Active LDRD Projects
FY20 Important Dates
- FY21 call for proposals
March 17, 2020 - Proposals due
May 1, 2020 - Internal panel presentations
June 10-11, 2020
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Contacts
Despina Milathianaki
LDRD Program Manager
despina@slac.stanford.edu
Elise Poirier
Strategic Planning Coordinator
epoirier@slac.stanford.edu
New LDRD Projects for FY20
X-ray Spectrometer for Pulse by Pulse Full Frame Collection at 1 Mhz
Lead Scientist: Angelo Dragone
The goal of this project is to design, fabricate, and characterize a prototype of a small area X-ray camera with spectroscopic performance capable of full frame operation at 1 megahertz by adopting an architecture with an extremely high level of parallel processing capabilities reading signals from the sensor pixels. This is a critical building block whose successful implementation will provide the basis and a risk mitigation for development of large area cameras capable of matching the full rate of the LCLS-II. One of the ultimate goals of this project is the unique scientific opportunity to capture of “rare events”.
Lumped Element Resonators for Microwave SQUID Multiplexing
Lead Scientist: Shawn Henderson
The project seeks to improve the detector-readout system known as microwave multiplexing, a rising technology in cosmic microwave background cosmology and x-ray astrophysics, by modifying the design of the microwave multiplexing cryogenic circuit and to bring its fabrication to SLAC and Stanford. This effort differs from more conservative existing efforts focused on legacy microwave multiplexing designs. The major improvement would be the reduction of the physical size of the superconducting resonators, which would enable a larger number of resonators to be located in the same physical area. Increased resonator density reduces thermal mass, system complexity, and cost per readout component.
Nanoscale Liquid Heterostructures & Ultrafast Mixing
Lead Scientist: Jake Koralek
This project explores the physics and chemistry of nanoscale liquid heterostructures, utilizing ultrafast optics, infrared microscopy, ultrafast X-rays and electrons. Liquid sheets of only ~100 molecules across allow the transmission of infrared, ultraviolet/X-rays, and even electrons, enabling spectroscopies that were not previously possible on liquids. The ultrathin sheets are optically flat over a wide area, making them ideal targets for a wide range of free electron laser, synchrotron, and ultrafast electron diffraction experiments, and they are expected to be widely used at the new LCLS-II and LCLS-II-HE instruments.
Reversible Bond Dynamics and Polymer Network Rearrangement in Strained Dynamic Polymer Networks
Lead Scientist: Mengning Liang
Dynamic polymer networks, a new class of polymers in which covalent bonds are replaced by reversible dynamics bonds with lower bonding energy, have remarkable properties such as self-healing and super-elasticity as well as implications for sustainability. This project aims to apply coherent x-ray scattering techniques to this unique new class of polymer materials. If successful, this effort will generate preliminary work that demonstrates the ability to use the unique characteristics of free electron lasers to aid in understanding the dynamics of a new generation of polymers.
Revolutionary Methods for Improving Color Center Quality and Positioning for QIS
Lead Scientist: Nicholas Melosh
Optical color centers in wide band-gap materials such as diamond and silicon carbide are exciting systems for quantum information science but have major challenges to implement due to lack of controlled placement and difficulty making at the nanoscale. This project will build a new program based around color center generation and imaging through materials-design, allowing straight-forward nanometer-scale location control as well as incorporation into nanoscale particles. SLAC’s unique capabilities, particularly the new cryo-electron microscopy facility, will be harnessed to grow a unique, internationally recognized effort for color-center based quantum information science.
Superconducting Photon Transducers via Millimeter-Wave Quantum Channels
Lead Scientist: Emilio Nanni
This project will investigate a new class of millimeter-wave devices that enable quantum transduction in the millimeter-wave regime. The project will utilize the millimeter-wave regime as an intermediate state in a two-step transduction scheme. A “quantum bus” would perform the microwave to millimeter-wave transduction with a superconducting resonator at milli-Kelvin temperatures before transporting the photon and its quantum information to higher temperatures. Making the first demonstration of a coherent quantum transduction between microwave and millimeter-wave frequencies is the goal. Developing these transducers will have a dramatic impact on the ability to control quantum systems and develop quantum networks.
All Active Projects for FY20
| Lead Investigator | Project Title |
|---|---|
| Chassin, David | Next Generation Power System Operator Training for Smart Grids |
| Dragone, Angelo | X-ray Spectrometer for Pulse by Pulse Full Frame Collection at 1 MHz |
| Fiuza, Frederico | Modeling Strong-Field QED at SLAC |
| Henderson, Shawn | Lumped Element Resonators for Microwave SQUID Multiplexing |
| Hwang, Harold | Engineering Atomically Controlled Complex Oxide/Aqueous Interfaces |
| Koralek, Jake | Nanosacle Liquid Heterostructures & Ultrafast Mixing |
| Liang, Mengning | Reversible Bond Dynamics and Polymer Network Rearrangement in Strained Dynamic Polymer Networks |
| Lutman, Alberto | Fresh-Slice Beams at the LCLS-Il |
| Marcus, Gabriel | Acitve Q-Switching an X-ray Cavity to Enable a Regenerative Amplifier Free-Electron Laser at LCLS-II |
| Martinez, Todd | High-Throughput Real-Time Theory |
| Melosh, Nicholas | Revolutionary Methods for Improving Color Center Quality and Positioning for QIS |
| Nanni, Emilio | Superconducting Photon Transducers via Millimeter-Wave Quantum Channels |
| Sarangi, Ritimukta | Studying Bacterial Dehalogenation in Action |
| van Driel, Tim | Developing Impulsive Nuclear and X-ray Scattering to Study the Structural Dynamics of Liquids |
| Vecchione, Theodore | Novel Photoemissive Materials for Improving the Experimental Reach of Future Hard X-ray FELs |
| Weatherford, Brandon | Generation and Manipulation of High Pressure, Low Temperature Plasmas Using High-Power RF Pulse Modulation |
| Wolf, Thomas | Development of a High Repetition Rate Soft X-ray Source in Preparation of LCLS-Il Experiments |
