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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 343 records · Page 19
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2022

Characterization of Lunar Polar Volatiles for Curation and ISRU - Executive Summary

The goal of this project is to support lunar exploration by simulating and characterizing ice and volatile-rich materials expected to be found at the lunar poles. These materials are highly sensitive to heating, which could significantly alter their composition and prevent scientific studies on lunar samples. During FY19, we obtained materials for and designed a simulated lunar environment, within which volatile-rich simulant could be made. We also refined the procedure for moderate-fidelity lunar simulants at cryogenic temperatures. In FY20, we completed our test setup, and we can now reach cryogenic temperatures and near-lunar pressures with active compositional monitoring of volatiles in the vapor phase. For FY21, we: 1) progressed towards developing sample storage temperature requirements for volatile-rich samples by completing storage testing, along with materials testing for Artemis geologic sampling, 2) obtained instrumentation for solid sample monitoring to characterize solid species, and 3) progressed towards water extraction testing for ISRU. Our test results will directly feed into Artemis science requirements, hardware designs for sample return, vehicle requirements (HLS, Gateway, Orion), and operations planning for lunar exploration activities.

Julie L Mitchell↗
NASA NTRS1983

Investigation of the applicability of using the triple redundant hydrogen sensor for methane sensing

Application specifications for the methane sensor were assembled and design guidelines, development goals and evaluation criteria were formulated. This was done to provide a framework to evaluate sensor performance and any design adjustments to the preprototype sensor that could be required to provide methane sensitivity. Good response to hydrogen was experimentally established for four hydrogen sensor elements to be later evaluated for methane response. Prior results were assembled and analyzed for other prototype hydrogen sensor performance parameters to form a comparison base. The four sensor elements previously shown to have good hydrogen response were experimentally evaluated for methane response in 2.5% methane-in-air. No response was obtained for any of the elements, despite the high methane concentration used (50% of the Lower Flammability Limit). It was concluded that the preprototype sensing elements were insensitive to methane and were hydrogen specific. Alternative sensor operating conditions and hardware design changes were considered to provide methane sensitivity to the preprototype sensor, including a variety of different methane sensing techniques. Minor changes to the existing sensor elements, sensor geometry and operating conditions will not make the preprototype hydrogen sensor respond to methane. New sensor elements that will provide methane and hydrogen sensitivity require replacement of the existing thermistor type elements. Some hydrogen sensing characteristics of the modified sensor will be compromised (larger in situ calibration gas volume and H2 nonspecificity). The preprototype hydrogen sensor should be retained for hydrogen monitoring and a separate methane sensor should be developed.

Lantz, J. B.↗
NASA NTRS2014

3D Printing In Zero-G ISS Technology Demonstration

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has a long term strategy to fabricate components and equipment on‐demand for manned missions to the Moon, Mars, and beyond. To support this strategy, NASA and Made in Space, Inc. are developing the 3D Printing In Zero‐G payload as a Technology Demonstration for the International Space Station (ISS). The 3D Printing In Zero‐G experiment ('3D Print') will be the first machine to perform 3D printing in space. The greater the distance from Earth and the longer the mission duration, the more difficult resupply becomes; this requires a change from the current spares, maintenance, repair, and hardware design model that has been used on the International Space Station (ISS) up until now. Given the extension of the ISS Program, which will inevitably result in replacement parts being required, the ISS is an ideal platform to begin changing the current model for resupply and repair to one that is more suitable for all exploration missions. 3D Printing, more formally known as Additive Manufacturing, is the method of building parts/objects/tools layer‐by‐layer. The 3D Print experiment will use extrusion‐based additive manufacturing, which involves building an object out of plastic deposited by a wire‐feed via an extruder head. Parts can be printed from data files loaded on the device at launch, as well as additional files uplinked to the device while on‐orbit. The plastic extrusion additive manufacturing process is a low‐energy, low‐mass solution to many common needs on board the ISS. The 3D Print payload will serve as the ideal first step to proving that process in space. It is unreasonable to expect NASA to launch large blocks of material from which parts or tools can be traditionally machined, and even more unreasonable to fly up multiple drill bits that would be required to machine parts from aerospace‐grade materials such as titanium 6‐4 alloy and Inconel. The technology to produce parts on demand, in space, offers unique design options that are not possible through traditional manufacturing methods while offering cost-effective, high‐precision, low‐unit on‐demand manufacturing. Thus, Additive Manufacturing capabilities are the foundation of an advanced manufacturing in space roadmap. The 3D Printing In Zero‐G experiment will demonstrate the capability of utilizing Additive Manufacturing technology in space. This will serve as the enabling first step to realizing an additive manufacturing, print‐on‐demand "machine shop" for long‐duration missions and sustaining human exploration of other planets, where there is extremely limited ability and availability of Earth‐based logistics support. Simply put, Additive Manufacturing in space is a critical enabling technology for NASA. It will provide the capability to produce hardware on‐demand, directly lowering cost and decreasing risk by having the exact part or tool needed in the time it takes to print. This capability will also provide the much‐needed solution to the cost, volume, and up‐mass constraints that prohibit launching everything needed for long‐duration or long‐distance missions from Earth, including spare parts and replacement systems. A successful mission for the 3D Printing In Zero‐G payload is the first step to demonstrate the capability of printing on orbit. The data gathered and lessons learned from this demonstration will be applied to the next generation of additive manufacturing technology on orbit. It is expected that Additive Manufacturing technology will quickly become a critical part of any mission's infrastructure.

Werkheiser, Niki↗
NASA NTRS2001

Integrated Avionics System (IAS)

As spacecraft designs converge toward miniaturization and with the volumetric and mass constraints placed on avionics, programs will continue to advance the 'state of the art' in spacecraft systems development with new challenges to reduce power, mass, and volume. Although new technologies have improved packaging densities, a total system packaging architecture is required that not only reduces spacecraft volume and mass budgets, but increase integration efficiencies, provide modularity and scalability to accommodate multiple missions. With these challenges in mind, a novel packaging approach incorporates solutions that provide broader environmental applications, more flexible system interconnectivity, scalability, and simplified assembly test and integration schemes. This paper will describe the fundamental elements of the Integrated Avionics System (IAS), Horizontally Mounted Cube (HMC) hardware design, system and environmental test results. Additional information is contained in the original extended abstract.

Hunter, D. J.↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Overview and Performance Characterization of Northrop Grumman’s 1 kW Hall Thruster String

Northrop Grumman (NG) Tactical Space SystemsDivisionhas embarked on the development and qualification of a high throughput, low power Hall Thruster String (HTS) using hardware designed and built in-house.Following the success of Mission Extension Vehicles 1 and 2, NG is currently developing the next generation in its lineupof satellite servicing capabilities, the Mission Robotics Vehicle(MRV)and Mission Extension Pod (MEP).MEP’s mission profile imposes highly demanding requirements upon the electric propulsion system. When surveying the industry for available systems, NGwas unable to identify any mature Hall thrustersystems that could satisfy the performance and lifetime requirements for MEP. Eventually, it was decided to vertically integrate the EP development process, partneringwith NASA Glenn Research Center to leverage ongoing development at GRC of a high throughput, low power Hall thruster. The components of the HTS have successfully passed PDR and are currently in the engineering development and test phase. Based on performancecharacterization testingof the development hardware,NG’s low power Hall thruster, dubbed the NGHT-1X, promises to deliver state-of-the-art performanceand lifetime for a sub-kW Hall thruster, achieving total efficiencies of 50-55% over a wide range of throttle conditions. Results of a seriesof characterization tests including integrated systems testingwith the PPUare presented.Qualification methodology andthruster lifetime verification is also discussed. Environmental qualification of the HTS components is expected to completein mid-2023 with a first flight in mid-2024.

Propulsion↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Designing a Software Architecture for the Precision Assembly of Space Structures

As NASA’s space exploration and science missions expand in complexity, longevity, anddistance beyond earth’s orbit, Orbital Servicing, Assembly and Manufacturing (OSAM)technologies and concepts have become a critical area of ongoing research and innovation.Artemis’ Moon-to-Mars goals of building sustainable elements on and around the Moon andMars that allow our robots and astronauts to explore and conduct more scientific researchwill demand in situ resource utilization, construction, and maintenance to succeed. In-spaceAssembly (ISA), as a sub-component of OSAM, focuses on the on-orbit building or fabricationof mission infrastructure and payloads. One such ISA application is highlighted by the recentNASA In-Space Assembled Telescope (iSAT) study, which stated that the next generation ofspace observatories will exceed the fairing size of existing or even planned launch vehicles andISA has emerged as a viable approach for observatory assembly. Research efforts at NASALangley Research Center have led to the design of a novel TriTruss structural concept for themodular construction of large complex persistent platforms. The TriTruss design and otherdeveloping OSAM technologies enable larger and persistent space missions that would notbe possible with single-launch-sized structures. For example, 20 meter or larger telescopesor orbital platform applications. However, the increased complexity will require autonomousoperations for the construction and maintenance of long-term infrastructure to achieve missionsuccess. NASA’s Precision Assembly of Space Structures (PASS) project is focused on thestructural and autonomy capabilities required to construct an iSAT in deep space. PASSresearch efforts will develop and validate critical technologies needed for effective efficienton-orbit assembly that can be confidently adopted for future systems. PASS will utilize theTriTruss modules to demonstrate the autonomous modular assembly of a 20m-class iSAT mirrorbackbone structure including simulated mirrors and wiring harness. In this paper, we addressthe software and hardware design considerations, technologies, and challenges of designing arobust robotics framework for assembling modular space structures in support of In SpaceAssembly missions in general as well as for PASS specifically.

Benjamin N Kelley↗
NASA NTRS2005

Lessons Learned From Developing Three Generations of Remote Sensing Science Data Processing Systems

The Biospheric Information Systems Branch at NASA s Goddard Space Flight Center has developed three generations of Science Investigator-led Processing Systems for use with various remote sensing instruments. The first system is used for data from the MODIS instruments flown on NASA s Earth Observing Systems @OS) Terra and Aqua Spacecraft launched in 1999 and 2002 respectively. The second generation is for the Ozone Measuring Instrument flying on the EOS Aura spacecraft launched in 2004. We are now developing a third generation of the system for evaluation science data processing for the Ozone Mapping and Profiler Suite (OMPS) to be flown by the NPOESS Preparatory Project (NPP) in 2006. The initial system was based on large scale proprietary hardware, operating and database systems. The current OMI system and the OMPS system being developed are based on commodity hardware, the LINUX Operating System and on PostgreSQL, an Open Source RDBMS. The new system distributes its data archive across multiple server hosts and processes jobs on multiple processor boxes. We have created several instances of this system, including one for operational processing, one for testing and reprocessing and one for applications development and scientific analysis. Prior to receiving the first data from OMI we applied the system to reprocessing information from the Solar Backscatter Ultraviolet (SBUV) and Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) instruments flown from 1978 until now. The system was able to process 25 years (108,000 orbits) of data and produce 800,000 files (400 GiB) of level 2 and level 3 products in less than a week. We will describe the lessons we have learned and tradeoffs between system design, hardware, operating systems, operational staffing, user support and operational procedures. During each generational phase, the system has become more generic and reusable. While the system is not currently shrink wrapped we believe it is to the point where it could be readily adopted, with substantial cost savings, for other similar tasks.

Tilmes, Curt↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

BioNutrients-2: Improvements to the BioNutrients-1 Nutrient Production System

The BioNutrients (BN) project aims to develop an on-demand nutrient production system capable of rapid and safe delivery of multiple nutrients in a single-use production pack for long-duration missions. The general concept of this system will be to develop an edible engineered microorganism capable of surviving during long-term storage, revival and growth of that microorganism for product production, and delivery of precise quantities of nutrients for human consumption. BN-1 is a five-year flight project currently on the International Space Station (ISS). It is testing the long-term storage of various microorganisms for the biomanufacturing of space relevant compounds and to validate the performance of the first generation (Gen-1) of production packs. The BN-2 project is a continuation of the BN-1 flight project and intends to expand the projects overall scope by introducing novel products, broadening the range of microbial food sources, and improving previously designed hardware from the BN-1 project. We are in the process of optimizing our platform biomanufacturing technology for in situ production of yogurt and kefir on the ISS. BN-2 will test the efficacy of this technology for future delivery of probiotic organisms which can be engineered to produce additional nutritional supplements (consumption by the crew is not planned in this project). Furthermore, to improve the feasibility of this technology for mission use we have transitioned from a hard-shell pack to a Gen-2, fluorinated ethylene propylene (FEP) bag. The single-use FEP bioreactor will facilitate growth of known organisms and ensure a contaminant free environment, while reducing mass and volume. These bioreactors will be employed for production of additional space relevant products in the BN-2 project. On-orbit testing of Gen-2 production packs will be necessary for future iterations, in order to optimize bag design and product production for eventual flight use by the crew.

BioNutrients↗
NASA NTRS2026

Moon Base Transportation - Deliveries to the Lunar Surface

Development of the Moon Base will enable a home away from home for astronauts who will live and work at humanity’s first lunar outpost. In this effort, NASA’s Moon Transportation Office is responsible for enabling the transformational missions required to deliver habitats, supplies, science payloads, and all other elements needed to cultivate a permanent presence on the Lunar Surface. The Mission Concept (MC) is characterized through evaluation of an end-to-end architecture that can successfully deliver a generalized heavy large-volume payload, in excess of 4000 kg, to a precision landing and touchdown on the lunar surface. The mission architecture utilizes a single launch configuration of a Lunar Lander (LL) with a unique propellant system. The LL has an integral orbital transfer capability and features jettisonable elements. The design circumvents the need for prop transfer on orbit and multiple launch configurations. The launch vehicle (LV) for this work will assume the capability to deliver a payload in excess of 40,000 kg to orbit, affording multiple LV solutions. Considerations for the LL and payload deployment from the fairing are assumed to be handled through compliance with a launch providers’ Interface Requirements Document (IRD). The MC will span from launch at Kennedy Space Center (KSC) to terminal descent and touchdown on the lunar surface, requiring a total ΔV on the order of 6 km/s beyond what is required to get the vehicle stack to a 200 km circular Low Earth Orbit (LEO). Major mission phases include: launch and launch vehicle separation, transfer operations, pre-landing navigation, and lunar descent and touchdown. A Concept of Operations (ConOps) is used as the primary design driver for defining architecture of the vehicles necessary to achieve final payload delivery. Numerous ground rules and assumptions will be provided for each phase of the mission. Concept designs for the LL is presented. An emphasis of the design maximizes a feasible path for maturation, manufacturing, and operation. A self-imposed practical consideration for this effort is the incorporation of legacy designed hardware to minimize expensive, time-intensive, and high-risk hardware development cycles. The propulsion system of the LL adopts a conventional storable bipropellant configuration of monomethyl hydrazine (MMH) and mixed oxides of nitrogen (MON3). This effort will showcase a unique propellant delivery system to minimize the reliance on propellant management devices (PMDs) during descent. Numerous key constraints have been considered, across the multiple segments of the mission. These include the unique aspects of center of gravity (CG) management, thruster plume effects including self-impingement, propulsion system hardware limitations, navigation during multiple mission phases, and landing gear geometry for uneven terrain. These constraints shape the trades necessary for precision landing of heavy cargo and ensure compatibility with broader Moon Base Transportation concepts. The resulting insights inform future transportation strategies for the Moon and beyond; directly contributing to the development of cargo‑delivery standards that will support the long‑term buildup of a sustainable, continuously inhabited Moon Base.

Lunar Habitat↗
NASA NTRS1999

Integrated Avionics System (IAS), Integrating 3-D Technology On A Spacecraft Panel

As spacecraft designs converge toward miniaturization, and with the volumetric and mass challenges placed on avionics, programs will continue to advance the "state of the art" in spacecraft system development with new challenges to reduce power, mass and volume. Traditionally, the trend is to focus on high-density 3-D packaging technologies. Industry has made significant progress in 3-D technologies, and other related internal and external interconnection schemes. Although new technologies have improved packaging densities, a system packaging architecture is required that not only reduces spacecraft volume and mass budgets, but increase integration efficiencies, provide modularity and flexibility to accommodate multiple missions while maintaining a low recurring cost. With these challenges in mind, a novel system packaging approach incorporates solutions that provide broader environmental applications, more flexible system interconnectivity, scalability, and simplified assembly test and integration schemes. The Integrated Avionics System (IAS) provides for a low-mass, modular distributed or centralized packaging architecture which combines ridged-flex technologies, high-density COTS hardware and a new 3-D mechanical packaging approach, Horizontal Mounted Cube (HMC). This paper will describe the fundamental elements of the IAS, HMC hardware design, system integration and environmental test results.

Hunter, Don J.↗
NASA NTRS2005

Adaptable Constrained Genetic Programming: Extensions and Applications

An evolutionary algorithm applies evolution-based principles to problem solving. To solve a problem, the user defines the space of potential solutions, the representation space. Sample solutions are encoded in a chromosome-like structure. The algorithm maintains a population of such samples, which undergo simulated evolution by means of mutation, crossover, and survival of the fittest principles. Genetic Programming (GP) uses tree-like chromosomes, providing very rich representation suitable for many problems of interest. GP has been successfully applied to a number of practical problems such as learning Boolean functions and designing hardware circuits. To apply GP to a problem, the user needs to define the actual representation space, by defining the atomic functions and terminals labeling the actual trees. The sufficiency principle requires that the label set be sufficient to build the desired solution trees. The closure principle allows the labels to mix in any arity-consistent manner. To satisfy both principles, the user is often forced to provide a large label set, with ad hoc interpretations or penalties to deal with undesired local contexts. This unfortunately enlarges the actual representation space, and thus usually slows down the search. In the past few years, three different methodologies have been proposed to allow the user to alleviate the closure principle by providing means to define, and to process, constraints on mixing the labels in the trees. Last summer we proposed a new methodology to further alleviate the problem by discovering local heuristics for building quality solution trees. A pilot system was implemented last summer and tested throughout the year. This summer we have implemented a new revision, and produced a User's Manual so that the pilot system can be made available to other practitioners and researchers. We have also designed, and partly implemented, a larger system capable of dealing with much more powerful heuristics.

Janikow, Cezary Z.↗
NASA NTRS2015

A Tool for Model-Based Generation of Scenario-driven Electric Power Load Profiles

Power consumption during all phases of spacecraft flight is of great interest to the aerospace community. As a result, significant analysis effort is exerted to understand the rates of electrical energy generation and consumption under many operational scenarios of the system. Previously, no standard tool existed for creating and maintaining a power equipment list (PEL) of spacecraft components that consume power, and no standard tool existed for generating power load profiles based on this PEL information during mission design phases. This paper presents the Scenario Power Load Analysis Tool (SPLAT) as a model-based systems engineering tool aiming to solve those problems. SPLAT is a plugin for MagicDraw (No Magic, Inc.) that aids in creating and maintaining a PEL, and also generates a power and temporal variable constraint set, in Maple language syntax, based on specified operational scenarios. The constraint set can be solved in Maple to show electric load profiles (i.e. power consumption from loads over time). SPLAT creates these load profiles from three modeled inputs: 1) a list of system components and their respective power modes, 2) a decomposition hierarchy of the system into these components, and 3) the specification of at least one scenario, which consists of temporal constraints on component power modes. In order to demonstrate how this information is represented in a system model, a notional example of a spacecraft planetary flyby is introduced. This example is also used to explain the overall functionality of SPLAT, and how this is used to generate electric power load profiles. Lastly, a cursory review of the usage of SPLAT on the Cold Atom Laboratory project is presented to show how the tool was used in an actual space hardware design application.

power load profile↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

PowerCell aboard the EuCROPIS satellite - Results from the first synthetic biology experiment in space

Synthetic biology is the design and construction of new biological parts and systems not found in nature, a technology that we believe will be a game-changing technology for space exploration. The PowerCell concept is an ecology based on photosynthetic microbes taking advantage of in situ materials and energy to generate, on-demand, useful products (food, fuel, cloths, drugs, etc.) that satisfy specific needs of long-term human presence away from Earth. This first PowerCell experiment is testing this concept as well as several key mechanisms of engineering biology in a 48-well plate microfluidics system. NASA's PowerCell experiment was loaded in the fluidics system at NASA Ames in May 2016, and subsequently integrated on the DLR's compact satellite Eu:CROPIS (Euglena Combined Regenerative Organic food Production In Space), as a secondary payload. Launched into Earth’s orbit from the Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, USA, in December 3, 2019, the Eu:CROPIS platform has provided an artificial gravity through rotational acceleration, simulating gravity ranges compatible to those found on Mars and on the Moon, as well as microgravity in the absence of acceleration. Each set of biological experiments performed at Earth's orbit was compared to ground controls. Over 400 days' worth of mission data showed that all hardware and software worked as planned, and microbial growth was observed in all four gravity regimes, including growth on cyanobacterial cell extract in three out of four gravity regimes. The genetic transformation experiment was successful in microgravity and provided valuable long-term reagent stability data, including antibiotic efficacy. The demonstrated ability of hardy bacterial spores to recover from a long-term stasis period will be fundamental for deep human space missions. Lessons learned from hardware design to experimental operations are leading to improved designs and capabilities for future missions.

Ivan Glaucio Paulino Lima↗
NASA NTRS1997

Root-Raised Cosine Filter Implementation That Uses Canonical Signed Digits for High-Speed Digital Filter Applications

NASA Lewis Research Center's Space Communications Division has been investigating high-speed digital filters that can operate at a higher speed than those in current use for a digital modulator and demodulator (modem). Using the Canonical Signed Digits (CSD) number representation for filter coefficients is a very effective way to increase the filter's speed while reducing complexity in the digital filter hardware design. This approach is a good alternative to using an expensive parallel-processing design technique or custom, application-specific integrated circuits. Such integrated circuits may not be suitable for applications that require filter speeds faster than what application-specific integrated circuits digital signal processors can offer for a dedicated channel. When a communication channel is a dedicated, multiplication process--a costly, time-consuming process--it can be greatly simplified by a replacement of the filter coefficients with CSD numbers. A computer code written with the MATLAB software package runs the program and generates CSD-represented filter coefficients that are based on minimizing minimum mean square errors. Also, the Alta Group of Cadence's Signal Processing Workstation is used to simulate and analyze the CSD filter responses. The impulse response of the root-raised cosine filter that is used as a base model is defined. From this filter, a set of coefficients is sampled and stored in a file. For the all coefficients, the optimal CSD number for each coefficient is searched on the basis of the minimum-mean-square-errors criterion. Because the distribution of CSD numbers is not uniform, quantization errors tend to be bigger for coefficients greater than 1/2. To offset errors that occur in a region of coefficients between 1/2 to 1 and to better represent fractions with CSD numbers, an extra nonzero digit is allowed for any coefficients exceeding 1/2. This will greatly improve frequency response as well as intersymbol interference at the receiver. The frequency response of a set of collected CSD-represented filter coefficients was compared with the same filter that was conventionally implemented. Analyses show CSD-implemented filters perform as well as conventional filters. Comparison of eye diagrams and bit-error-rate curves between CSD filters and traditionally implemented filters are almost indistinguishable. However, filter complexity was reduced from almost 3.5 to 1 for CSD filters. Complete computer simulation results are available. In the near future, work will focus on building actual working digital filter hardware in a field programmable gate array (FPGA).

Kim, Heechul↗
DOE OSTI2026

Are CO2 batteries ready for the grid? A cross-cutting deployment checklist

Metal-CO2 batteries have attracted considerable research interest in the past decade due to the utilization of the greenhouse CO2 gas. The low cost and abundance of CO2 feedstocks, together with high specific capacity metal anodes, make this technology a promising candidate for electricity-demanding data centers and grids. However, nonstandard data reporting, ambiguous hardware designs, and questionable cycling parameters have emerged as the field has grown. A clear checklist and standardized reporting format for research and development are urgently needed. Here, after carefully re-analyzing 15 Na-CO2 and 9 Li-CO2 studies, we propose a general checklist and a flowchart for CO2 batteries and related gas conversion systems. Specific performance values from a deployment-oriented perspective, based on commercial lithium iron phosphate batteries, are integrated into the list. We frame research and development efforts around grid-relevant outputs, including areal rate and capacity, cyclability, gas utilization, and safety. While illustrated for Na- and Li-CO2 cells, this framework is directly transferable to other CO2 batteries and air/oxygen batteries, helping align benchtop demonstrations with systematic metrics that ultimately govern future deployment.

Wu, Wenda [ORNL] (ORCID:000900033307687X)↗
DOE OSTI2024

Hydrogen-induced tunable remanent polarization in a perovskite nickelate

Materials with field-tunable polarization are of broad interest to condensed matter sciences and solid-state device technologies. Here, using hydrogen (H) donor doping, we modify the room temperature metallic phase of a perovskite nickelate NdNiO 3 into an insulating phase with both metastable dipolar polarization and space-charge polarization. We then demonstrate transient negative differential capacitance in thin film capacitors. The space-charge polarization caused by long-range movement and trapping of protons dominates when the electric field exceeds the threshold value. First-principles calculations suggest the polarization originates from the polar structure created by H doping. We find that polarization decays within ~1 second which is an interesting temporal regime for neuromorphic computing hardware design, and we implement the transient characteristics in a neural network to demonstrate unsupervised learning. These discoveries open new avenues for designing ferroelectric materials and electrets using light-ion doping.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2026

Magnetic hysteresis experiments performed on quantum annealers

While quantum annealers have emerged as versatile and controllable platforms for experimenting on correlated spin systems, the important phenomenology of magnetic memory and hysteresis remain unexplored on hardware designed to escape metastable states via quantum tunneling. Here, we present the first general protocol to experiment on magnetic hysteresis on programmable quantum annealers and implement it on three D-Wave superconducting qubit quantum annealers, using up to thousands of spins, for both ferromagnetic and disordered Ising models, and across different graph topologies. We observe hysteresis loops whose area depends nonmonotonically on quantum fluctuations, exhibiting both expected and unexpected features, such as disorder-induced steps and nonmonotonicities. Our work establishes quantum annealers as a platform for probing nonequilibrium emergent magnetic phenomena, thereby broadening the role of analog quantum computers into foundational questions in condensed matter physics.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2025

NeuroCoreX: Brain-Inspired Computing from Code to Circuit

NeuroCoreX is an open-source codebase that enables the implementation of brain-inspired, energy-efficient neuromorphic computing models on FPGA hardware. Designed to support real-time learning, all-to-all neural connectivity, and flexible network architectures, NeuroCoreX offers a hands-on, accessible platform for exploring biologically inspired models of neural computation. It empowers researchers, students, and developers to implement and experiment with adaptive systems—bringing the power of neuromorphic computing to a broader community through a low-cost, scalable, and reconfigurable framework.

Gautam, Ashish [Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORN↗