Materials Science Division
Actinides and Lanthanide Science Group
We are dedicated to closing knowledge gaps in actinide and lanthanide research while delivering technology for the national interest.
Vision: Develop and deploy next-generation materials for emerging technologies.
Mission: Developing advanced actinide- and lanthanide-containing materials and understanding their properties to address national, environmental, and economic security.
We address our mission space through:
- Computational thermodynamics and kinetics
- Material synthesis
- Advanced characterization
- Optimization of material properties
In the news
Computational Tools for Designer Alloys
Accelerating Materials Discovery
Our capabilities
Our capabilities include:
- Expertise working with toxic, radioactive, and flammable materials
- Production of flowable custom metal, alloy, and ceramic powders
- Advanced manufacturing of functional materials
- Surface science expertise
- Thermophysical characterization, including magnetic properties
- Phase stable, high purity, controlled doping
- Production of functionally graded and spatially structured transparent ceramic scintillators and laser gain media via additive manufacturing
- High-performance computing for materials design
- Design of optimal alloys through the development of The Alloy Optimization Software (TAOS)
- CALPHAD database and software development for thermodynamics and microstructure evolution
Our team
Group members
Our publications
All-ceramic channel waveguides fabricated via 3D printing
Optics Letters, 2026
R. Osborne, J. Zhang, M. Dubinskii, N. Cherepy, S. Payne
Materials & Design, 2026
B. Ellyson, B. Bocklund, J. Glerum, N. Ury, M. Juhasz, R. Seede, A. Perron, K. Bertsch
Propellants, Explosives, Pyrotechnics, 2026
P. B. Mirkarimi
Deposition of very thick Mo/Al multilayer films using magnetron sputtering
Thin Solid Films, 2026
P. B. Mirkarimi, R. Flores, W. L. York, D. B. Bober
Early-stage uranium-hydrogen corrosion kinetics and mechanism
npj Materials Degradation, 2026
J. Shittu, W. Siekhaus, T.-C. Sun, Y. Idell, B. Childs, J. Boro, A. Loui, M. Bagge-Hansen, S. Donald, J. McKeown, K. Blobaum, A. Saab, and W. McLean II
Focused ion beam milling of polycrystalline diamond
Diamond and Related Materials,2026
S.J. Shin, L.B. Aji, E.J. Kim, D.C. Goodelman, J.B. Forien, S.O. Kucheyev
Low-energy ion beam sputtering of polycrystalline diamond
Journal of Applied Physics, 2026
L.B. Bayu Aji, D.C. Goodelman, E. Kim, J.B. Forien, S.O. Kucheyev, S.J. Shin
Metallurgical and Materials Transactions A, 2026
B. Ellyson, B. Bocklund, K. Elder, S. Atabay, C.J. Rietema, A. Baker, A. Perron, T. Voisin, J.T. McKeown
Texture development in magnetostrictive Fe-Ga alloys processed by laser powder bed fusion
Materials & Design, 2026
A. Amon, E. Kim, A. E. Wilson-Heid, M. T. Islam, A. A. Martin, S. K. McCall, A. A. Baker
JINST, 2026
M.J. Pivovaroff, J. Ruz, J.K. Vogel, N. Brejnholt, B. Budau, V. Burwitz, F.E. Christensen, T. Decker, C.J. Hailey, R. Hill, G. Hartner, A. Jakobsen and R. Soufli
Ultrasound Characterization of Plastic Bonded Explosives With Varied Binder Content and Density
Propellants, Explosives, Pyrotechnics, 2026
J. S. Lum, P. B. Mirkarimi, E. L. Robertson, M. Lynch, P. Martinez, J. W. Tringe, K. T. Sullivan
Alloy design for additive manufacturing: Continuously reinforced Al-Ce nanocomposites
Materials & Design, 2025
A. Amon, G.E. Bean, J.B. Forien, T. Voisin, J.A. Hammons, E.E. Moore, E. Simsek, J. Shittu, K.S. Shanks, K.E. Nygren, A. Perron, R. Ott, S.K. McCall, H.B. Henderson
Scripta Materialia, 2025
A. Samanta, M. Widom, J. Berry, A. Perron, J. McKeown
Analytical gradient-based optimization of CALPHAD model parameters
Acta Materialia, 2025
C. Kunselman, B. Bocklund, R.Otis, R. Arróyave
JOM, 2025
B.P. Holcombe, A. Villalobos, N.S. Sinclair, E.L. Lantz, D.R. Hoffman, E. Kim, A.A. Baker, J. Cui, B.Z. Cui, A.E. Long, R. Akolkar
Fusion Science and Technology, 2025
D.C. Goodelman, A.M. Engwall-Holmes, G.V. Taylor, B.J. Bocklund, D.J. Strozzi, S.J. Shin, E. Kim, N. Vishnoi, S.O. Kucheyev, L.B. Bayu Aji
Composite as a Cathode for Lithium-Ion Batteries
ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, 2025
E. Kim, A.G. Tovar, E.P. Ramos, J.D. Roehling, S.M. Hoover, N.E. Surghani, H.B. Radousky, J.S. Curtis, J. Ye, A.A. Baker
Energy Research & Social Science, 2025
R. Deberdt, N. M. Smith, J. L. Calderon, S. K. McCall
Electrochemical Recovery of Iron from Spent Pickle Liquor by Chloride-Based Molten Salt Electrolysis
ECS Advances, 2025
A. Badalbayli, N. Sinclair, E. Kim, A.A. Baker, R. Akolkar
First principles free energy model with dynamic magnetism for δ-plutonium
Reports on Progress in Physics, 2025
P. Söderlind, A. Landa, L.X. Benedict, N. Goldman, R.Q. Hood, K.E. Kweon, E.E. Moore, A. Perron, B. Sadigh, C.J. Wu, L.H. Yang
FLEX: a 2-9 MeV linac for x-ray detector and x-ray inspection development
Hard X-Ray, Gamma-Ray, and Neutron Detector Physics XXVII, 2025
A. Diego, P. Carriere, R. Berry, R. Foster, N. J. Cherepy, D. Schneberk, C. McNamee, J. Caffrey, H. Zhang
Growth and structure of alpha-Ta films for quantum circuit integration
Journal of Applied Physics, 2025
L.D. Alegria, A. Abelson, E. Kim, S. Im, P.M. Voyles, V. Lordi, J.L. DuBois, Y.J. Rosen
High-rate deposition of ultrathick bismuth films by direct-current magnetron sputtering
Vacuum, 2025
D.C. Goodelman, G.V. Taylor, E. Kim, M.J. Stafford, D.X. Qu, A. Pendse, S.J. Shin, S.O. Kucheyev, L.B. Aji
Metallurgical and Materials Transactions A, 2025
C.J. Rietema, K.L. Elder, B. Ellyson, J. Shittu, A.A. Baker, Z.C. Sims, H.B. Henderson, T. Voisin, A.P. Perron, S.K. McCall, J.T. McKeown
Ink-sprayed transparent ceramic multilayer planar waveguides for ribbon lasers
Optics Letters, 2025
R. Osborne, N. Cherepy, R. Gaume, J. Boro, S. Payne
Investigation of In Situ and Ex Situ Passivation of Pyrophoric Uranium–Niobium Alloy Powder
Appl. Sci., 2025
E. M. Clarke, H. B. Henderson, E. S. Elton, T. T. Li, L. D. Winston, I. R. Crystal, O. G. Long, S. L. Harris, R. L. Stillwell, J. R. Jeffries, J. D. Kuntz, K. Huang
Mobility assessment of the BCC and carbide phases in the C-Nb, CU and Nb-U systems
Journal of Nuclear Materials, 2025
N. Ury, K. Kweon, J. Shittu, A.P. Perron, B.C. Childs, E.E. Moore
Molten salt electrolysis in chloride melts for energy-efficient iron metal production (Editors’ choice)
Journal of The Electrochemical Society, 2025
A. Badalbayli, N. Sinclair, E. Kim, A.A. Baker, R. Akolkar
Opportunities for Cerium valorization in the Rare Earth supply chain
In TMS Annual Meeting & Exhibition, 2025
A. Amon, S. K. McCall
Hard X-Ray, Gamma-Ray, and Neutron Detector Physics XXVII, 2025
A.A. Kostogiannes, D.J. Schneberk, N.J. Cherepy, P. Kerr, C.J. McNamee, R.A. Osborne, S.A. Payne
Plasma Focused Ion Beam Milling of High-Aspect-Ratio Holes in Diamond
Fusion Science and Technology, 2025
S.J. Shin, J.B. Forien, D.C. Goodelman, L.B. Bayu Aji, E. Kim, S.O. Kucheyev
Properties of Ti4+ Li-Garnet Ceramic Scintillator
2025 IEEE Nuclear Science Symposium (NSS), Medical Imaging Conference (MIC) and Room Temperature Semiconductor Detector Conference (RTSD), 2025
J. Glodo, A.A. Kostogiannes, T.J. Rudzik, W.S. Rubink, N.J. Cherepy, S.A. Payne, Y. Wang, M. Muller
The Ce-Fe-Ti system: Phase equilibria in the Fe-rich corner at 1000 C
Journal of Phase Equilibria and Diffusion, 2025
E. Kim, A. E. Wilson-Heid, J. Boro, A. A. Baker, A. N. Lee, M. Kunz, A. Amon
Vacuum, 2025
D.C. Goodelman, A.M. Engwall-Holmes, G.V. Taylor, E. Kim, J.B. Merlo, N. Vishnoi, S.J. Shin, R.J. Vargas, S.O. Kucheyev, L.B. Aji
Unravelling Microstructure Selection in an Additively Manufactured Eutectic High‐Entropy Alloy
Advanced Materials, 2025
Zhang S., Li C., Mooraj S., Lai Y., Patel R.S,. Wu M., Zhang Y., Ren J., Guan S., Perron A., Yan W., McKeown J.T., Xie K.Y., Voisin T., Chen W., Chen W.
npj Computational Materials, 2024
S. Liu, B. Bocklund, J. Diffenderfer, S. Chaganti, B. Kailkhura, S. K. McCall, B. Gallagher, A. Perron, J. T. McKeown
Journal of Materials Processing Technology, 2024
M. Wu, M. Linne, J.B. Forien, N.R. Barton, J. Ye, K. Hazeli, A. Perron, K. Bertsch, Y.M. Wang, T. Voisin
J. Alloys. Comp., 2024
B. Tonyali, H. Sun, B. Bocklund, J. P. Borgonia, R. A. Otis, S.-L. Shang, Z.-K. Liu, A. M. Beese
Aluminothermic reduction of CeO2: mechanism of an economical route to aluminum–cerium alloys
Mater Horiz, 2024
A. Amon , E.E. Moore , H.B. Henderson , J. Shittu , M. Kunz , S. Kastamo , N. Huotari , A. Loukus , R. Ott, D. Weiss, and S.K. McCall
Analytically differentiable metrics for phase stability
Calphad, 2024
C. Kunselman, B. Bocklund, A. van de Walle, R. Otis, R. Arróyave
Comp. Mat. Sci., 2024
N. Ury, B. Bocklund, A. Perron, K. M. Bertsch
Bismuth-loaded plastic scintillators
Hard X-Ray, Gamma-Ray, and Neutron Detector Physics XXVI, 2024
S.P. O’Neal, N. Cherepy, S. Hok, S. Payne, C. Hurlbut
Cross-quality few-shot transfer for alloy yield strength prediction: a new materials science benchmark and a sparsity-oriented optimization framework
Conference on Parsimony and Learning, 2024
X. Chen, T. Chen, E.Y. Olivares, K. Elder, S. McCall, A. Perron, J. McKeown, B. Kailkhura, Z. Wang, B. Gallagher
J. Appl. Phys, 2024
S. J. Shin, J. H. Bae, A. M. Engwall, L. B. Bayu Aji, A. A. Baker, G. V. Taylor, J. B. Merlo, L. R. Sohngen, J. D. Moody, and S. O. Kucheyev
Surface and Coatings Technology, 2024
E. Kim, A.M. Engwall, J.B. Merlo, S.J. Shin, D.C. Goodelman, A.A. Baker, G.V. Taylor, S.O. Kucheyev, L.B. Bayu Aji
Electrolysis in Chloride Molten Salts for Sustainable Critical Metals Production and Recovery
ECS Interface, 2024
B. Holcombe, N. Sinclair, A. A. Baker, E. Kim, S. K. McCall, R. Akolkar
ESPEI for Efficient Thermodynamic Database Development, Modification, and Uncertainty Quantification: Application to Cu–Mg
Zentropy, 2024
B. Bocklund, R. Otis, A. Egorov, A. Obaied, I. Roslyakova, Z.K. Liu
Hot-Roll Fabrication of Anisotropic Nanograin Nd-Fe-B Magnet
JOM, 2024
C. Pan, G. Ouyang, W. Tang, X Liu, R. Ott, I. Nlebedim, E. Kim, S. K. McCall, A. A. Baker and J. Cui
Calphad, 2024
B. Bocklund, A. Perron, J. T. McKeown, K. M. Bertsch
Influence of atomic ordering and cerium doping on magnetostrictive Fe-Al alloys
J Magn Magn Mater, 2024
A. Amon , A. A. Baker , J. Shittu , E. E. Moore , E. Kim , C. Rietema , H. B. Henderson , A.M. M. Abeykoon , S. K. McCall
Materialia, 2024
H. Sun, B. Pan, Z. Yang, A. M. Krajewski, B. Bocklund, S.-L. Shang, J. Li, A. M. Beese, Z.-K. Liu
J. Alloys. Comp., 2024
J. Shittu, C. J. Rietema, M. Juhasz, B. Ellyson, K. L. M Elder, B. J. Bocklund, Z. C. Sims, T. T. Li, H. B. Henderson, J. Berry, A. Samanta, T. Voisin, A. A. Baker, S. K. McCall, A. P. Perron, J. T. McKeown
Nd3+→ Cr4+ energy transfer in co-doped Nd,Cr:Y3Al5O12 garnet transparent ceramics
Optical Materials: X, 2024
I.R. Phillips, R.A. Osborne, N.J. Cherepy, A.D. Drobshoff, Z.M. Seeley, W.F. Krupke, S.A. Payne
Phosphor Ceramic Composite for Tunable Warm White Light
Materials, 2024
R. A. Osborne, N. J. Cherepy, P. S. Bleier, R. M. Gaume, and S. A. Payne
Preparation of monodisperse cerium oxide particle suspensions from a tetravalent precursor
Dalton Transactions, 2024
A.M. Hastings, S. Herrera, S. Harris, T. Parsons-Davis, A.J. Pascall, J.A. Shusterman
Processing and microstructure of a Cu-Al-Fe-Mn alloy via droplet-on-demand additive manufacturing
Materials & Design, 2024
K.D. Traxel, E.S. Elton, A.M. Petersen, C.M. Silva, A. Perron, J.R. Jeffries, A.J. Pascall
Self Q-switched Nd, Cr:YAG transparent ceramics
Proc. SPIE, 2024
R. A. Osborne, A. D. Drobshoff, N. J. Cherepy, R. J. Beach, and S. A. Payne
ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering, 2024
B. Holcombe, N. Sinclair, R. Wasalathanthri, B. Mainali, E. Guarr, A.A. Baker, S.O. Usman, E. Kim, S. Sen-Britain, H. Jin, S.K. McCall
Thermodynamics and Magnetism of SmFe12 Compound Doped with Zr, Ce, Co and Ni: An Ab Initio Study
Metals, 2024
A. Landa, P. Söderlind, E.E. Moore, A. Perron
Transparent ceramic scintillators
Hard X-Ray, Gamma-Ray, and Neutron Detector Physics XXVI, 2024
N. Cherepy
ORNL/SPR, 2024
D. Nicholson, P. Hausladen, S. Baker, R. Cao, G. Carini, N. Cherepy, C. Clemett, T. Crane, P. Feng, L. Fabris, C. Geddes, M. G. Kanatzidis, B. Kernen, P. Kerr, A. Leatherland, E.A. Miller, B. Quiter
Add. Manu.
X. Huang, J. Berry, A. Perron, R. Arróyave
Binder-free cold spray deposition of NdFeB permanent magnets
MRS Comm.
A.A. Baker, R.C. Thuss, A.A. Maich, S.K. McCall, and H.B. Radousky
npj Comp. Mat.
K.L. M. Elder, J. Berry, B. Bocklund, S.K. McCall, A. Perron, and J.T. McKeown
npj Comp. Mat.
K.L. M. Elder, J. Berry, A. Perron, B. Bocklund, J. Shittu, C.J. Rietema, H.B. Henderson, S.K. McCall, and J.T. McKeown
Enhanced magnetostriction through dilute Ce doping of Fe-Ga
Phys. Rev. Materials
A.A. Baker, A. Amon, E.E. Moore, H.B. Henderson, J. Shittu, C.J. Rietema, A. Perron, and S.K. McCall
Optical Materials Express
R.A. Osborne, T.J. Wineger, T.D. Yee, N.J. Cherepy, Z.M. Seeley, R. Gaume, M. Dubinskii, and S.A. Payne
Add. Manu.
S.A. Khairallah, E.B. Chin, M.J. Juhasz, A.L. Dayton, A. Capps, P.H. Tsuji, K.M. Bertsch, A. Perron, S.K. Mccall, J.T. Mckeown
ACS Nano
E.R. Meshot, A. Baker, D. Malone, S. Hayes, H. Hamza, C. Wang, M.A. Marcus, and X. Lepró*
High-Temperature Thermodynamics of Uranium from Ab Initio Modeling
Appl. Sci.
P. Söderlind, A. Landa, E.E. Moore, A. Perron, J. Roehling, and J.T. McKeown
Angew. Chem. Int. Ed.
W. Zhang, Z. Lu, L. Wojtas, Y.-S. Chen, A.A. Baker, Y.-S. Liu, A.M. Al-Enizi, A. Nafady, and S. Ma
Rev. Sci. Instrum.
T. Braine, G. Rybka, A. A. Baker, J. Brodsky, G. Carosi, N. Du, N. Woollett, S. Knirck, M. Jones, ADMX Collaboration
Physics of Plasmas
H. Sio et al.
Acta Materialia
S. Zhu, J. Shittu, A. Perron, C. Nataraj, J. Berry, J.T. McKeown, A. van de Walle, A. Samanta
Nanoscale
J.K. Han, A.A. Baker, J.R.I. Lee, and S.K. McCall
Spheroidization of Nd-Fe-B Particles
J. Appl. Phys
E. Kim, A. A. Baker, J. K. Han, S. K. McCall
Strength mechanisms and tunability in Al-Ce-Mg ternary alloys enabled by additive manufacturing
Materials & Design
S. Nam, E. Simsek, N. Argibay, O. Rios, H.B. Henderson, D. Weiss, E.E. Moore, A.P. Perron, S.K. McCall, R.T. Ott
Structural and magnetic properties of magnetostrictive Fe-Ga-Zr nanocrystalline alloy
Journal of Alloys and Compounds
M.T. Islam, D. Nandwana, J. Healy, J.K. Jaklich, B. Dong, A. Yu, E.E. Moore, Y. Ijiri, S.K. McCall, M.A. Willard
ACS Sus. Chem. Energy
B. Holcombe, N. Sinclair, R. Wasalathanthri, B. Mainali, E. Guarr, A. A. Baker, S. O. Usman, E. Kim, S. Sen-Britain, H. Jin, S. K. McCall, and R. Akolkar
Adv. Powder Tech.
K. Huang, E.S. Elton, H.B. Henderson, N.K. Harward, E.M. Clarke, L.D. Winston, E.M. Sedillo, D.L. Rosas, C.A. Schaeffer-Cuellar, S.A. Simpson, T.T. Li, N.E. Teslich, S.G. Torres, A.L. DeMint, J.A. Cook, J.T. McKeown, J.R. Jeffries, A.V. Hamza, R.L. Stillwell
The kinetics of the PuO2 to Pu2O3 conversion
J. Chem. Phys
L. N. Dinh, S. B. Donald, J. A. Stanford, C. K. Saw, R. Gollott, J. M. Haschke, W. McLean, II
Thermo4PFM: Facilitating Phase-field simulations of alloys with thermodynamic driving forces
Comp. Phys. Comm.
J.-L. Fattebert, S. DeWitt, A. Perron, J. Turner
Thermodynamic modeling of the Nb-Ni system with uncertainty quantification using PyCalphad and ESPEI
Calphad
H. Sun, S.-L. Shang, R. Gong, B.J. Bocklund, A.M. Beese, Z.-K. Liu
Appl. Sci.
E.E. Moore, T.P. Genda, E. Balboni, Z. Dai, A. Perron, and K.B. Knight
Additively manufactured transparent ceramic thin disk gain medium
Optical Materials Express
T. J. Rudzik, Z. M. Seeley, A. D. Drobshoff, N. J. Cherepy, Y. Wang, S. P. Onorato, M. R. Squillante, and S. A. Payne
Beta Radiation Hardness of GYGAG(Ce) Transparent Ceramic Scintillators
IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science
J.T. Jarrell, N.J. Cherepy, Z.M. Seeley, J.W. Murphy, E.L. Swanberg, L.F. Voss, C.D. Frye, M.A. Stoyer, R.A. Henderson, S.P. O’Neal, R.J. Nikolic
Calcium vapor synthesis of extremely coercive SmCo5
RSC Advances
S.E. Baker, A.A. Baker, C.A. Orme, M.A. Worthington, T.T. Li, E.M. Sedillo, J. Dudoff, J.R. I. Lee, J.D. Kuntza, and S.K. McCall
Counter-ion effect on the diffusion behavior of Yb, Lu, and Nd ions in YAG transparent ceramics
Optical Materials: X
T.J. Rudzik, Z.M. Seeley, F.J. Ryerson, N.J. Cherepy, S.A. Payne
Large transparent ceramic garnet scintillator module
Proc. SPIE
N. J. Cherepy, S. P. O'Neal, R. A. Osborne, T. J. Wineger, Z. M. Seeley, C. J. McNamee, S. A. Payne, F. Liang, H. Brands, L. Hoy, J. Verity, A. Jackson, D. Hook, L. Ruthardt, W. Johnson, T. Zhang, T. Stefanik
3D printed ceramic laser gain media
Proc. SPIE
Z.M. Seeley, N. Cherepy, T. Rudzik, I. Phillips, A. Drobshoff, T. Yee, O. Herrera, F. Ryerson, T. Wineger, Y. Wang, M. Squillante, M. Dubinskiy, and S. Payne
Lens-coupled MeV x-radiography and CT with transparent ceramic GLO scintillators
Proc. SPIE
N. J. Cherepy, Z. M. Seeley, D. J. Schneberk, C. J. McNamee, C. I. Pincus, T. J. Rudzik, R. A. Osborne, I. R. Phillips, J. A. Nicolino, J. Hall, A. Townsend, S. A. Payne
Material jet printing of transparent ceramic Yb:YAG planar waveguides
Optics Letters
Z. M. Seeley, I. R. Phillips, T. J. Rudzik, N. J. Cherepy, A. D. Drobshoff, and S. A. Payne
3D printed transparent ceramic YAG laser rods: Matching the core-clad refractive index
Optical Materials
Z. Seeley, T. Yee, N. Cherepy, A. Drobshoff, O. Herrera, R. Ryerson, S.A. Payne
Laser Congress 2020
Z. M. Seeley, T. J. Rudzik, I. R. Phillips, T. D. Yee, N. J. Cherepy, A. D. Drobshoff, O. D. Herrera, F. J. Ryerson, and S. A. Payne
New red phosphor ceramic K2SiF6:Mn4+
Optical Materials
R.A. Osborne, N.J. Cherepy, Z.M. Seeley, S.A. Payne, A.D. Drobshoff, A.M. Srivastava, W.W. Beers, W.W. Cohen, D.L. Schlagel
J. Appl. Phys.
L. N. Dinh, J. A. Stanford, C. K. Saw, A. J. Nelson, R. Gollott, J. M. Haschke, P. G. Allen, C. Gardner, C. Hrousis, W. J. Siekhaus, W. McLean, II





