster than the high fidelity model but with high accuracy.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2014

Aluminium plasmonics

In this study, we present an overview of 'aluminium plasmonics', i.e. the study of both fundamental and practical aspects of surface plasmon excitations in aluminium structures, in particular thin films and metal nanoparticles. After a brief introduction noting both some recent and historical contributions to aluminium plasmonics, we discuss the optical properties of aluminium and aluminium nanostructures and highlight a few selected studies in a host of areas ranging from fluorescence to data storage.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2016

First-principles calculations of thermal, electrical, and thermoelectric transport properties of semiconductors

The transport properties of semiconductors are key to the performance of many solid-state devices (transistors, data storage, thermoelectric cooling and power generation devices, etc). An understanding of the transport details can lead to material designs with better performances. In recent years simulation tools based on first-principles calculations have been greatly improved, being able to obtain the fundamental ground-state properties of materials (such as band structure and phonon dispersion) accurately. Accordingly, methods have been developed to calculate the transport properties based on an ab initio approach. We focus on the thermal, electrical, and thermoelectric transport properties of semiconductors, which represent the basic transport characteristics of the two degrees of freedom in solids—electronic and lattice degrees of freedom. Starting from the coupled electron-phonon Boltzmann transport equations, we illustrate different scattering mechanisms that change the transport features and review the first-principles approaches that solve the transport equations. We then present the first-principles results on the thermal and electrical transport properties of semiconductors. The discussions are grouped based on different scattering mechanisms including phonon-phonon scattering, phonon scattering by equilibrium electrons, carrier scattering by equilibrium phonons, carrier scattering by polar optical phonons, scatterings due to impurities, alloying and doping, and the phonon drag effect. We show how the first-principles methods allow one to investigate transport properties with unprecedented detail and also offer new insights into the electron and phonon transport. The current status of the simulation is mentioned when appropriate and some of the future directions are also discussed.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2011

An x-ray absorption spectroscopic study of the electronic structure and bonding of rare-earth orthoferrites

Rare-earth orthoferrites, REFeO{sub 3} (RE=rare earth; Y), are tremendously adaptable compounds that are being investigated for use in a wide variety of applications including gas sensors, vehicle catalytic converters, and solid-oxide fuel cells. They also exhibit interesting magnetic properties such as high-temperature antiferromagnetism, making them useful for data storage applications. The compounds adopt a distorted perovskite-type structure where the tilt angle of the octahedra increases (Fe-O-Fe bond angle decreases) as the size of the rare-earth atom decreases. Despite intensive study of the physical properties of these compounds, very few studies have investigated how the bonding and electronic structure of these systems change with substitution of the RE. X-ray absorption near-edge spectroscopy (XANES) is a technique well-suited for such a study, and, in view of this, Fe L-, Fe K- and O K-edge spectra from a series of REFeO{sub 3} compounds (RE=La, Pr, Nd, Sm, Eu, Gd, Ho, Yb, Y) have been collected, and are presented here. Fe L-edge spectra show that Fe is octahedrally coordinated and that the Fe-centered octahedra do not appear to distort with changes in the identity of the RE. The Fe K-edge spectra contain an intersite hybrid peak, which is an ill-studied feature that is attributed to non-local transitions of 1s electrons to 3d states on the next-nearest-neighbor atom that are hybridized with 4p states on the absorbing atom through O 2p states. In this study, it is shown that the intensity of this feature is strongly dependent on the Fe-O-Fe bond angle; the lower the Fe-O-Fe bond angle, the less intense the intersite hybrid peak is.

30 DIRECT ENERGY CONVERSION↗
DOE OSTI2020

Review: knots and other new topological effects in liquid crystals and colloids

Abstract Humankind has been obsessed with knots in religion, culture and daily life for millennia, while physicists like Gauss, Kelvin and Maxwell already involved them in models centuries ago. Nowadays, colloidal particles can be fabricated to have shapes of knots and links with arbitrary complexity. In liquid crystals, closed loops of singular vortex lines can be knotted by using colloidal particles and laser tweezers, as well as by confining nematic fluids into micrometer-sized droplets with complex topology. Knotted and linked colloidal particles induce knots and links of singular defects, which can be interlinked (or not) with colloidal particle knots, revealing the diversity of interactions between topologies of knotted fields and topologically nontrivial surfaces of colloidal objects. Even more diverse knotted structures emerge in nonsingular molecular alignment and magnetization fields in liquid crystals and colloidal ferromagnets. The topological solitons include hopfions, skyrmions, heliknotons, torons and other spatially localized continuous structures, which are classified based on homotopy theory, characterized by integer-valued topological invariants and often contain knotted or linked preimages, nonsingular regions of space corresponding to single points of the order parameter space. A zoo of topological solitons in liquid crystals, colloids and ferromagnets promises new breeds of information displays and a plethora of data storage, electro-optic and photonic applications. Their particle-like collective dynamics echoes coherent motions in active matter, ranging from crowds of people to schools of fish. This review discusses the state of the art in the field, as well as highlights recent developments and open questions in physics of knotted soft matter. We systematically overview knotted field configurations, the allowed transformations between them, their physical stability and how one can use one form of knotted fields to model, create and imprint other forms. The large variety of symmetries accessible to liquid crystals and colloids offer insights into stability, transformation and emergent dynamics of fully nonsingular and singular knotted fields of fundamental and applied importance. The common thread of this review is the ability to experimentally visualize these knots in real space. The review concludes with a discussion of how the studies of knots in liquid crystals and colloids can offer insights into topologically related structures in other branches of physics, with answers to many open questions, as well as how these experimentally observable knots hold a strong potential for providing new inspirations to the mathematical knot theory.

Physics↗
DOE OSTI2012

Identifying gaps in grid middleware on fast networks with the advanced networking initiative

As of 2012, a number of US Department of Energy (DOE) National Laboratories have access to a 100 Gb/s wide-area network backbone. The ESnet Advanced Networking Initiative (ANI) project is intended to develop a prototype network, based on emerging 100 Gb/s Ethernet technology. The ANI network will support DOE's science research programs. A 100 Gb/s network test bed is a key component of the ANI project. The test bed offers the opportunity for early evaluation of 100Gb/s network infrastructure for supporting the high impact data movement typical of science collaborations and experiments. In order to make effective use of this advanced infrastructure, the applications and middleware currently used by the distributed computing systems of large-scale science need to be adapted and tested within the new environment, with gaps in functionality identified and corrected. As a user of the ANI test bed, Fermilab aims to study the issues related to end-to-end integration and use of 100 Gb/s networks for the event simulation and analysis applications of physics experiments. In this paper we discuss our findings from evaluating existing HEP Physics middleware and application components, including GridFTP, Globus Online, etc. in the high-speed environment. These will include possible recommendations to the system administrators, application and middleware developers on changes that would make production use of the 100 Gb/s networks, including data storage, caching and wide area access.

Dykstra, Dave↗
DOE OSTI2021

Quantifying nitrogen loss hotspots and mitigation potential for individual fields in the US Corn Belt with a metamodeling approach

The high productivity in the US Corn Belt is largely enabled by the consumption of millions of tons of manufactured fertilizer. Excessive application of nitrogen (N) fertilizer has been pervasive in this region, and the unrecovered N eventually escaped from croplands in forms of nitrous oxide (N 2 O) emission and N leaching. Mitigating these negative impacts is hindered by a lack of practical information on where to focus and how much mitigation potential to expect. At a large scale, process-based crop models are the primary tools for predicting variables required by decision making, but their applications are prohibited by expensive computational and data storage costs. To overcome these challenges, we built a series of metamodels to learn the key mechanisms regarding the carbon (C) and N cycle from a well-validated process-based biogeochemical model, ecosys. The trained metamodel captures over 98% of the variability of the ecosys simulated outputs for 99 randomly selected counties in Iowa, Illinois, and Indiana. To identify hotspots with high mitigation potential, we introduce net societal benefit (NSB) as an indicator for synthesizing the loss in yield and social benefits through emissions and pollutants avoided. Our results show that reducing N fertilizer by 10% leads to 9.8% less N 2 O emissions and 9.6% less N leaching at the cost of 4.9% more SOC depletion and 0.6% yield reduction over the study region. The estimated total annual NSB is $\$395$ M (uncertainty ranges from $\$114$ M to $\$1271$ M), including $\$334$ from social benefits (uncertainty ranges from $\$46$ M to $\$1076$ M), $\$100$ M from saving fertilizer (uncertainty ranges from $\$13$ M to $\$455$ M), and –$\$40$ M due to yield changes (uncertainty ranges from –$\$261$ M to $\$69$ M). For the median scenario, we noted that 20% of the study area accounts for nearly 50% of the NSB, and thus represent hotspot locations for targeted mitigation. Although the uncertainty range suggests that developing such a high-resolution framework is not yet settled and the scenario based estimations are not appropriate to inform the management practices for individual farmers, our efforts shed light on the new generation of analytical tools for life cycle assessment.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗