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DOE OSTI2026

Laboratory Directed Research and Development Program: FY 2025 Completed Projects

Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) is the US Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) largest multiprogram science, technology, and energy laboratory. It possesses distinctive capabilities in a variety of fields, such as neutron science, computing, advanced materials, and nuclear science and technology. Using these capabilities, ORNL conducts basic and applied research and development (R&D) to support DOE’s overarching mission “to ensure America’s security and prosperity by addressing its energy, environmental and nuclear challenges through transformative science and technology solutions.” As a national resource, ORNL also applies its capabilities and skills to the specific needs of other federal agencies and customers through the DOE Strategic Partnership Projects (SPP) Program. Information about the laboratory and its programs is available on the ORNL website. The Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) Program at ORNL operates under the authority of DOE Order 413.2C, Laboratory Directed Research and Development, which establishes DOE’s requirements for the program while providing the laboratory director broad flexibility for program implementation. The LDRD Program funds are obtained through a charge to all laboratory programs. Although it represents a relatively small portion of the overall research budget, the LDRD Program plays an essential role in maintaining the laboratory’s ability to respond to national needs. The program allows ORNL to improve its distinctive capabilities and enhance its ability to conduct cutting-edge R&D. In accordance with the DOE order, R&D projects funded through the LDRD Program at ORNL support the goals of • maintaining the scientific and technical vitality of the laboratory, • enhancing the laboratory’s ability to address future DOE missions, • fostering creativity and stimulating exploration of forefront areas of science and technology, • serving as a proving ground for new concepts in R&D, and • supporting high-risk, potentially high-value R&D. This report provides an overview of the LDRD Program at ORNL in FY 2025 and contains summaries of all the LDRD research projects that concluded between October 1, 2024, and September 30, 2025.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗

DOE OSTI2026

2026 Annual Molten Salt Reactor Campaign Review

This report documents the 2026 Annual Molten Salt Reactor (MSR) Campaign Review held in Albuquerque, New Mexico, from April 21–24, 2026. The review was organized by Dr. Patricia Paviet, National Technical Director of the Advanced Reactor Technology (ART) MSR program for the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Nuclear Energy (DOE-NE), and included participation from principal investigators, federal managers, developers, regulators, and members of the broader MSR community. The 2026 review expanded beyond the ART-MSR campaign to include related DOE-NE programs supporting molten salt reactor advancement, including the Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) program, the Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies (AMMT) program, Advanced Reactor Safeguards and Security (ARSS), Material Protection, Accounting and Control Technologies (MPACT), and relevant advanced fuels activities. Three days were dedicated to technical presentations and panel discussions covering thermal properties, off-gas management, modeling and simulation, safety and licensing, safeguards and security, materials and corrosion, and irradiation activities. A fourth day was dedicated to technical tours of Sandia National Laboratories and Kairos Power facilities. Attendance was strong and comparable to the prior annual review, with approximately 75 in-person participants per day, 75–80 virtual attendees per day, and approximately 30 participants in the tour day. The review fostered significant technical exchange across national laboratories, universities, industry, regulators, and international participants. This report summarizes the review structure, technical themes, participation, tours, feedback, and conclusions relevant to future planning for the MSR campaign.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗

DOE OSTI2024

Interim report for the International Muon Collider Collaboration (IMCC)

The International Muon Collider Collaboration (IMCC) [1] was established in 2020 following the recommendations of the European Strategy for Particle Physics (ESPP) and the implementation of the European Strategy for Particle Physics-Accelerator R&D Roadmap by the Laboratory Directors Group [2], hereinafter referred to as the the European LDG roadmap. The Muon Collider Study (MuC) covers the accelerator complex, detectors and physics for a future muon collider. In 2023, European Commission support was obtained for a design study of a muon collider (MuCol) [3]. This project started on 1st March 2023, with work-packages aligned with the overall muon collider studies. In preparation of and during the 2021-22 U.S. Snowmass process, the muon collider project parameters, technical studies and physics performance studies were performed and presented in great detail. Recently, the P5 panel [4] in the U.S. recommended a muon collider R&D, proposed to join the IMCC and envisages that the U.S. should prepare to host a muon collider, calling this their "muon shot". In the past, the U.S. Muon Accelerator Programme (MAP) [5] has been instrumental in studies of concepts and technologies for a muon collider.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗

DOE OSTI2024

ARPA-E Grid Optimization (GO) Competition Challenge 2

The ARPA-E Grid Optimization (GO) Competition Challenge 2, from 2020 to 2021, expanded upon the problem posed in Challenge 1 by adding adjustable transformer tap ratios, phase shifting transformers, switchable shunts, price-responsive demand, ramp rate constrained generators and loads, and fast-start unit commitment. Furthermore, Challenge 2 was a maximization problem while Challenge 1 was a minimization problem. Specifically, the economic surplus, defined as the benefit of serving load minus the cost of generation, is being maximized. It was expected that the objective value of a given solution should be positive, representing economic gain, but negative objectives from poor solutions were possible. The two code submission feature of Challenge 1 was maintained. Additionally, Divisions 3 and 4 within the competition permitted on/off switching of transmission lines (Divisions 1 and 2 did not). After the initial release of the Problem Formulation on 7/20/2020, ARPA-E Director Lane Genatowski announced Challenge 2 on 9/12/2020. The final May 31, 2021, version of the Problem Formulation was 97 pages long with 299 equations. The Challenge proceeded with 2 non-prize Events and 2 prize Events. Teams receiving Challenge 1 FOA awards and prize money were required to use the prize money to fund their Challenge 2 efforts (Georgia Institute of Technology, Global Optimal Technology, Inc., Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Lehigh University, Northwestern University, Artelys, Columbia, Pearl Street Technologies, Pennsylvania State University, and University of Colorado Boulder). For more information on the competition and challenge 2 see the "GO Competition Challenge 2 Information" resource below. Challenge 1 and Challenge 3 information can be found in the resources linked below.

ACOPF↗

DOE OSTI2013

Global Carbon Project: the 2013 global carbon budget (includes V.1.1, Nov2013, V.1.3, Dec2013, V.2.3, June2014, and V.2.4, July2014)

Global emissions of carbon dioxide from the combustion of fossil fuels will reach 36 billion tonnes for the year 2013. "This is a level unprecedented in human history," says CSIRO's Dr Pep Canadell, Executive-Director of the Global Carbon Project (GCP) and co-author of a new report. The GCP provides an annual report of carbon dioxide emissions, land and ocean sinks and accumulation in the atmosphere, incorporating data from multiple research institutes from around the world. The 2013 figures coincide with the global launch of the Global Carbon Atlas, an online platform to explore, visualise and interpret the emissions data at the global, regional and national scales (www.globalcarbonatlas.org). The full data and methods are published today in the journal Earth System Science Data Discussions, and data and other graphic materials can be found at: www.globalcarbonproject.org/carbonbudget. The Global Carbon Budget 2013 is a collaborative effort of the global carbon cycle science community coordinated by the Global Carbon Project.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

DOE OSTI2013

Global Carbon Project: the 2013 Global Carbon Budget (Version 2.3, issued June 2014)

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

DOE OSTI2022

Knowing the unknown: The underestimation of monkeypox cases. Insights and implications from an integrative review of the literature

Monkeypox is an emerging zoonotic disease caused by the monkeypox virus, which is an infectious agent belonging to the genus Orthopoxvirus. Currently, commencing from the end of April 2022, an outbreak of monkeypox is ongoing, with more than 43,000 cases reported as of 23 August 2022, involving 99 countries and territories across all the six World Health Organization (WHO) regions. On 23 July 2022, the Director-General of the WHO declared monkeypox a global public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC), since the outbreak represents an extraordinary, unusual, and unexpected event that poses a significant risk for international spread, requiring an immediate, coordinated international response. However, the real magnitude of the burden of disease could be masked by failures in ascertainment and under-detection. As such, underestimation affects the efficiency and reliability of surveillance and notification systems and compromises the possibility of making informed and evidence-based policy decisions in terms of the adoption and implementation of ad hoc adequate preventive measures. In this review, synthesizing 53 papers, we summarize the determinants of the underestimation of sexually transmitted diseases, in general, and, in particular, monkeypox, in terms of all their various components and dimensions (under-ascertainment, underreporting, under-detection, under-diagnosis, misdiagnosis/misclassification, and under-notification).

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

DOE OSTI2019

Liquid Crystals-Enabled AC Electrokinetics

Phenomena of electrically driven fluid flows, known as electro-osmosis, and particle transport in a liquid electrolyte, known as electrophoresis, collectively form a subject of electrokinetics. Electrokinetics shows a great potential in microscopic manipulation of matter for various scientific and technological applications. Electrokinetics is usually studied for isotropic electrolytes. Recently it has been demonstrated that replacement of an isotropic electrolyte with an anisotropic, or liquid crystal (LC), electrolyte, brings about entirely new mechanisms of spatial charge formation and electrokinetic effects. This review presents the main features of liquid crystal-enabled electrokinetics (LCEK) rooted in the field-assisted separation of electric charges at deformations of the director that describes local molecular orientation of the LC. Since the electric field separates the charges and then drives the charges, the resulting electro-osmotic and electrophoretic velocities grow as the square of the applied electric field. We describe a number of related phenomena, such as alternating current (AC) LC-enabled electrophoresis of colloidal solid particles and fluid droplets in uniform and spatially-patterned LCs, swarming of colloids guided by photoactivated surface patterns, control of LCEK polarity through the material properties of the LC electrolyte, LCEK-assisted mixing at microscale, separation and sorting of small particles. LC-enabled electrokinetics brings a new dimension to our ability to manipulate dynamics of matter at small scales and holds a major promise for future technologies of microfluidics, pumping, mixing, sensing, and diagnostics.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗

DOE OSTI2017

Commemorating Dr. Gudmundur “Bo” Bodvarsson (1951–2006), a Leader of the Deep Unsaturated Flow and Transport Investigations

Editorial. The Special Issue “Water and Solute Transport in Vadose Zone” in the journal Water is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Gudmundur “Bo” Bodvarsson, the former director of the Earth Sciences Division of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL).

58 GEOSCIENCES↗

DOE OSTI2016

THE STORY OF SUPERNOVA “REFSDAL” TOLD BY MUSE

We present Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) observations in the core of the Hubble Frontier Fields (HFF) galaxy cluster MACS J1149.5+2223, where the first magnified and spatially resolved multiple images of supernova (SN) “Refsdal” at redshift 1.489 were detected. Thanks to a Director's Discretionary Time program with the Very Large Telescope and the extraordinary efficiency of MUSE, we measure 117 secure redshifts with just 4.8 hr of total integration time on a single 1 arcmin{sup 2} target pointing. We spectroscopically confirm 68 galaxy cluster members, with redshift values ranging from 0.5272 to 0.5660, and 18 multiple images belonging to seven background, lensed sources distributed in redshifts between 1.240 and 3.703. Starting from the combination of our catalog with those obtained from extensive spectroscopic and photometric campaigns using the Hubble Space Telescope ( HST ), we select a sample of 300 (164 spectroscopic and 136 photometric) cluster members, within approximately 500 kpc from the brightest cluster galaxy, and a set of 88 reliable multiple images associated with 10 different background source galaxies and 18 distinct knots in the spiral galaxy hosting SN “Refsdal.” We exploit this valuable information to build six detailed strong-lensing models, the best of which reproduces the observed positions of the multiple images with an rms offset of only 0.″26. We use these models to quantify the statistical and systematic errors on the predicted values of magnification and time delay of the next emerging image of SN “Refsdal.” We find that its peak luminosity should occur between 2016 March and June and should be approximately 20% fainter than the dimmest (S4) of the previously detected images but above the detection limit of the planned HST /WFC3 follow-up. We present our two-dimensional reconstruction of the cluster mass density distribution and of the SN “Refsdal” host galaxy surface brightness distribution. We outline the road map toward even better strong-lensing models with a synergetic MUSE and HST effort.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

DOE OSTI2017

A Near-infrared Counterpart of 2E1613.5–5053: The Central Source in Supernova Remnant RCW103

On 2016 June 22, 2E 1613.5−5053, the puzzling central compact object in supernova remnant RCW 103 emitted a magnetar-like burst. Using Director’s Discretionary Time, we observed 2E 1613.5−5053 with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) (WFC3/IR) and we report here on the detection of a previously unseen infrared counterpart. In observations taken on 2016 July 4 and August 11, we detect a new source (m{sub F110W}=26.3 AB mag and m{sub F160W}=24.2 AB mag), at the Chandra position of 2E 1613.5−5053, that was not detected in HST/NICMOS images from 2002 August 15 and October 8, to a depth of 24.5 AB mag (F110W) and 25.5 AB mag (F160W). We show that these deep IR observations rule out the possibility of 2E 1613.5−5053 being an accreting binary with a high degree of confidence, but mimic IR emission properties of magnetars and isolated neutron stars. The presence or absence of a low-mass fallback disk cannot be confirmed from our observations.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

DOE OSTI2024

Interim report for the International Muon Collider Collaboration (IMCC)

Accelerator Physics (physics.acc-ph)↗

DOE OSTI2016

A customizable model for chronic disease coordination: Lessons learned from the coordinated chronic disease program

In 2012, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provided funding and technical assistance to all states and territories to implement the Coordinated Chronic Disease Program, marking the first time that all state health departments had federal resources to coordinate chronic disease prevention and control programs. This article describes lessons learned from this initiative and identifies key elements of a coordinated approach. We analyzed 80 programmatic documents from 21 states and conducted semistructured interviews with 7 chronic disease directors. Six overarching themes emerged: 1) focused agenda, 2) identification of functions, 3) comprehensive planning, 4) collaborative leadership and expertise, 5) managed resources, and 6) relationship building. Furthermore, these elements supported 4 essential activities: 1) evidence-based interventions, 2) strategic use of staff, 3) consistent communication, and 4) strong program infrastructure. On the basis of these elements and activities, we propose a conceptual model that frames overarching concepts, skills, and strategies needed to coordinate state chronic disease prevention and control programs.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗

DOE OSTI2022

PSTN-053: Survey Cadence Optimization Committee's Phase 1 Recommendations

This document is authored by the Survey Cadence Optimization Committee (SCOC), guided by the community input, and it will serve as a roadmap for the concluding round of survey cadence simulations. These simulations, to be delivered during early calendar year 2022, will inform the phase 2 survey strategy recommendation which will define the baseline strategy for starting the Rubin Observatory's Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST). The phase 2 SCOC recommendation will be delivered to the Rubin Observatory Operations Director before the end of calendar year 2022.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

DOE OSTI2026

PSTN-057: Survey Cadence Optimization Committee's Survey Start Recommendations

A recommendation for adjustments to the initial LSST survey strategy is delivered to the Observatory Director. These adjustments respond to improved knowledge and understanding of the system performance and completeness of science verification activities at the start of LSST.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

DOE OSTI2021

There from the Beginning: The Women of Los Alamos National Laboratory Supporting National and International Nuclear Security

From the beginning of the Manhattan Project in the early 1940s, the women of what would become Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) worked in technical positions alongside their male counterparts, played a key role as computers, and worked in administrative jobs as secretaries, phone operators, bookkeepers, and on behalf of the U.S. Army in the Women’s Army Corps. Throughout the history of the Laboratory, women experts at LANL helped establish and lead important national and international security programs, with careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Over time, the women of Los Alamos have come together under various Employee Resource Groups, such as the Atomic Women, to help the next generation succeed in their technical fields. The Laboratory’s commitment to diversity and inclusion continues to this day, with current Laboratory Director Thom Mason leading LANL as the first national laboratory to join the Gender Champions in Nuclear Policy.

98 NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT, SAFEGUARDS, AND PHYSICAL P↗

DOE OSTI2023

Predictive performance of multi-model ensemble forecasts of COVID-19 across European nations

Background: Short-term forecasts of infectious disease burden can contribute to situational awareness and aid capacity planning. Based on best practice in other fields and recent insights in infectious disease epidemiology, one can maximise the predictive performance of such forecasts if multiple models are combined into an ensemble. Here, we report on the performance of ensembles in predicting COVID-19 cases and deaths across Europe between 08 March 2021 and 07 March 2022. Methods: We used open-source tools to develop a public European COVID-19 Forecast Hub. We invited groups globally to contribute weekly forecasts for COVID-19 cases and deaths reported by a standardised source for 32 countries over the next 1–4 weeks. Teams submitted forecasts from March 2021 using standardised quantiles of the predictive distribution. Each week we created an ensemble forecast, where each predictive quantile was calculated as the equally-weighted average (initially the mean and then from 26th July the median) of all individual models’ predictive quantiles. We measured the performance of each model using the relative Weighted Interval Score (WIS), comparing models’ forecast accuracy relative to all other models. We retrospectively explored alternative methods for ensemble forecasts, including weighted averages based on models’ past predictive performance. Results: Over 52 weeks, we collected forecasts from 48 unique models. We evaluated 29 models’ forecast scores in comparison to the ensemble model. We found a weekly ensemble had a consistently strong performance across countries over time. Across all horizons and locations, the ensemble performed better on relative WIS than 83% of participating models’ forecasts of incident cases (with a total N=886 predictions from 23 unique models), and 91% of participating models’ forecasts of deaths (N=763 predictions from 20 models). Across a 1–4 week time horizon, ensemble performance declined with longer forecast periods when forecasting cases, but remained stable over 4 weeks for incident death forecasts. In every forecast across 32 countries, the ensemble outperformed most contributing models when forecasting either cases or deaths, frequently outperforming all of its individual component models. Among several choices of ensemble methods we found that the most influential and best choice was to use a median average of models instead of using the mean, regardless of methods of weighting component forecast models. Conclusions: Our results support the use of combining forecasts from individual models into an ensemble in order to improve predictive performance across epidemiological targets and populations during infectious disease epidemics. Our findings further suggest that median ensemble methods yield better predictive performance more than ones based on means. Our findings also highlight that forecast consumers should place more weight on incident death forecasts than incident case forecasts at forecast horizons greater than 2 weeks. Funding: AA, BH, BL, LWa, MMa, PP, SV funded by National Institutes of Health (NIH) Grant 1R01GM109718, NSF BIG DATA Grant IIS-1633028, NSF Grant No.: OAC-1916805, NSF Expeditions in Computing Grant CCF-1918656, CCF-1917819, NSF RAPID CNS-2028004, NSF RAPID OAC-2027541, US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 75D30119C05935, a grant from Google, University of Virginia Strategic Investment Fund award number SIF160, Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) under Contract No. HDTRA1-19-D-0007, and respectively Virginia Dept of Health Grant VDH-21-501-0141, VDH-21-501-0143, VDH-21-501-0147, VDH-21-501-0145, VDH-21-501-0146, VDH-21-501-0142, VDH-21-501-0148. AF, AMa, GL funded by SMIGE - Modelli statistici inferenziali per governare l'epidemia, FISR 2020-Covid-19 I Fase, FISR2020IP-00156, Codice Progetto: PRJ-0695. AM, BK, FD, FR, JK, JN, JZ, KN, MG, MR, MS, RB funded by Ministry of Science and Higher Education of Poland with grant 28/WFSN/2021 to the University of Warsaw. BRe, CPe, JLAz funded by Ministerio de Sanidad/ISCIII. BT, PG funded by PERISCOPE European H2020 project, contract number 101016233. CP, DL, EA, MC, SA funded by European Commission - Directorate-General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology through the contract LC-01485746, and Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovacion y Universidades and FEDER, with the project PGC2018-095456-B-I00. DE., MGu funded by Spanish Ministry of Health / REACT-UE (FEDER). DO, GF, IMi, LC funded by Laboratory Directed Research and Development program of Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) under project number 20200700ER. DS, ELR, GG, NGR, NW, YW funded by National Institutes of General Medical Sciences (R35GM119582; the content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of NIGMS or the National Institutes of Health). FB, FP funded by InPresa, Lombardy Region, Italy. HG, KS funded by European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. IV funded by Agencia de Qualitat i Avaluacio Sanitaries de Catalunya (AQuAS) through contract 2021-021OE. JDe, SMo, VP funded by Netzwerk Universitatsmedizin (NUM) project egePan (01KX2021). JPB, SH, TH funded by Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF; grant 05M18SIA). KH, MSc, YKh funded by Project SaxoCOV, funded by the German Free State of Saxony. Presentation of data, model results and simulations also funded by the NFDI4Health Task Force COVID-19 ( https://www.nfdi4health.de/task-force-covid-19-2 ) within the framework of a DFG-project (LO-342/17-1). LP, VE funded by Mathematical and Statistical modelling project (MUNI/A/1615/2020), Online platform for real-time monitoring, analysis and management of epidemic situations (MUNI/11/02202001/2020); VE also supported by RECETOX research infrastructure (Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic: LM2018121), the CETOCOEN EXCELLENCE (CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/17-043/0009632), RECETOX RI project (CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/16-013/0001761). NIB funded by Health Protection Research Unit (grant code NIHR200908). SAb, SF funded by Wellcome Trust (210758/Z/18/Z).

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗

DOE OSTI2022

Systemic racial disparities in funding rates at the National Science Foundation

Concerns about systemic racism at academic and research institutions have increased over the past decade. Here, we investigate data from the National Science Foundation (NSF), a major funder of research in the United States, and find evidence for pervasive racial disparities. In particular, white principal investigators (PIs) are consistently funded at higher rates than most non-white PIs. Funding rates for white PIs have also been increasing relative to annual overall rates with time. Moreover, disparities occur across all disciplinary directorates within the NSF and are greater for research proposals. The distributions of average external review scores also exhibit systematic offsets based on PI race. Similar patterns have been described in other research funding bodies, suggesting that racial disparities are widespread. The prevalence and persistence of these racial disparities in funding have cascading impacts that perpetuate a cumulative advantage to white PIs across all of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗