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

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
CALPHAD database and software development for thermodynamics and microstructure evolution

Scott Mccall

Group Leader, Actinides & Lanthanide Science

Nerine Cherepy

Deputy Group Leader, Advanced Materials Synthesis

Emily Moore

Aurelien Perron

Deputy Group Leader, Actinides & Lanthanide Science

Alfred Amon

Alex Baker

Staff Scientist

Joel Berry

Staff Scientist

Brandon Bocklund

Evan Clarke

Scott Donald

Staff Scientist

Kate Elder

Adrian Gonzales

Sharee Harris

Hunter Henderson

Staff Scientist, Actinide and Lanthanides Science Group, Materials Sci ...

Kevin Huang

Eunjeong Kim

Alexandros Kostogiannes

Rachel Lim

Olivia Long

Paul Mirkarimi

Ross Osborne

Scott Peters

Ian Phillips

William Rubink

Thomas Rudzik

Bob Sanner

Zachary Seeley

Research Scientist

Wigbert Siekhaus

Ryan Stillwell

Research Scientist

Nicholas Ury

Logan Winston

2024

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

2023

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

2022

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

2021

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