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

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

Leadership

Mccall, Scott K.
Cherepy, Nerine J.
Moore, Emily Elaine
Emily Moore
Perron, Aurelien Pierre Philippe

Group members

Amon, Alfred
Alfred Amon
Bocklund, Brandon Joseph
Clarke, Evan Michael
Evan Clarke
Elder, Kate Lauren Maud
Kate Elder
Gonzales, Adrian Rios
Adrian Gonzales
Harris, Sharee Lynae
Sharee Harris
Huang, Kevin
Kevin Huang
Kim, Eunjeong
Eunjeong Kim
Kostogiannes, Alexandros Anthony
Alexandros Kostogiannes
Lim, Rachel Elizabeth
Rachel Lim
Long, Olivia Grace
Olivia Long
Mirkarimi, Paul B.
Paul Mirkarimi
Osborne, Ross Allen
Ross Osborne
Peters, Scott Michael
Scott Peters
Phillips, Ian Robert
Ian Phillips
Rubink, William Shen-Jeh
William Rubink
Rudzik, Thomas John
Thomas Rudzik
Sanner, Bob
Bob Sanner
Seeley, Zachary
Siekhaus, Wigbert J.
Wigbert Siekhaus
Stillwell, Ryan
Ury, Nicholas Eugene DuyKhang
Nicholas Ury
Winston, Logan David
Logan Winston

Our publications

A comparative study of predicting high entropy alloy phase fractions with traditional machine learning and deep neural networks

npj Computational Materials

S. Liu, B. Bocklund, J. Diffenderfer, S. Chaganti, B. Kailkhura, S. K. McCall, B. Gallagher, A. Perron, J. T. McKeown

Additively manufactured Ni-20Cr to V functionally graded material: Computational predictions and experimental verification of phase formations

J. Alloys. Comp.

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

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

C. Kunselman, B. Bocklund, A. van de Walle, R. Otis, R. Arróyave

Automated path planning for functionally graded materials considering phase stability and solidification behavior: Application to the Mo-Nb-Ta-Ti system

Comp. Mat. Sci.

N. Ury, B. Bocklund, A. Perron, K. M. Bertsch

Deposition of ultrathick heavy-metal alloys on rotating substrates by high-power impulse magnetron sputtering: Target erosion effects

J. Appl. Phys

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

Effects of growth rate and dynamic substrate tilt on properties of Au-Ta alloy films deposited by high-power impulse magnetron sputtering

Surface and Coatings Technology

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

B. Holcombe, N. Sinclair, A. A. Baker, E. Kim, S. K. McCall, R. Akolkar

Hot-Roll Fabrication of Anisotropic Nanograin Nd-Fe-B Magnet

JOM

C. Pan, G. Ouyang, W. Tang, X Liu, R. Ott, I. Nlebedim, E. Kim, S. K. McCall, A. A. Baker and J. Cui

Implementation of an extensible property modeling framework in ESPEI with applications to molar volume and elastic stiffness models

Calphad

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

A. Amon , A. A. Baker , J. Shittu , E. E. Moore , E. Kim , C. Rietema , H. B. Henderson , A.M. M. Abeykoon , S. K. McCall

MaterialsMap: A CALPHAD-based tool to design composition pathways through feasibility map for desired dissimilar materials, demonstrated with resistance spot welding joining of Ag-Al-Cu

Materialia

H. Sun, B. Pan, Z. Yang, A. M. Krajewski, B. Bocklund, S.-L. Shang, J. Li, A. M. Beese, Z.-K. Liu

Microstructural, phase, and thermophysical stability of CrMoNbV refractory multi-principal element alloys

J. Alloys. Comp.

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

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

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

A.M. Hastings, S. Herrera, S. Harris, T. Parsons-Davis, A.J. Pascall, J.A. Shusterman

Self Q-switched Nd, Cr:YAG transparent ceramics

Proc. SPIE

R. A. Osborne, A. D. Drobshoff, N. J. Cherepy, R. J. Beach, and S. A. Payne

A comparative study of Kim-Kim-Suzuki (KKS), Partition Coefficient Relaxation (PCR), and Finite Interface Dissipation (FID) phase field models for rapid solidification

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

Computational discovery of ultra-strong, stable, and lightweight refractory multi-principal element alloys. Part I: design principles and rapid down-selection

npj Comp. Mat.

K.L. M. Elder, J. Berry, B. Bocklund, S.K. McCall, A. Perron, and J.T. McKeown

Computational discovery of ultra-strong, stable, and lightweight refractory multi-principal element alloys. Part II: comprehensive ternary design and validation

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

Fabrication of engineered dopant profiles in Er/Lu:YAG transparent laser ceramics via additive manufacturing

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

High fidelity model of directed energy deposition: Laser-powder-melt pool interaction and effect of laser beam profile on solidification microstructure

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

High-Resolution X-ray Spectromicroscopy Reveals Process-Structure Correlations in sub-5-μm Diameter Carbon Nanotube-Polymer Composite Dry-Spun Yarns

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

Kinetic Control via Binding Sites within the Confined Space of Metal Metalloporphyrin-Frameworks for Enhanced Shape-Selectivity Catalysis

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

Multi-mode analysis of surface losses in a superconducting microwave resonator in high magnetic fields

Rev. Sci. Instrum.

T. Braine, G. Rybka, A. A. Baker, J. Brodsky, G. Carosi, N. Du, N. Woollett, S. Knirck, M. Jones, ADMX Collaboration

Performance scaling with an applied magnetic field in indirect-drive inertial confinement fusion implosions

Physics of Plasmas

H. Sio et al.

Probing phase stability in CrMoNbV using cluster expansion method, CALPHAD calculations and experiments

Acta Materialia

S. Zhu, J. Shittu, A. Perron, C. Nataraj, J. Berry, J.T. McKeown, A. van de Walle, A. Samanta

Probing strongly exchange coupled magnetic behaviors in soft/hard Ni/CoFe2O4 core/shell nanoparticles

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

Sustainable and Energy-Efficient Production of Rare-Earth Metals via Chloride-Based Molten Salt Electrolysis

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

The hydride-dehydride process combined with plasma spheroidization: An alternative route for producing spherical metallic powders of U-6 wt.% Nb

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

Thermodynamics of Liquid Immiscibility in Iron-Silicate Melt Systems: A Study of Nuclear Fallout Glass

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

Additive Manufacturing of Transparent Ceramic Laser Gain Media - Rods, Thin Disks, and Planar Waveguides

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

Spectroscopic ellipsometry extraction of optical constants for materials from oxide covered samples: Application to the plutonium/oxides system

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