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Background, Interest,
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| | Ames National Laboratory | Jun Cui | Scientist |
Federally Funded Research and Development Center (FFRDC)
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Other Energy Technologies
| Materials development capacities include high throughput thin film and bulk alloy synthesis and characterization, ultrahigh purity rare earth metals synthesis, single crystal growth, critical materials refinery, metallic and ceramic powder synthesis and powder comminution via ball milling (10-100 g) and inert jet milling (10g, 2 kg); Bulk magnet fabrication from the lab scale at 10 g to the demonstration scale at 1 kg. The large bulk magnet demonstration capacity is located at Ames Lab Materials Preparation Center and Advance Magnet Facility. Example equipment related to magnet research include arc melting, vacuum induction melting, plasma melting, melt-spinning, strip casting, hydrogen furnaces, plenary/ball/jet mill, cold-iso-press, 6” bore magnetic alignment, sintering furnaces, EDM cutting, electroless plating, cold/hot-roll. VSM, PPMS, PFM, BH Tracer, SEM, TEM, XRD, AFM, ICP, XRF, MTS. |
| IA |
| | Iowa State University | Julia Zaikina | Associate Professor |
Academic
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Power Generation: Renewable
| Research interests include non-conventional synthesis routes to complex solids, including 2D materials, and understanding their atomic and electronic structure to create new functional materials that address current scientific challenges in sustainable energy. Research capabilities and efforts focused on non-conventional synthesis routes to complex solids with the goal of creating new functional materials. Additional capabilities include a synergistic combination of diffraction and total scattering techniques and computational methods to establish the structure of the complex solids. |
| IA |
| | Iowa State University | Kirill Kovnir | Professor |
Academic
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Other Energy Technologies
| Synthesis, structural, and magnetic characterizations of metastable and kinetically hindered borides and pnictides. |
| IA |
| | Iowa State University | Mark Mba Wright | Professor |
Academic
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Other Energy Technologies
| I am a Mechanical Engineering professor at Iowa State University with a strong focus on sustainable energy systems, biorefineries, and carbon-negative technologies. My research integrates techno-economic analysis, life cycle assessment, and process modeling to evaluate and optimize advanced bioenergy and fuel systems. I have led over $5 million in federally funded research and published more than 80 peer-reviewed papers. A key part of my work is designing scalable models for converting biomass, waste, and carbon into valuable products, often using tools like BioSTEAM, Aspen Plus, and OpenLCA.
We have published articles on TEA and LCA of rare earth recovery from magnets. We can provide support in the economic and environmental impact assessment of novel magnet materials. We are deeply interested in applying machine learning to chemical engineering challenges, especially in automating and improving process design, forecasting, and decision-making. We are also passionate about translating research into real-world solutions and tools that other scientists can use, including web and application development. Our interdisciplinary work spans engineering, environmental science, and data science. We aim to accelerate the shift toward a circular, low-carbon economy through collaborative, systems-level research. |
| IA |
| | Florida State University | Bin Ouyang | Assistant Professor |
Academic
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Power Generation: Renewable
| Dr. Bin Ouyang's current research is focusing on developing high throughput computation, data mining and machine learning tools to understand structural-property relationship and predictive synthesis of disordered energy materials. |
| FL |
| | Florida State University | Michael Shatruk | Professor |
Academic
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Other Energy Technologies
| The Shatruk group has a broad expertise and extensive research experiences in studies of various magnetic materials, including both solid-state and molecular materials. The overarching research interests are to achieve understanding of correlations between the crystal and electronic structures of materials and their magnetic properties and to apply such understanding to the discovery of magnetic materials by design. The group has explored several families of materials, with a strong emphasis on itinerant magnets with potential application in magnetic refrigeration technologies. More recent efforts have focused on the discovery of kagome-lattice materials that exhibit complex spin textures and exploration of the interplay between the electronic structure and complex magnetism observed in such materials.
The Shatruk group provides the following research capabilities:
(1) A range of synthetic and crystal growth techniques, including (i) traditional high-temperature solid-state synthesis, (ii) high-temperature melting in arc, induction, and microwave furnaces; (iii) synthesis and crystal growth by flux methods; (iv) crystal growth by chemical vapor transport; (v) solvothermal synthesis and other soft synthetic methods; (vi) multiple setups for manipulating reactants and samples under air-free conditions.
(2) A full range of X-ray diffraction (XRD) techniques, including single-crystal and powder XRD, high-resolution synchrotron XRD, and total X-ray scattering analysis, for the determination of crystal structures and phase compositions.
(3) Magnetic measurements utlizing a MPMS-3 magnetometer, with DC and AC susceptibiilty measurements in the 1.8-400 K temperature range, as well as measurements in the 400-750 K range through collaboration with the DOE CNMS facility.
(4) Investigation of magnetic properties by cantilever torque magnetometry, including modeling of local magnetic anisotropy.
(5) Magnetic structure determination by neutron diffraction, utilizing neutron scattering facilities at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
(6) Density-functional theory based calculations of electronic structure and energetics of magnetic materials, including analysis of correlations between magnetic properties and chemical bonding for achieving control over magnetic behavior by chemical factors. |
| FL |
| | Citrine Informatics | James Saal | Director - External Research Programs |
Small Business
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Other Energy Technologies
| Our Capabilities
• Physics-based ML model development
• Materials discovery
• Atomistic simulation
• Database construction
• Cost sharing
Desired Partner Capabilities
• Experimentation, especially
high-throughput
• Subject matter expertise
• Theoretical modeling
Citrine Informatics is the award-winning creator of the Citrine Platform for data-driven materials and chemicals development. Citrine won the 2017 World Materials Forum Start-up Challenge, the 2018 AI Breakthrough award as the "Best AI-based Solution for Manufacturing", and 2020 Cleantech 100 honors. Citrine has unparalleled experience providing data management infrastructure and artificial intelligence specifically tailored to materials science and chemistry. Citrine has provided its software to many of the world's leading materials and chemical companies, US national labs, and academic and consortia partners.
More specifically, the Citrine External Research team offers expertise in first-principles calculation, ML surrogate models for atomistic modeling, closed-loop [ML + simulation + experiment] workflows for materials design and discovery, CALPHAD- and ICME-based materials design, materials property database construction, and software infrastructure development. |
| CA |
| | Aalen University | Gerhard Schneider | Prof. Dr. |
Academic
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Other Energy Technologies
| Material Science, magnets, soft and permanentmagnets, thermodynamics, high throughput search of permanent magnets, microstructure, magnetic properties |
| Baden-Württemberg |
| | University of Houston | Jakoah Brgoch | Professor |
Academic
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Other Energy Technologies
| Jakoah Brgoch is a Professor of Chemistry at the University of Houston and a Principal Investigator at the Texas Center for Superconductivity, where his research focuses on accelerating the discovery of high-performance inorganic materials through a combination of solid-state chemistry, data science, and machine learning. His group has established a strong track record in understanding structure–property relationships in functional materials, particularly in areas such as ultrahard ceramics, thermochemically stable compounds, and phosphors for LED technologies. Building on this foundation, Brgoch has recently expanded his efforts toward the discovery and design of hard magnetic materials, which are essential for modern energy, transportation, and information technologies. These materials must exhibit high coercivity, large energy products, and robust thermal stability. Yet, the discovery of new candidates is challenged by complex phase behavior, dependence on rare-earth elements, and limited predictive understanding of magnetic anisotropy and defect-mediated behavior. Brgoch’s group addresses these challenges by integrating high-throughput density functional theory (DFT) calculations with machine learning models trained on multi-fidelity datasets to predict key magnetic properties such as saturation magnetization, anisotropy field, and Curie temperature. These predictive models are deployed within an active learning framework to navigate vast chemical spaces and identify promising compositions, including rare-earth transition metal borides and intermetallics, that are experimentally viable and potentially free of critical elements. His lab also performs solid-state synthesis and structural characterization to validate predictions and establish phase purity and thermochemical stability. These combined computational and experimental capabilities allow Brgoch’s group to make impactful contributions toward the discovery of next-generation hard magnetic materials. |
| TX |
| | Quantum Formatics | Jason Gibson | CEO |
Small Business
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Power Generation and Energy Production: Liquid and Gaseous Fuels/Nuclear
| Quantum Formatics is pioneering the discovery of next-generation superconductors. By coupling AI, quantum mechanical simulations and rapid experimentation, Quantum Formatics has proven the feasibility of discovering next-generation superconductors. We are currently building our lab infrastructure for high throughput synthesis and characterization of superconducting materials. Quantum formatics is targeting technologies that require high field magnets with the goal of producing next-generation superconducting wires that provide a path to scalable fusion energy and accessible MRI machines. |
| MA |
| | University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign | Axel Hoffmann | Professor |
Academic
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Other Energy Technologies
| Axel Hoffmann received his Diploma in physics from the RWTH Aachen in 1994 and his PhD in physics from the University of California – San Diego in 1999. Subsequently, he worked at the Los Alamos National Laboratory as a postdoctoral fellow. In 2001 he joined the Argonne National Laboratory as a staff scientist and became in 2014 the Senior Group Leader of the Magnetic Thin Film Group within the Materials Science Division. In 2019 he joined the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign as a Founder Professor. His research interests encompass various magnetism topics, including magnetic heterostructures, spin-transport, and magnetization dynamics. He has more than 200 publications, five book chapters, four magnetism-related U.S. patents, and edited two books. He is an Associate Editor for the Journal of Applied Physics and a fellow of the American Physical Society, American Vacuum Society, and IEEE. His awards include Distinguished Lecturer for the IEEE Magnetics Society (2011), Outstanding Researcher Award by the Prairie Section of the American Vacuum Society (2015), Highly Cited Researcher by Clarivate (2019–2024), the David Adler Lectureship Award in the Field of Materials Physics from the American Physical Society (2022), and the Research Award by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (2024).
His research group has capabilities for advanced thin film heterostructure synthesis, including a confocal sputtering system with 8 confocal target that enable the exploration of a wide variety of compositions for magnetic alloys. Furthermore, he has extensive capabilities to characterize magnetic properties via measurements of magnetization dynamics over wide temperature ranges from room temperature all the way to mK temperatures. There is one 9-2-2 T vector magnet system for measurements down to 1.5 K and a 9-1-1 T dilution fridge system for measurements in the mK range. Both systems allow microwave spectroscopy (for ferromagnetic resonance and spin wave measurements) up to 66 GHz. In addition there is a microfocused Brillouin light scattering system for spatially resolved spin wave measurements at room temperature. Lastly there is a custom build setup for quantifying magneto elastic properties of thin magnetic films. |
| IL |
| | University of South Carolina | Ming Hu | Professor |
Academic
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Other Energy Technologies
| Our group develops and deploys artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) for novel functional materials discovery. We have strong expertise in computational materials discovery, e.g., high-throughput atomistic computation (first principles, molecular dynamics), generative AI, thermodynamic and dynamic (lattice vibration) stability calculations and models for both near room temperature and high temperatures. |
| SC |
| | Carnegie Mellon University | Juan Chamorro | Assistant Professor - MSE |
Academic
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Other Energy Technologies
| I lead a research group in Materials Science and Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University focused on the discovery and synthesis of quantum materials. We specialize in bulk single-crystal growth using flux and solid-state methods, with interests in magnetism, correlated electron systems, and topological phenomena. Our capabilities include high-temperature synthesis, phase diagram mapping, and structural and thermodynamic characterization. We are particularly interested in novel magnetic states, energy-relevant quantum phases, and the integration of synthesis with automation and data-driven approaches. |
| PA |
| | University of California Davis | Taufour | Professor |
Academic
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Other Energy Technologies
| Taufour's lab combines experimental expertise (crystal growth, solution growth, Czochralski synthesis, high‑pressure/magnetic tuning, anisotropy measurement) with theoretical and data‑driven methods (database aggregation and curation, machine learning, statistical analysis) to discover and engineer rare-earth‑free magnetic materials with high Curie temperatures and strong magnetic anisotropy.
relevant publications:
A Quantitative Criterion for Evidencing Predicted Compounds in High-Throughput Powder X-ray Diffraction Data: Illustration with Half-Antiperovskite (in preparation)
Machine learning predictions of high-Curie-temperature materials, Appl. Phys. Lett. 123, 042405 (2023)
Statistics on magnetic properties of Co compounds: A database-driven method for discovering Co-based ferromagnets, Phys. Rev. Materials 6, 063803 (2022)
A rule-free workflow for the automated generation of databases from scientific literature, npj Comput. Mater. 9, 222 (2023)
Reinvestigation of the intrinsic magnetic properties of (Fe1-xCox)2B alloys and crystallization behavior of ribbons,” Journal of Magnetism and Magnetic Materials 513, 167214 (2020)
Ce3-xMgxCo9: Transformation of a Pauli Paramagnet into a Strong Permanent Magnet,” Phys. Rev. Applied 9, 024023 (2018)
Discovery of ferromagnetism with large magnetic anisotropy in ZrMnP and HfMnP,” Appl. Phys. Lett. 109, 092402 (2016)
Structural and Ferromagnetic Properties of an Orthorhombic Phase of MnBi Stabilized with Rh Additions,” Phys. Rev. Applied 4, 014021 (2015) |
| CA |
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