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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 127 records · Page 7
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2022

Evaluating changes in growth and pigmentation of Cladosporium cladosporioides and Paecilomyces variotii in response to gamma and ultraviolet irradiation

Abstract Melanin-containing fungi (black molds) have the capacity to thrive under extreme environmental conditions such as the elevated radiation levels inside the former Chernobyl reactors. These fungi have been hypothesized to grow toward and use gamma radiation as an energy source, but the literature does not clearly address which energies of the electromagnetic spectrum, if any, positively affect fungal growth. The goal of this work was to characterize the response of non-melanized and melanized fungi to two distinct electromagnetic wavelengths, i.e., ultraviolet (UV) and gamma ray, keeping absorption and other potentially confounding variables constant. Exposure to UV or gamma radiation induced significant changes in fungi pigmentation, but not growth rate of Cladosporium cladosporioides and Paecilomyces variotii . Specifically, increased pigmentation of both fungi was observed in samples exposed to UV, while decreased pigmentation was observed for gamma-irradiated samples. These results provide new insights into the role of electromagnetic energies on growth of fungi and provide an impetus to examine additional energies and types of radiation to develop a fundamental understanding of this phenomenon.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2026

Drift-kinetic effects of tungsten on plasma response to RMP in ITER

Here, effects of high- Z ( Z is the particle charge number) tungsten impurity ions on the plasma response to the resonant magnetic perturbation (RMP) field are numerically investigated for the ITER 15 MA baseline scenario, where the tungsten contribution to the plasma response is computed with a drift-kinetic model while the bulk thermal particle contributions follow the fluid approximation. The study yields three highlights: (i) the drift-kinetic contribution of the tungsten impurity exerts minor influence on the plasma response compared to that computed by the pure fluid model without tungsten; (ii) a new figure of merit, based on the resonant spectrum perturbation at the plasma boundary surface, results in different optimal coil phasing compared to that previously obtained by maximizing the edge-peeling plasma response; (iii) the optimal $n = 3$ RMP (for edge localized mode (ELM) control, $n$ is the toroidal mode number) is found to induce a large tungsten particle influx near the plasma edge associated with the neoclassical toroidal viscosity. The study thus provides useful data on the compatibility of the full tungsten wall with RMP ELM control in ITER.

ITER↗
DOE OSTI2024

Evaluating the mutagenicity of N-nitrosodimethylamine in 2D and 3D HepaRG cell cultures using error-corrected next generation sequencing

Human liver-derived metabolically competent HepaRG cells have been successfully employed in both two-dimensional (2D) and 3D spheroid formats for performing the comet assay and micronucleus (MN) assay. In the present study, we have investigated expanding the genotoxicity endpoints evaluated in HepaRG cells by detecting mutagenesis using two error-corrected next generation sequencing (ecNGS) technologies, Duplex Sequencing (DS) and High-Fidelity (HiFi) Sequencing. Both HepaRG 2D cells and 3D spheroids were exposed for 72 h to N-nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA), followed by an additional incubation for the fixation of induced mutations. NDMA-induced DNA damage, chromosomal damage, and mutagenesis were determined using the comet assay, MN assay, and ecNGS, respectively. The 72-h treatment with NDMA resulted in concentration-dependent increases in cytotoxicity, DNA damage, MN formation, and mutation frequency in both 2D and 3D cultures, with greater responses observed in the 3D spheroids compared to 2D cells. The mutational spectrum analysis showed that NDMA induced predominantly A:T → G:C transitions, along with a lower frequency of G:C → A:T transitions, and exhibited a different trinucleotide signature relative to the negative control. These results demonstrate that the HepaRG 2D cells and 3D spheroid models can be used for mutagenesis assessment using both DS and HiFi Sequencing, with the caveat that severe cytotoxic concentrations should be avoided when conducting DS. With further validation, the HepaRG 2D/3D system may become a powerful human-based metabolically competent platform for genotoxicity testing.

3D spheroids↗
DOE OSTI2023

Electron and ion spectroscopy of azobenzene in the valence and core shells

Azobenzene is a prototype and a building block of a class of molecules of extreme technological interest as molecular photo-switches. We present a joint experimental and theoretical study of its response to irradiation with light across the UV to x-ray spectrum. The study of valence and inner shell photo-ionization and excitation processes combined with measurement of valence photoelectron-photoion coincidence and mass spectra across the core thresholds provides a detailed insight into the site- and state-selected photo-induced processes. Photo-ionization and excitation measurements are interpreted via the multi-configurational restricted active space self-consistent field method corrected by second order perturbation theory. Using static modeling, we demonstrate that the carbon and nitrogen K edges of azobenzene are suitable candidates for exploring its photoinduced dynamics thanks to the transient signals appearing in background-free regions of the NEXAFS and XPS.

Chemistry↗
DOE OSTI2026

Low power on-chip data transmission for wafer-scale monolithic active pixel sensors

Here, this paper details the implementation of the digital pulse shaping subsystem within the Backbone Transmission Line Encoding (BTLE) driver, a low-power, long-distance on-chip data transmission solution designed in a 65 nm CMOS process. Digital pulse shaping is critical for minimizing inter-symbol interference (ISI) caused by bandwidth limitations of on-chip interconnects, especially in wafer-scale monolithic active pixel sensors (MAPS). A duobinary encoder coupled with a parallelized polyphase finite impulse response (FIR) filter is used for efficient shaping of the transmitted signal spectrum. This reconfigurable architecture achieves reliable 160 Mb/s data transfer over a 10 cm on-chip link, as validated by simulations demonstrating low power consumption (FoM 37.3 fJ/bit/mm of transmission line length) and effective ISI mitigation.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗
DOE OSTI2024

Applications of LIF to Document Natural Variability of Chlorophyll Content and Cu Uptake in Moss

Chlorophyll has long been used as a natural indicator of plant health and photosynthetic efficiency. Laser-induced fluorescence (LIF) is an emerging technique for understanding broad spectrum organic processes and has more recently been used to monitor chlorophyll response in plants. Previous work has focused on developing a LIF technique for imaging moss mats to identify metal contamination with the current focus shifting toward application to moss fronds and aiding sample collection for chemical analysis. Two laser systems (CoCoBi a Nd:YGa pulsed laser system and Chl-SL with two blue continuous semiconductor diodes) were used to collect images of moss fronds exposed to increasing levels of Cu (1, 10, and 100 nmol/cm 2 ) using a CMOS camera. The best methods for the preprocessing of images were conducted before the analysis of fluorescence signatures were compared to a control. The Chl-SL system performed better than the CoCoBi, with dynamic time warping (DTW) proving the most effective for image analysis. Manual thresholding to remove lower decimal code values improved the data distributions and proved whether using one or two fronds in an image was more advantageous. A higher DTW difference from the control correlated to lower chlorophyll a/b ratios and a higher metal content, indicating that LIF, with the aid of image processing, can be an effective technique for identifying Cu contamination shortly after an event.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2020

Characterization of Partial Charge Collection Induced by Neutron Damage in High-Purity Germanium Detectors

This paper investigates the correlation of damage induced by neutron interactions and degradation in the spectra of HPGe detectors. As neutrons kinetically interact with germanium crystals, they create interstitial and vacancy defects within the lattice. These defects then interfere with the charge migration of electron-hole pairs and reduce resolution in the observed energy spectrum. The partial charge collection produces observable spectral changes by increasing the peak width and reducing resolution (full width half maximum). A detailed characterization using various check sources was performed before and after iterations of neutron exposure in order to observe the effects of the neutron damage. An additional set of measurements was performed along with characterizations to show the detector’s response at discrete locations on the HPGe crystal. This was done to observe how the spectrum changes when the gamma rays are isolated to regions of various thicknesses of germanium. In order to impart damage, the detector was placed inside a californium shuffler with the face of the detector against the guide tube for the 252 Cf source. For irradiation of the HPGe, the source was then positioned in front of the face of the detector using the stepper motor of the shuffler. The neutron exposure time intervals were recorded and increased based on the initial damage observed. An MCNP simulation was performed to estimate the amount of interactions that occurred in the germanium crystal to ensure enough damage had occurred. Studying the effects that neutron damage imparts on a bullet-type HPGe detector can help provide necessary data to estimate total neutron exposure limits, reduce the likelihood of decisions made on suspect data, and aid in diagnostics of a damaged detector.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2025

Monte Carlo toolkit for designing and validating step-range-filter spectrometer designs

Here, we present a Monte Carlo toolkit for validating step range filter (SRF) spectrometer designs. Geant4 is used to transport charged particles through the SRF filters to generate synthetic SRF data that include realistic CR-39 effects. Synthetic SRF spectra generated by this method inherently account for instrument response and allow for the quantification of SRF performance before shots. The usefulness of this toolkit is demonstrated through its application to a number of problems. A new broadband SRF for the ∼10 MeV wide 3He3He proton spectrum is validated, and an analysis method for analyzing 3He3He-p SRF data that accounts for instrument response is put forth. In addition, an SRF design for the compact recoil-proton spectrometer (CRS) on the Z-machine is validated. Finally, a new calibration technique for the DD-p SRF is proposed and validated.

Johnson, T. M. (ORCID:0000000193032949)↗
DOE OSTI2022

The root-zone soil moisture spectrum in a mediterranean ecosystem

Storage of water within soil pores of the root zone introduce memory effects in the dynamics of soil moisture that are considerably longer than the integral timescale of many atmospheric processes. Thus, hydro-climatic states can be “sustained” through land-surface heat and water vapor fluxes primarily because they can “feed off” on this long-term soil moisture memory. Root-zone soil moisture memory is only but one feature characterizing the spectrum of soil moisture dynamics, which is analyzed here using a combination of long-term measurements and models. In particular, the spectrum of root-zone soil moisture content in a Mediterranean ecosystem is examined using 14-years of half-hourly measurements. A distinguishing hydro-climatic feature in such ecosystems is that sources (mainly rainfall) and sinks (mainly evapotranspiration) of soil moisture are roughly out of phase with each other. For over 4 decades of time scales and 7 decades of energy, the canonical shape of the measured soil moisture spectrum is shown to be approximately Lorentzian determined by the soil moisture variance and its memory but with two exceptions: the occurrences of a peak at diurnal-to-daily time scales and a weaker peak at near annual time scales. Model calculations and spectral analysis demonstrate that diurnal and seasonal variations in hydroclimate forcing responsible for variability in evapotranspiration had minor impact on the normalized shape of the soil moisture spectrum. However, their impact was captured by adjustments in the temporal variance. These findings indicate that precipitation and not evapotranspiration variability dominates the multi-scaling properties of soil moisture variability consistent with prior climate model simulations. Furthermore, the soil moisture memory inferred by the annual peak of soil moisture (340 d) is consistent with climate model simulations, while the memory evaluated from the loss function of a linearized mass balance approach leads to a smaller value (50 d), highlighting the effect of weak non-stationarity on soil moisture variability.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2020

Oak Ridge Response to Versatile Test Reactor Environmental Impact Statement Data Request

The Versatile Test Reactor (VTR) is a fast-spectrum test reactor being developed in the United States under the direction of the US Department of Energy Office of Nuclear Energy (DOE-NE). The VTR mission is to enable accelerated testing of advanced reactor fuels and materials required for advanced reactor technologies. The conceptual design of the 300 MWth sodium-cooled metallic-fueled pool-type fast reactor has been led by the US National Laboratories in collaboration with General Electric–Hitachi and Bechtel National, Inc. In support of the VTR project, DOE issued a Notice of Intent (NOI) in the Federal Register on August 5, 2019, announcing the intent to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) in accordance with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and its implementing regulations. The EIS will evaluate alternatives for a versatile reactor–based fast-neutron source facility and associated facilities for the preparation, irradiation, and post-irradiation examination (PIE) of test/experimental fuels and materials. Specifically, the NOI identified two siting alternatives for the VTR reactor facility: Idaho National Laboratory (INL) or Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). In addition, the NOI also specified two siting alternatives for VTR fuel fabrication: INL and the Savannah River Site (SRS). This report provides information in response to data requests made to ORNL to fill in site-specific knowledge gaps to develop a high-quality EIS. The responses provided are not required to provide full details in every aspect; instead, they adequately bound possible environmental impacts or provide sufficient information to adequately assess likely environmental impacts. This work is being performed under a subcontract from INL to ORNL using DOE-NE funds and is directed by DOE-NE and DOE-ID. Leidos has been contracted by DOE-NE to write the VTR EIS, so most data requests have come from Leidos but were often routed through INL or DOE-ID. DOE-ID is overseeing the NEPA and EIS processes for the VTR project. Leidos will use the information provided in this report to inform the VTR EIS and will also cite this document to establish a clear, publicly available source of the information. Section 2 of this report briefly describes the proposed ORNL VTR Alternative and illustrates the location of the proposed site for the ORNL VTR Alternative. Sections 3 through 7 provide direct responses to data requests received by ORNL. These sections use a tabular format in which data requests are divided into separate items to be addressed; the items are numbered, the data requests are restated with more topical information included, and then the responses are provided. Initial data requests and follow-on requests for additional information (RAIs) are combined under the original data request fields. Finally, Section 8 presents summarized conclusions and describes future work.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗
DOE OSTI2022

Beware of fake ν ’s: The effect of massive neutrinos on the nonlinear evolution of cosmic structure

Massive neutrinos suppress the growth of cosmic structure on small, nonlinear scales. It is thus often proposed that using statistics beyond the power spectrum can tighten constraints on the neutrino mass by extracting additional information from these nonlinear scales. We study the information content regarding neutrino mass at the field level, quantifying how much of this information arises from the difference in nonlinear evolution between a cosmology with one fluid [cold dark matter (CDM)] and two fluids ( CDM + neutrinos ). We do so by running two N -body simulations, one with and one without massive neutrinos, both with the same phases, and matching their linear power spectrum at a given low redshift. This effectively isolates the information encoded in the linear initial conditions from the nonlinear cosmic evolution. We demonstrate that, for k ≲ 1 h / Mpc , and for a single redshift, there is negligible difference in the real-space CDM field between the two simulations. This suggests that all the information regarding neutrino mass is in the linear power spectrum set by the initial conditions. Thus, any probe based on the CDM field alone will have negligible constraining power beyond that which exists at the linear level over the same range of scales. Consequently, any probe based on the halo field will contain little information beyond the linear power. We find similar results for the matter field responsible for weak lensing. We also demonstrate that there may be much information beyond the power spectrum in the 3D matter field; however, this is not observable in modern surveys via dark matter halos or weak lensing. Finally, we show that there is additional information to be found in redshift space.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2020

Flat Bands and Chiral Optical Response of Moiré Insulators

Here, we present a low-energy model describing the reconstruction of the electronic spectrum in twisted bilayers of honeycomb crystals with broken sublattice symmetry. The resulting moiré patterns are classified into two families with different symmetry. In both cases, flat bands appear at relatively large angles without any magic-angle condition. Transitions between them give rise to sharp resonances in the optical absorption spectrum at frequencies well below the gap of the monolayer. Owing to their chiral symmetry, twisted bilayers display circular dichroism, that is, different absorption of left and right circularly polarized light. This optical activity is a nonlocal property determined by the stacking. In hexagonal boron nitride, sensitivity to the stacking leads to strikingly different circular dichroism in the two types of moirés. Our calculations exemplify how subtle properties of the electronic wave functions, encoded in current correlations between the layers, control physical observables of moiré materials.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2023

Topological Circular Dichroism in Chiral Multifold Semimetals

Uncovering the physical contents of the nontrivial topology of quantum states is a critical problem in condensed matter physics. Here, we study the topological circular dichroism in chiral semimetals using linear response theory and first-principles calculations. We show that, when the low-energy spectrum respects emergent SO(3) rotational symmetry, topological circular dichroism is forbidden for Weyl fermions, and thus is unique to chiral multifold fermions. This is a result of the selection rule that is imposed by the emergent symmetry under the combination of particle-hole conjugation and spatial inversion. Using first-principles calculations, we predict that topological circular dichroism occurs in CoSi for photon energy below about 0.2 eV. In conclusion, our Letter demonstrates the existence of a response property of unconventional fermions that is fundamentally different from the response of Dirac and Weyl fermions, motivating further study to uncover other unique responses.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2024

Near-Field Passive Wireless Sensor for High-Temperature Metal Corrosion Monitoring

This work focuses on the fabrication and evaluation of a passive wireless sensor for the monitoring of the temperature and corrosion of a metal material at high temperatures. An inductor–capacitor (LC) resonator sensor was fabricated through the screen printing of Ag-based inks on dense polycrystalline Al 2 O 3 substrates. The LC design was modeled using the ANSYS HFSS modeling package, with the LC passive wireless sensors operating at frequencies from 70 to 100 MHz. The wireless response of the LC was interrogated and received by a radio frequency signal generator and spectrum analyzer at temperatures from 50 to 800 °C in real time. The corrosion kinetics of the Cu 110 was characterized through thermogravimetric (TGA) analysis and microscopy images, and the oxide thickness growth was then correlated to the wireless sensor signal under isothermal conditions at 800 °C. The results showed that the wireless signal was consistent with the corrosion kinetics and temperature, indicating that these two characteristics can be further deconvoluted in the future. In addition, the sensor also showed a magnitude- and frequency-dependent response to crack/spallation events in the oxide corrosion layer, permitting the in situ wireless identification of these catastrophic events on the metal surface at high temperatures.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2024

Collective excitations and low-energy ionization signatures of relativistic particles in silicon detectors

Abstract Solid-state detectors with a low energy threshold have several applications, including searches of non-relativistic halo dark-matter particles with sub-GeV masses. When searching for relativistic, beyond-the-Standard-Model particles with enhanced cross sections for small energy transfers, a small detector with a low energy threshold may have better sensitivity than a larger detector with a higher energy threshold. In this paper, we calculate the low-energy ionization spectrum from high-velocity particles scattering in a dielectric material. We consider the full material response including the excitation of bulk plasmons. We generalize the energy-loss function to relativistic kinematics, and benchmark existing tools used for halo dark-matter scattering against electron energy-loss spectroscopy data. Compared to calculations commonly used in the literature, such as the Photo-Absorption-Ionization model or the free-electron model, including collective effects shifts the recoil ionization spectrum towards higher energies, typically peaking around 4–6 electron-hole pairs. We apply our results to the three benchmark examples: millicharged particles produced in a beam, neutrinos with a magnetic dipole moment produced in a reactor, and upscattered dark-matter particles. Our results show that the proper inclusion of collective effects typically enhances a detector’s sensitivity to these particles, since detector backgrounds, such as dark counts, peak at lower energies.

Physics↗
DOE OSTI2022

Experimental discovery of structure–property relationships in ferroelectric materials via active learning

Emergent functionalities of structural and topological defects in ferroelectric materials underpin an extremely broad spectrum of applications ranging from domain wall electronics to high dielectric and electromechanical responses. Many of these functionalities have been discovered and quantified via local scanning probe microscopy methods. However, the search has until now been based on either trial and error, or using auxiliary information such as the topography or domain wall structure to identify potential objects of interest on the basis of the intuition of operator or pre-existing hypotheses, with subsequent manual exploration. Here we report the development and implementation of a machine learning framework that actively discovers relationships between local domain structure and polarization-switching characteristics in ferroelectric materials encoded in the hysteresis loop. The hysteresis loops and their scalar descriptors such as nucleation bias, coercive bias and the hysteresis loop area (or more complex functionals of hysteresis loop shape) and corresponding uncertainties are used to guide the discovery of these relationships via automated piezoresponse force microscopy and spectroscopy experiments. As such, this approach combines the power of machine learning methods to learn the correlative relationships between high-dimensional data, as well as human-based physics insights encoded into the acquisition function. For ferroelectric materials, this automated workflow demonstrates that the discovery path and sampling points of on- and off-field hysteresis loops are largely different, indicating that on- and off-field hysteresis loops are dominated by different mechanisms. Here, the proposed approach is universal and can be applied to a broad range of modern imaging and spectroscopy methods ranging from other scanning probe microscopy modalities to electron microscopy and chemical imaging.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2021

A fully kinetic model for orphan gamma-ray flares in blazars

ABSTRACT Blazars emit a highly variable non-thermal spectrum. It is usually assumed that the same non-thermal electrons are responsible for the IR-optical-UV emission (via synchrotron) and the gamma-ray emission (via inverse Compton). Hence, the light curves in the two bands should be correlated. Orphan gamma-ray flares (i.e. lacking a luminous low-frequency counterpart) challenge our theoretical understanding of blazars. By means of large-scale two-dimensional radiative particle-in-cell simulations, we show that orphan gamma-ray flares may be a self-consistent by-product of particle energization in turbulent magnetically dominated pair plasmas. The energized particles produce the gamma-ray flare by inverse Compton scattering an external radiation field, while the synchrotron luminosity is heavily suppressed since the particles are accelerated nearly along the direction of the local magnetic field. The ratio of inverse Compton to synchrotron luminosity is sensitive to the initial strength of turbulent fluctuations (a larger degree of turbulent fluctuations weakens the anisotropy of the energized particles, thus increasing the synchrotron luminosity). Our results show that the anisotropy of the non-thermal particle population is key to modelling the blazar emission.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2022

Development of self-sensing materials for extreme environments based on metamaterial concept and additive manufacturing

Structural health monitoring of an engineered component in a harsh environment is critical for multiple DOE missions including nuclear fuel cycle, subsurface energy production/storage, and energy conversion. Supported by a seeding Laboratory Directed Research & Development (LDRD) project, we have explored a new concept for structural health monitoring by introducing a self-sensing capability into structural components. The concept is based on two recent technological advances: metamaterials and additive manufacturing. A self-sensing capability can be engineered by embedding a metastructure, for example, a sheet of electromagnetic resonators, either metallic or dielectric, into a material component. This embedment can now be realized using 3-D printing. The precise geometry of the embedded metastructure determines how the material interacts with an incident electromagnetic wave. Any change in the structure of the material (e.g., straining, degradation, etc.) would inevitably perturbate the embedded metastructures or metasurface array and therefore alter the electromagnetic response of the material, thus resulting in a frequency shift of a reflection spectrum that can be detected passively and remotely. This new sensing approach eliminates complicated environmental shielding, in-situ power supply, and wire routing that are generally required by the existing active-circuit-based sensors. The work documented in this report has preliminarily demonstrated the feasibility of the proposed concept. The work has established the needed simulation tools and experimental capabilities for future studies.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗