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DOE OSTI2026

Nanoscale Compositional and Strain Gradients Enable High‐Speed and Amplitude‐Resolved Pyroelectric Sensing

The frequency response of pyroelectric sensors is fundamentally governed by thermal time constant (τth, determined by thermal mass and thermal conductance) and electrical impedance arising from film capacitance and readout circuit. Conventional bulk LiTaO3 detectors are optimized for high responsivity at low modulation frequencies (0.1-10 Hz), possessing a large τth that thermally averages rapid temperature oscillations at elevated modulation frequencies, limiting fidelity in resolving dynamic varying thermal signals. Here, compositional and strain gradients are introduced into 100-nm-thick relaxor-ferroelectric films reducing τth to ≈2 µs and producing built-in potentials (≈1.45 V or 145 kV cm-1) that enhance the pyroelectric coefficient and suppress the dielectric constant. This enables complementary dual-mode operation by enhancing current-mode electrical responsivity and improving the voltage-mode figure of merit - advantageous for superior temperature resolution (ΔTmin ≈ 30 µK). The responsivity peak shifts to near 1 kHz (>2500-times higher than conventional bulk sensors), with measurable responsivity extending to a carrier frequency of 100 kHz and amplitude-resolved detection at modulation frequencies up to 15 kHz. These results establish nanoscale internal-field engineering can reshape electro-thermal trade-off in pyroelectric thin films toward zero-bias, high-thermal-sensitivity, and amplitude-resolved thermal sensing across a wide frequency bandwidth.

Lin, Ching‐Che↗

NASA NTRS2021

Investigations on the Anthropogenic Reversal of the Natural Ozone Gradient Between Northern and Southern Midlatitudes

Our quantitative understanding of natural tropospheric ozone concentrations is limited by the paucity of reliable measurements before the 1980s. We utilize the existing measurements to compare the long-term ozone changes that occurred within the marine boundary layer at northern and southern midlatitudes. Since 1950 ozone concentrations have increased by a factor of 2.1 ± 0.2 in the Northern Hemisphere (NH) and are presently larger than in the Southern Hemisphere (SH), where only a much smaller increase has occurred. These changes are attributed to increased ozone production driven by anthropogenic emissions of photochemical ozone precursors that increased with industrial development. The greater ozone concentrations and increases in the NH are consistent with the predominant location of anthropogenic emission sources in that hemisphere. The available measurements indicate that this interhemispheric gradient was much smaller and was likely reversed in the pre-industrial troposphere with higher concentrations in the SH. Six Earth system model (ESM) simulations indicate similar total NH increases (1.9 with a standard deviation of 0.3), but they occurred more slowly over a longer time period, and the ESMs do not find higher pre-industrial ozone in the SH. Several uncertainties in the ESMs may cause these model–measurement disagreements: the assumed natural nitrogen oxide emissions may be too large, the relatively greater fraction of ozone injected by stratosphere–troposphere exchange to the NH may be overestimated, ozone surface deposition to ocean and land surfaces may not be accurately simulated, and model treatment of emissions of biogenic hydrocarbons and their photochemistry may not be adequate.

natural tropospheric ozone concentrations↗

DOE OSTI2026

Gradient Flow for Parton Distribution Functions: First Application to the Pion

Parton distribution functions (PDFs) are central to precision QCD phenomenology. Their Mellin moments can be computed on the lattice, but direct determinations using local operators, besides ⟨𝑥⟩, face severe challenges from reduced hypercubic symmetry, limiting results to the lowest moments. A recently proposed method resolves these issues using gradient flow. We demonstrate the efficacy of this method by computing ratios of flavor nonsinglet pion PDF moments up to ⟨𝑥 5 ⟩ on four lattice spacings at 𝑚 𝜋 ≃ 411 MeV. The moments and reconstructed PDF agree quantitatively with recent phenomenological extractions.

Francis, Anthony [National Yang Ming Chiao Tung Un↗

NASA NTRS1992

NIST torsion oscillator viscometer response: Performance on the LeRC active vibration isolation platform

Critical point viscosity measurements are limited to their reduced temperature approach to T(sub c) in an Earth bound system, because of density gradients imposed by gravity. Therefore, these classes of experiments have been proposed as good candidates for 'microgravity' science experiments where this limitation is not present. The nature of these viscosity measurements dictate hardware that is sensitive to low frequency excitations. Because of the vibratory acceleration sensitivity of a torsion oscillator viscometer, used to acquire such measurements, a vibration isolation sensitivity test was performed on candidate 'microgravity' hardware to study the possibility of meeting the stringent oscillatory sensitivity requirements of a National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) torsion oscillator viscometer. A prototype six degree of freedom active magnetic isolation system, developed at NASA Lewis Research Center, was used as the isolation system. The ambient acceleration levels of the platform were reduced to the noise floor levels of its control sensors, about one microgravity in the 0.1 to 10 Hz bandwidth.

Berg, Robert F.↗

DOE OSTI2026

Data for Nitrogen Dynamics and Physiological N Use Efficiency in High-biomass Sorghum

Improving nitrogen (N) efficiency is essential for sustainable high-biomass sorghum ( Sorghum bicolor L. Moench ) production. This study evaluated leaf and stem N dynamics, canopy N remobilization, and physiological nitrogen use efficiency (pNUE) in two photoperiod-sensitive sorghum hybrids under two N rates (0 and 168 kg-N ha−1) across multiple environments in Texas and Illinois. Leaf N concentrations increased with plant height in the canopy with steeper gradients under low-N conditions, indicating enhanced N remobilization when N is limited. Stem tissue showed less variation in N concentration across canopy nodal positions, with within-plant differences ranging from 1.2 to 7.6 g kg−1, compared to 3.1 to 16.3 g kg−1 in leaves. While pNUE was generally higher under unfertilized conditions, it varied largely by site; however, genotypic differences were minimal within the given year. These results highlight the importance of integrating environmental and management factors into breeding and fertilization strategies to enhance N efficiency in high-biomass sorghum.

Nitrogen↗

NASA NTRS1998

Magnetohydrodynamic Origin of Jets from Accretion Disks

A review is made of magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) theory and simulation of outflows from disks for different distributions of magnetic field threading the disk. In one limit of a relatively weak, initially diverging magnetic field, both thermal and magnetic pressure gradients act to drive matter to an outflow, while a toroidal magnetic field develops which strongly collimates the outflow. The collimation greatly reduces the field divergence and the mass outflow rate decreases after an initial peak. In a second limit of a strong magnetic field, the initial field configuration was taken with the field strength on the disk decreasing outwards to small values so that collimation was reduced. As a result, a family of stationary solutions was discovered where matter is driven mainly by the strong magnetic pressure gradient force. The collimation in this case depends on the pressure of an external medium. These flows are qualitatively similar to the analytic solutions for magnetically driven outflows. The problem of the opening of a closed field line configuration linking a magnetized star and an accretion disk is also discussed.

Lovelace, R. V. E.↗

NASA NTRS2026

Development and Validation of a High-Vacuum Thermal Conductivity Testbed for Aerospace Interface Materials

Thermal Interface Materials (TIMs) are critical components in spacecraft thermal management systems, where thermal performance is strongly influenced by vacuum conditions, interface contact resistance, and layered metallic joint behavior. However, manufacturer-reported thermal conductivity values are often derived under idealized conditions and may not accurately represent performance within operational aerospace applications. To address this limitation, the Testbed for Advanced Interface Materials in Vacuum (TAIMV) was developed as a modular vacuum-compatible thermal conductivity characterization platform capable of evaluating aerospace-relevant TIM configurations under both ambient and high-vacuum environments. The testbed was derived from the ASTM C1044-16 guarded hot plate methodology and incorporates interchangeable layers of stainless steel coupon geometries, independently controlled main and guard heaters, embedded resistance temperature detectors (RTDs), thermocouples, multi-layer insulation (MLI), and a temperature-controlled cold plate to characterize through-thickness thermal gradients across layered interfaces. In the current configuration, interface compression is limited to the nominal contact pressure generated by the experimental stack assembly. Initial experimental campaigns were conducted at ambient pressure and below 1×10-5 torr for vacuum cases using multiple interface materials including Braycote 601EF and Krytox-based greases across a range of thermal operating conditions. In parallel, a coupled numerical Python thermal model was developed to predict temperature distribution throughout the stack while accounting for conduction, radiation, and parasitic heat transfer pathways and effective interface resistance effects. Experimental measurements and numerical predictions showed consistent thermal trends across multiple operating conditions and environmental states. Results also revealed measurable differences between ambient and vacuum thermal behavior, demonstrating the importance of interface resistance, parasitic heat transfer mechanisms, and stack geometry in determining effective thermal performance within layered thermal interfaces. The presented work establishes a foundation for future thermal model correlation efforts and expanded characterization of aerospace thermal interface materials under representative environmental conditions. Future work will focus on the integration of a load cell system to enable controlled pressure-dependent characterization of thermal interface materials under compressive loading. This capability will allow investigation of the influence of contact pressure on effective thermal conductivity, interface resistance, and thermal performance within layered aerospace thermal interfaces under representative operational conditions.

Thermal Development Testing↗

DOE OSTI2026

Modification of ion-temperature-gradient turbulence by impurities in stellarator plasmas

Recent nonlinear gyrokinetic simulations have shown that impurities can strongly modify the turbulent heat flux in stellarator plasmas. Here, the ion-temperature-gradient (ITG) dispersion relation in a plasma containing impurities is analytically solved in certain limits and an expression for the modification of the ITG growth rate by impurities is derived. The analytical expression is the sum of three terms corresponding to three different physical causes (impurity density gradient, impurity temperature gradient and dilution) of the change in the growth rate. The scalings predicted analytically for the modification of the growth rate are shown to be reproduced by linear gyrokinetic simulations. The conditions for reduction or increase of the ITG growth by impurities are also correctly predicted by the analytical solution to the dispersion relation. Finally, a remarkable correlation is found between the analytical expression for the modification of the growth rate and the modification of the turbulent heat flux obtained from nonlinear gyrokinetic simulations.

Calvo, Iván [Research Centre for Energy, Environme↗

NASA NTRS1996

A-priori testing of sub-grid models for chemically reacting nonpremixed turbulent shear flows

The beta-assumed-pdf approximation of (Cook & Riley 1994) is tested as a subgrid model for the LES computation of nonpremixed turbulent reacting flows, in the limit of cold infinitely fast chemistry, for two plane turbulent mixing layers with different degrees of intermittency. Excellent results are obtained for the computation of integrals properties such as product mass fraction, and the model is applied to other quantities such as powers of the temperature and the pdf of the scalar itself. Even in these cases the errors are small enough to be useful in practical applications. The analysis is extended to slightly out of equilibrium problems such as the generation of radicals, and formulated in terms of the pdf of the scalar gradients. It is shown that the conditional gradient distribution is universal in a wide range of cases whose limits are established. Within those limits, engineering approximations to the radical concentration are also possible. It is argued that the experiments in this paper are essentially in the limit of infinite Reynolds number.

Jimenez, J.↗

DOE OSTI2025

Progress and challenges in traveling-wave (TW) SRF cavity

Traveling-wave (TW) technology can push the accelerator field gradient of niobium SRF cavity to 70MV/m or higher beyond the limit of 50~60MV/m in Standing-wave (SW) technology. The early stages of TW SRF cavity developments had been funded by several SBIR grants to Euclid Techlabs and completed in collaboration with Fermilab through a 1-cell prototype and a proof-of-principle 3-cell TW cavity. The TW resonance excitation in the 3-cell TW cavity at 2K was demonstrated through the low power RF test in early 2024. A high-power test of the 3-cell in TW mode being prepared. To advance a design and technology to fabricate a novel high gradient TW SRF cavity, FNAL proposed a half-meter TW RF design and R&Ds to realize that are in progress. Here we will report the recent progress in the 3-cell TW cavity and the challenges towards a half-meter scale TW cavity.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗

DOE OSTI2024

Progress and Challenges in Traveling-Wave SRF cavity development at Fermilab

Furuta, F.↗

DOE OSTI2024

Progress and Challenges in Traveling-Wave SRF cavity development at Fermilab

Furuta, F.↗

NASA NTRS1999

Constructing Synoptic Maps of Stratospheric Column Ozone from HALOE, SAGE and Balloonsonde Data Using Potential Vorticity Isentropic Coordinate Transformations

In this study we utilize potential vorticity - isentropic (PVI) coordinate transformations as a means of combining ozone data from different sources to construct daily, synthetic three-dimensional ozone fields. This methodology has been used successfully to reconstruct ozone maps in particular regions from aircraft data over the period of the aircraft campaign. We expand this method to create high-resolution daily global maps of profile ozone data, particularly in the lower stratosphere, where high-resolution ozone data are sparse. Ozone climatologies in PVI-space are constructed from satellite-based SAGE II and UARS/HALOE data, both of which-use solar occultation techniques to make high vertical resolution ozone profile measurements, but with low spatial resolution. A climatology from ground-based balloonsonde data is also created. The climatologies are used to establish the relationship between ozone and dynamical variability, which is defined by the potential vorticity (in the form of equivalent latitude) and potential temperature fields. Once a PVI climatology has been created from data taken by one or more instruments, high-resolution daily profile ozone field estimates are constructed based solely on the PVI fields, which are available on a daily basis from NCEP analysis. These profile ozone maps could be used for a variety of applications, including use in conjunction with total ozone maps to create a daily tropospheric ozone product, as input to forecast models, or as a tool for validating independent ozone measurements when correlative data are not available. This technique is limited to regions where the ozone is a long-term tracer and the flow is adiabatic. We evaluate the internal consistency of the technique by transforming the ozone back to physical space and comparing to the original profiles. Biases in the long-term average of the differences are used to identify regions where the technique is consistently introducing errors. Initial results show the technique is useful in the lower stratosphere at most latitudes throughout the year,and in the winter hemisphere in the middle stratosphere. The results are problematic in the summer hemisphere middle stratosphere due to increased ozone photochemistry and weak PV gradients. Alternate techniques in these regions will be discussed. An additional limitation is the quality and resolution of the meteorological data.

Hollandsworth, Stacey M.↗

DOE OSTI2024

An extension of Thwaites’ method for turbulent boundary layers

Thwaites developed an approximate method for determining the evolution of laminar boundary layers. The approximation follows from an assumption that the growth of a laminar boundary layer in the presence of pressure gradients could be parameterized solely as a function of the Holstein–Bohlen flow parameter, thus reducing the von Kármán momentum integral to a first-order ordinary differential equation. This method is useful for the analysis of laminar flows, and in computational potential flow solvers to account for the viscous effects. In this work, an approximate method for determining the momentum thickness of a two-dimensional, turbulent boundary layer is proposed following Thwaites’ work. It is shown that the method provides good estimates of the momentum thickness for multiple boundary layers, including both favourable and adverse pressure gradient effects, up to the point of separation. In the limit of high Reynolds numbers, it is possible to derive a criterion for the onset of separation from the proposed model, which is shown to be in agreement with prior empirical observations. The sensitivity of the separation location with respect to upstream perturbations is also analysed through this model for the NASA/Boeing speed bump and the transonic Bachalo–Johnson bump.

17 WIND ENERGY↗

DOE OSTI2024

A miniature multi-anvil apparatus using diamond as anvils—MDAC: Multi-axis diamond anvil cell

The diamond anvil cell (DAC) has been widely used in high-pressure research. Despite significant progress over the past five decades, the opposed anvil geometry in the DAC inevitably leads to a disk-shaped sample configuration at high pressure. This intrinsic limitation is largely responsible for the large pressure and temperature gradients in the DAC, which often compromise precise experiments and their characterizations. Here, we designed and fabricated a multi-axis diamond anvil cell (MDAC) by adopting the concept of a multi-anvil apparatus but using single crystal diamonds as the anvil material. Preliminary data show that the MDAC can generate extreme pressure conditions above 100 GPa. The advantages of the MDAC over a traditional opposed anvil DAC include thicker, voluminous samples, quasi-hydrostatic, or designed deviatoric stress conditions, and multidirectional access windows for optical applications and x-ray probes. In this article, we present the design and performance of a prototype MDAC, as well as the application prospects in high-pressure research.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗

DOE OSTI2025

Conformational ensembles reveal the origins of serine protease catalysis

Enzymes exist in ensembles of states that encode the energetics underlying their catalysis. Conformational ensembles built from 1231 structures of 17 serine proteases revealed atomic-level changes across their reaction states. By comparing the enzymatic and solution reaction, we identified molecular features that provide catalysis and quantified their energetic contributions to catalysis. Serine proteases precisely position their reactants in destabilized conformers, creating a downhill energetic gradient that selectively favors the motions required for reaction while limiting off-pathway conformational states. The same catalytic features have repeatedly evolved in proteases and additional enzymes across multiple distinct structural folds. In conclusion, our ensemble-function analyses revealed previously unknown catalytic features, provided quantitative models based on simple physical and chemical principles, and identified motifs recurrent in nature that may inspire enzyme design.

Du, Siyuan [Stanford Univ., CA (United States)] (O↗

NASA NTRS1986

Automated remote sensing of sea ice using synthetic aperture radar

Two techniques for automated sea ice tracking: image pyramids (hierarchical correlation) and feature tracking were applied to a pair of SEASAT SAR sea ice images. The results compare well with each other and manually tracked estimates of the ice velocity field. Refinement of the image pyramid technique should include removal of a small number of erroneous velocity vectors using constraints dependent on correlation coefficient, near neighbor velocities, and velocity gradients. Estimates of sea ice velocity are successfully obtained over limited areas using the boundary segment tracking technique. Refinement of the feature tracking technique should include use of pressure ridge features, constrained search, and relaxation techniques.

Vesecky, J. F.↗

NASA NTRS1994

Effects of mass on aircraft sidearm controller characteristics

When designing a flight simulator, providing a set of low mass variable-characteristic pilot controls can be very difficult. Thus, a strong incentive exists to identify the highest possible mass that will not degrade the validity of a simulation. The NASA Dryden Flight Research Center has conducted a brief flight program to determine the maximum acceptable mass (system inertia) of an aircraft sidearm controller as a function of force gradient. This information is useful for control system design in aircraft as well as development of suitable flight simulator controls. A modified Learjet with a variable-characteristic sidearm controller was used to obtain data. A boundary was defined between mass considered acceptable and mass considered unacceptable to the pilot. This boundary is defined as a function of force gradient over a range of natural frequencies. This investigation is limited to a study of mass-frequency characteristics only. Results of this investigation are presented in this paper.

Wagner, Charles A.↗