Active Projects
LDRD projects are typically conducted with a scale of effort that utilizes existing experimental or computational facilities at SLAC. This scale of effort has been sufficient in demonstrating proof-of-principle for a new idea or methodology or for developing small-scale R&D capabilities.
Listed are projects for the current fiscal year and an archive of past projects (at left).
| Active Project Title | Initiative | Principal Investigator | FY Start |
|---|---|---|---|
| A compact positron source for multidisciplinary science | Category 2 | Spencer Gessner | FY25 |
| Adaptive X-ray Imaging of Sparse Samples Using Reinforcement Learning | Pre-FY25 | Samuel Webb | FY24 |
| Advanced Mid-Infrared Laser Sources for LCLS-II and Beyond | Pre-FY25 | Jake Koralek | FY23 |
| Advancing Multidimensional Spectroscopies: Development of Broadband, Temporally Shaped UV Laser Pulses Using an Adaptive Pulse Shape | Pre-FY25 | Matt Bain | FY24 |
| Ahmed Startup LDRD: Experimental Research in Cosmic Inflation and Growth of Structure | Workforce | Zeeshan Ahmed | FY24 |
| AI-guided autonomous atomic-layer synthesis and process exploration of microelectronic materials for future back-end-of-line energy efficient microelectronic technologies | Category 2 | John Baniecki | FY25 |
| Benchmarking Interatomic Potentials for Fusion Materials Applications | High Energy Density Science | Mianzhen Mo | FY25 |
| Calibration of superconducting sensors for low-mass dark matter detection | Workforce | Stifter, Kelly | FY24 |
| Center for Artificial Intelligence for NU Physics - an Incubator for Physics Discovery Pipelines | Workforce | Terao, Kazuhiro | FY24 |
| Collider Research, Education, and Design (CRED) | Workforce | Spencer Gessner | FY25 |
| Conceptual design of a 1.N-call, 2856 MHz, normal-conducting electron source with a transmission mode photocathode for ultrafast electron diffraction | Accelerator Research and Development | Theo Vecchione | FY25 |
| Cryo-CMOS for superconducting qubits: enabling quantum computing and dark matter experiments | Quantum Information Science and Technology | Llorenç Fanals-i-Batllori | FY25 |
| Cryo-Em Enabled Investigation Of Dynamic Structure-Function Relationships At Electrified Ionomer| Catalyst Interfaces For Water Electrolysis | Sustainability Research | Adam Nielander | FY26 |
| Data-driven discovery of high-diffusivity materials for fast charging batteries | Sustainability Research | Molleigh Preefer | FY25 |
| Design of energy-efficient analog processors for edge computing and learning | Semiconductors and Microelectronics | Ping-Chen Huang | FY25 |
| Develop Machine Learning Model for End-to-end alignment of electron probes integrated with 1-MHz LCLS-II | Pre-FY25 | Aashwin Mishra (formerly Nguyen) | FY24 |
| Developing Josephson Microwave Microscopy for Studying Fractional Quantum Hall Effect | Workforce | Zhurun Ji | FY25 |
| Developing new sensing modalities for neutrino physics experiments with nuclei | Workforce | Brian Lenardo | FY26 |
| Developing Simulated soil Platforms to Visualize Rhizosphere Biological and Environmental Processes | Sustainability Research | Jocelyn Richardson | FY25 |
| Developing Stochastic Correlation Spectroscopy for Sub-eV Resolution X-ray Scattering from Dense Plasmas | High Energy Density Science | Luke Fletcher | FY25 |
| Developing World Class Computationally Spectroscopic Technique to Understand Dynamical Properties of Strongly Correlated Materials at LCLS-II and SSRL | Pre-FY25 | Hongchen Jiang | FY24 |
| Development of ADMX-CM axion haloscope at SLAC | Pre-FY25 | Chao-Lin Kuo | FY23 |
| Development of Photosynthetic Methane and hydrogen Transforming Biohybrids Platforms | Pre-FY25 | Leland Gee | FY23 |
| Development of XLZD: Critical technologies for a 100-tonne-class LXe TPC to search for dark matter and other rare processes | Pre-FY25 | Tom Shutt | FY24 |
| Driving Discoveries with Exascale Bayesian Experimental Design | Integrated Scientific & Data-Intensive Computing | Sean Gasiorowski | FY25 |
| DynaBoost: Selective Enhancement and Interpretation of X-ray Scattering Signals from Protein Crystals under Terahertz Excitation | Category 2 | Frederic Poitevin | FY25 |
| Enhancing Anomaly Detection Searches at Collider Experiments | Workforce | Gonski, Julia | FY24 |
| Enhancing Collider Experiments with eFPGA-based Machine Learning for On-Detector Data Processing | Integrated Scientific & Data-Intensive Computing | Larry Ruckman | FY26 |
| Enhancing the haloscope for Axion Searches | Workforce | Chelsea Bartram | FY26 |
| Expanding the reach of xenon-based dark matter experiments | Workforce | Ann Wang | FY26 |
| Hexagonal Boron Nitride Quantum Sensor for Battery | Pre-FY25 | Yan-Kai Tzeng | FY24 |
| High-Efficiency, High-Resolution mm-wave Spectrometers for Next-Generation Cosmological Constraints | Pre-FY25 | Zeeshan Ahmed | FY24 |
| High-Precision Heterogeneous Catalysis by Quantum Monte Carlo | Pre-FY25 | Michal Bajdich | FY23 |
| Imaging of Structural Dynamics at Surfaces and Interfaces | Pre-FY25 | Adi Natan | FY24 |
| Improving DUNE Energy Resolution with the GAMPix Readout | Pre-FY25 | Mark Convery | FY24 |
| Integrating Cryogenic Electron Microscopy Methods with DOE-Relevant Materials Science Research at SSRL | Sustainability Research | Peter Dahlberg | FY25 |
| Integration of advanced optical microscopy methods in a FIB-SEM for biological investigations | Workforce | Peter Dahlberg | FY25 |
| Intertwining excitonic and symmetry-breaking orders in rhombohedral graphene | Category 2 | Aaron Sharpe | FY26 |
| Isochronous Induction Cell Storage Ring | Category 2 | Michael Erlichman | FY25 |
| Measuring the electronic properties of materials under extreme pressure and temperature with terahertz spectroscopy | Workforce | Benjamin Ofori-Okai | FY25 |
| Modulation Excitation X-ray Spectroscopy: Streamlining a Novel Technique for Redefining Catalysis Studies at Synchrotron Facilities | Sustainability Research | Dimosthenis Sokaras | FY25 |
| Neural representation of massive scientific datasets | Category 2 | Joshua Turner | FY24 |
| Nonlinear Multi-pass Cell | X-ray and Ultrafast Science | Slava Leshchenko | FY25 |
| Photoconductive sampling of space-charge fields | Accelerator Research and Development | David Cesar | FY25 |
| Physics Informed Diffusion Models for Unravelling the Complexity in Disorder | X-ray and Ultrafast Science | Yanwen Sun | FY26 |
| Physics informed probabilistic foundation models for CDI | Integrated Scientific & Data-Intensive Computing | Matthew Seaberg | FY25 |
| Picosecond X-ray studies of Voltage- and laser-driven phase tnrasitions in functional electronic materials and device architectures | X-ray and Ultrafast Science | Marco Reinhard | FY26 |
| Probabilistic Event Detection at the Cosmic Frontier | Pre-FY25 | Maria Elena Monzani | FY23 |
| Prototype fiber-feed for a Rubin Multi-Object Spectrograph | Pre-FY25 | Aaron Roodman | FY24 |
| Quantum Microwave Photon Detectors for Dark Matter and Spin Detection | Quantum Information Science and Technology | Shannon Harvey | FY26 |
| Rational design for mitigating fouling on ion-exchange membranes in electrochemical nutrient recovery techniques | Pre-FY25 | Johanna Nelson Weker | FY24 |
| Segmented Flow Microreactors for High-Throughput Sample Delivery | Biosciences and Human Health | Raymond Sierra | FY26 |
| Selective excitation of high-wavevector collective modes | X-ray and Ultrafast Science | David Reis | FY26 |
| Structural characterization of pyrolysis intermediates using LCLS-II | Pre-FY25 | Thomas Wolf | FY23 |
| Super computing for advancing molecular biology at SLAC | Biosciences and Human Health | Derek Mendez | FY26 |
| Theory & analysis infrastructure R&D for future cosmology from Rubin/DESI/LIM x CMB | Physics of the Universe | Emmanuel Schaan | FY25 |
| Tracing Leaky Coherence Through Large Molecular Systems | X-ray and Ultrafast Science | Taran Driver | FY26 |
