DOE SBIR/STTR Fall 2026:
25 Topics, and What to Prototype With a University
The Department of Energy has opened its Fall 2026 SBIR/STTR Phase I topics. This guide is for founders who can build on DOE's priorities and want to pair with a university lab for the prototype and proof of concept. All 25 topics are grouped into 10 research areas, and each one comes with problem statements a startup and a lab can take on together.
Updated: October 31, 2026 · Pitches due: December 16, 2026, 2 PM ET · Source: energy.gov
At a glance
- What it is: the first broad SBIR/STTR Phase I call under DOE's new Office of Technology Commercialization, run with the partnership intermediary ConnectWerx. DOE puts the program at more than $200 million across phases.
- Phase I money: about 160 awards totaling up to $50 million. Each award is capped at $300,000 ($306,500 with Technical and Business Assistance), paid as fixed-price milestones.
- Fast-track by design: every award combines Phase I and Phase II. Phase II funding depends on a go/no-go review at the end of Phase I.
- Pitch first: applicants submit a short pitch (four narrative, three short-answer and seven structured questions). Only invited pitches write a full application. Up to three pitches per company.
- Key dates: office hours November 19 and December 1 at 3 PM ET; video topic summaries November 13; pitches close December 16, 2026 at 2 PM ET.
- 25 topics in three chapters: 14 applied energy topics, 9 Office of Science topics, and 2 NNSA nuclear security topics. Below, we regroup them into 10 research areas.
Why pair with a university
Most of these topics ask for things a startup rarely has on day one: a molten-salt loop, a hot cell, a beamline, a low-background counting lab, a tritium-capable facility, a cleanroom. A university lab has the equipment and the graduate students. The startup brings the product, the customer and the commercialization plan, which reviewers score as heavily as the science. Phase I reviewers weigh three things equally: technical merit, commercialization potential, and the team, which explicitly includes partnerships and access to facilities.
There are two ways to structure the partnership, and the rules differ.
| Rule | SBIR | STTR |
|---|---|---|
| University partner | Optional | Required: one U.S. non-profit university, research non-profit or FFRDC (national labs count) |
| Phase I work split | Startup does at least 2/3; up to 1/3 can go to a university subcontract | Startup at least 40%, research institution at least 30%, the rest either way |
| Principal investigator | Must be primarily employed (over 50%) by the startup | Can be employed by the startup or the university |
| IP | Normal subcontract terms | Written IP and licensing agreement required before work starts |
| Best when | The startup has the core team and needs the lab for specific tests | A professor is the technical lead, or the IP starts in the lab |
Both programs need a for-profit U.S. small business with 500 or fewer employees that is at least 51% owned by U.S. citizens or permanent residents, with all work done in the U.S. DOE does not accept companies majority-owned by multiple VC firms. Check the full rules on the eligibility page .
The 10 research areas
DOE groups its topics by the office that funds them. We regrouped them by the kind of science and the kind of lab you would partner with. Each topic card lists what DOE wants, any hard targets, what is out of scope, and four problem statements with the university lab that fits.
01 Critical Minerals, Manufacturing and Industry
Three topics about making things in America: turning overlooked mineral streams into specialty-metal feedstock, scaling energy hardware from lab to line, and cutting energy use in heavy industry. All three want real feedstock, real lines or real plants, not desk studies.
Advanced Technologies for Domestic Critical Mineral Extraction, Midstream Processing, and Recycling
Link one feedstock owner to one processing developer and turn a real, characterized feedstock into a defined intermediate for specialty metal or alloy production. DOE names "small market" minerals like vanadium, zirconium and hafnium, from the 2025 U.S. Critical Minerals List, and accepts others of comparable market size. Phase I is a bench-scale bridge, not a pilot plant.
What DOE wants
- Processing a real feedstock (heavy mineral sands, red mud, slags, tailings) into a specialty-metal-ready intermediate such as V2O5, zirconium oxychloride or hafnium tetrachloride
- Validated chemistry, mass balance, impurity profile and preliminary product spec
- A signed commitment between the feedstock provider and the technology developer to keep scaling if milestones hit
Targets: One mineral system, one feedstock provider, one target intermediate per proposal. Gram- to kilogram-scale product with an assay, reagent and energy estimates, and a water and waste plan.
Out of scope: Exploration and mapping, synthetic or simulated ores, "recover everything" flowsheets, mining equipment, final alloys, battery formulation, red mud for cement.
Problem statements to prototype
- Split hafnium from zirconium in a named heavy-mineral-sands zircon concentrate and produce a hafnium-depleted zirconium oxychloride, with a measured Hf/Zr ratio and impurity assay at bench scale.
Lab to partner with: Extractive metallurgy or chemical engineering (solvent extraction, ion exchange), plus an analytical chemistry core for ICP assays. - Recover vanadium from one steel slag or spent-catalyst stream as ammonium metavanadate or V2O5 that meets a stated purity spec, with a closed mass balance.
Lab to partner with: Hydrometallurgy or mineral processing lab. - Pull a single specialty co-product out of one characterized lot of bauxite residue, with the radionuclide handling, water and waste plan the topic asks for.
Lab to partner with: Environmental engineering with geochemistry and mineral processing. - Use chlorination or carbochlorination to take a mineral-sands fraction to a zirconium or hafnium tetrachloride precursor with controlled impurities.
Lab to partner with: High-temperature process chemistry or materials science, with corrosion-resistant reactor design.
Innovations in Manufacturing and Scale-up for Energy Applications
Remove one named manufacturing bottleneck so an energy material, component or device can move from lab to production: batteries, power electronics, conductors, magnets, grid hardware, generation components, recycling. DOE flags particular interest in high-throughput micro-scale manufacturing beyond photolithography, including magnetic, acoustic, strain and light-assisted techniques.
What DOE wants
- (a) Scale-up of advanced manufacturing processes, from coating and casting to additive, roll-to-roll and electrode manufacturing
- (b) Modular, flexible and retrofit-ready manufacturing platforms that shorten prototype to pilot
- (c) Smart manufacturing tools: in-line metrology, NDE, machine vision, digital twins, closed-loop control, digital thread and provenance
Targets: Pick a measurable metric: throughput, first-pass yield, scrap rate, cost or energy per accepted unit, changeover cost, or qualification time.
Out of scope: Basic materials discovery, generic dashboards or ERP software, post-process-only inspection, buying equipment, LLMs or blockchain bolted on.
Problem statements to prototype
- Raise first-pass yield and cut scrap in battery-electrode slot-die or roll-to-roll coating with in-line multimodal sensing and closed-loop control, measured on a pilot line.
Lab to partner with: Chemical engineering (coating science) with a controls and sensors group. - Scale a field-assisted (acoustic, magnetic or strain) micro-scale patterning or assembly process to a measured units-per-hour rate for power-electronics or battery parts.
Lab to partner with: Mechanical or electrical engineering microfabrication lab. - Build a retrofit kit for legacy powder-metallurgy or additive lines that cuts changeover cost and re-tooling across magnet or grid-hardware variants.
Lab to partner with: Industrial and manufacturing engineering, university additive manufacturing center. - Generate machine-readable qualification evidence for a safety-critical cast or welded energy component through a digital thread, and show qualification time falling.
Lab to partner with: Manufacturing systems with an OT cybersecurity and NDE characterization group.
State-of-the-Art Technologies for Industrial Competitiveness
An open topic for step-change gains in energy productivity and cost across U.S. industry. Proposals need a lab proof of concept, evidence of market pull (industry partners, investors, off-takers) and a financing path beyond SBIR.
What DOE wants
- (a) Process innovation in the biggest energy users: chemicals and refining, iron and steel, food and beverage, forest products, cement and concrete
- (b) Common unit operations: heat exchangers, waste heat, thermal storage, membranes, comminution, water and PFAS destruction
- (c) Integrating data centers and other large loads: thermal management, power systems, demand flexibility
Out of scope: Power-sector work, mature technology, integrations of commercial parts, carbon capture and storage, hydrogen production and transport.
Problem statements to prototype
- Destroy PFAS in an industrial wastewater stream with an electrochemical or plasma process that uses less energy per gram destroyed than incumbents.
Lab to partner with: Environmental or electrochemical engineering, or a plasma physics lab. - Recover low-grade waste heat from a named food or chemical process with a new heat-exchanger design or phase-change storage material, with a host plant as the partner.
Lab to partner with: Mechanical and thermal engineering with materials science. - Replace a distillation or evaporation step in refining or chemicals with a membrane or hybrid separation, and quantify energy savings at lab scale.
Lab to partner with: Chemical engineering membrane science group. - Cool data-center racks in a way that also exports usable industrial heat, and model the load-flexibility value to the grid.
Lab to partner with: Thermal-fluids engineering with a power systems lab.
02 Buildings, Power Generation and Transportation
The broadest applied area: smarter HVAC, hydropower, marine, wind, solar and permitting, plus fuels, fuel cells, motors and mobility. Read the out-of-scope lines closely here; each office excludes a lot.
Next-Generation Building Technologies
Lower the up-front cost of energy-saving building technology and the energy buildings use to run: heating, cooling, ventilation, water heating, refrigeration, envelopes and building operations.
What DOE wants
- (a) Technologies that simplify dual-fuel HVAC: better switchover logic and controls at the device, building and utility level, less commissioning and maintenance; complete low-cost dual-fuel systems count
- (b) Control and modeling technology using AI or machine learning that saves customers time and money, with open data export
Out of scope: Software that only aggregates or displays data, and AI information systems with no integrated controls or data collection.
Problem statements to prototype
- Build a low-cost, self-commissioning controller that switches between heat pump and furnace on real-time price, outdoor temperature and grid signals.
Lab to partner with: Building systems or mechanical engineering with a controls lab. - Use model-predictive control with integrated sensing to cut HVAC commissioning time and maintenance calls, with customer-owned data export.
Lab to partner with: Building science paired with control theory or computer science. - Design a complete, low-cost dual-fuel HVAC package for existing homes with utility demand-response hooks built in.
Lab to partner with: HVAC and thermal engineering lab, with power systems for the utility interface. - Pair an envelope retrofit with a sensing-and-control add-on that actively tunes heating and cooling, rather than only reporting it.
Lab to partner with: Architectural or building envelope engineering.
Cutting Edge Energy Generation and Power Management Technologies
An open topic for new, reliable sources of grid energy across eight areas split between two offices.
What DOE wants
- (a) Hydropower and pumped storage; (b) marine energy, co-developed with end users; (c) integrated energy-water solutions
- (d) Wind: economical blade and turbine recycling, and more performance from existing assets
- (e) Solar heat for industrial processes with thermal storage; (f) space PV, perovskite manufacturing and PV recycling
- (g) Cybersecurity and power-electronic control for distributed energy; (h) plug-in PV safety and permitting tools
Out of scope: Carbon capture, hydrogen production, offshore wind, non-concentrating solar thermal, geothermal, fossil, nuclear, battery chemistry.
Problem statements to prototype
- Recover silver, silicon and copper from end-of-life PV modules with a low-cost delamination and selective-leach process that raises recovered value per module.
Lab to partner with: Materials or chemical engineering with a solar reliability lab. - Make plug-in balcony PV safe with a low-cost device that detects back-feed and breaker masking, validated across household circuit scenarios.
Lab to partner with: Power electronics and power systems. - Recycle onshore wind-blade composites to recover glass fiber and critical minerals for less than landfill cost.
Lab to partner with: Polymer and composites engineering. - Improve perovskite stability for space panels with a roll-to-roll compatible encapsulation or in-line metrology tool.
Lab to partner with: Photovoltaics materials lab with an optics group.
Advanced Transportation Technologies and Fuels Production
Transportation and fuel technology that lowers cost and strengthens energy security, across seven areas from waste-to-fuels to traction motors and mobility systems.
What DOE wants
- (a) Chemicals and fuels from hydrogen, biomass and waste (tires, tailings, wastewater, data-center streams)
- (b) Stationary fuel cells for MW-scale data-center power; (c) hydrogen delivery and storage
- (d) Smart composites that detect battery thermal runaway and shield EMI; (e) heavy-rare-earth-free motors and power electronics
- (f) Hybrid powertrain optimization for off-road and mining; (g) automation, traffic and intermodal efficiency
Targets: Fuel cells: 80,000 hours and $1,000/kW on natural gas ($600/kW on hydrogen) by 2030. Composites: EMI shielding above 30 dB, runaway detection at or below 130 °C. Motors: 40–100 kW peak, 200–400 V bus, at least 50 kW/L.
Out of scope: On-road fuel cells and batteries, reversible fuel cells, liquid-fueled fuel cells, apps that only connect riders to providers.
Problem statements to prototype
- Extend solid-oxide fuel cell stack life toward 80,000 hours at $1,000/kW for data-center prime or backup power.
Lab to partner with: Ceramics and electrochemistry, energy conversion lab. - Make a composite battery enclosure that senses thermal runaway at or below 130 °C and shields EMI above 30 dB while carrying structural load.
Lab to partner with: Composites and structural materials with an embedded-sensors group. - Design a traction motor with no heavy rare earths that meets 40–100 kW peak and 50 kW/L for full hybrids.
Lab to partner with: Electric machines and power electronics, with a magnetic materials lab. - Convert end-of-life tires or wastewater sludge into a cost-competitive chemical or fertilizer through a process-intensified reactor.
Lab to partner with: Chemical engineering and catalysis.
03 Batteries and the Grid
One battery topic with hard numbers and dual-use defense customers, and one grid topic from the Office of Electricity aimed at capacity, microgrids, storage and fast data-center interconnection.
Battery Technologies for Dual-Use Applications
Cell-level demonstration of new rechargeable batteries, mostly lithium-ion, with near-term commercial markets and a real defense use (drones, underwater vehicles, soldier-carried power). Every requirement must be met to be responsive.
What DOE wants
- Better materials, electrodes or cell design proven in a full cell, not a half cell
- A manufacturing and supply-chain plan that is NDAA-compliant; letters of support highly desirable
- Full test conditions reported: temperature, pressure, rate, loading, voltage window, format
Targets: Phase I: at least five cells of 200 mAh or more. End of Phase II: 250 Wh/kg, 500 Wh/L, 500 W/kg, 250 cycles, with a credible path to 400 Wh/kg, 800 Wh/L and 1,000 cycles at scale. Phase II cells are tested at Idaho National Laboratory.
Out of scope: Anything that cannot meet every threshold, or is far from market.
Problem statements to prototype
- Show a silicon-rich or lithium-metal anode full cell reaching 250 Wh/kg and 500 Wh/L over 250 cycles at a stated stack pressure.
Lab to partner with: Battery materials lab with pouch-cell fabrication. - Pair a high-nickel cathode with an electrolyte that holds 500 W/kg peak power without giving up cycle life, sourced from NDAA-compliant suppliers.
Lab to partner with: Materials science and electrochemical engineering. - Engineer electrode architecture (loading, porosity, binder) to hit the energy and power targets at once, and model the scale-up to large-format pouch.
Lab to partner with: Chemical engineering with a multiphysics modeling group. - Design a cell format and thermal safety package that serves both drones and consumer devices, backed by customer letters.
Lab to partner with: Battery safety and thermal engineering.
Grid Innovations to Strengthen, Enhance and Expand the Electric System's Capacity, in a Cost Effective and Timely Manner
Stabilize, optimize and grow the grid at lower cost and faster. Applicants must show merit against competing solutions, give measurable metrics and a path to scale. Quantum- and AI-enabled approaches are welcome when they serve the mission.
What DOE wants
- Grid cybersecurity, secure communications and supply-chain security
- Grid-enhancing technologies, materials and operations tools that get more out of existing lines
- Microgrid design, control and monitoring; stationary storage materials, safety and validation
- Analysis tools that fast-track large-load interconnection for data centers and factories
Out of scope: Work duplicating DOE's Genesis Mission, and anything focused on intermittent, non-dispatchable generation.
Problem statements to prototype
- Cut a data-center interconnection study from months to days with a validated screening tool for grid impacts.
Lab to partner with: Power systems engineering with HPC support. - Raise the capacity of an existing line with dynamic line rating, power-flow control or an advanced conductor, and measure the gain on a test span.
Lab to partner with: Power systems with a materials or sensing lab. - Keep a microgrid stable and secure when its communications drop out, with a hardened control architecture.
Lab to partner with: Controls and power electronics with a cybersecurity group. - Validate stationary battery safety with a monitoring method that catches failure precursors before thermal runaway.
Lab to partner with: Electrochemical engineering and fire-safety engineering.
04 Cybersecurity for Energy and Scientific Computing
Two security topics with very different buyers: utilities and pipeline operators on one side, the national supercomputing centers on the other. Both reward deep familiarity with how the target systems actually run.
Advanced Cybersecurity, Resilience, and Energy System Risk Mitigation Technologies
Tools that strengthen cybersecurity, resilience and continuity of electric, oil, gas and emerging energy systems: risk discovery, detection, containment, autonomous response and recovery. Work must stay in operational technology, industrial control systems, digital supply chains and grid resilience.
What DOE wants
- AI-enabled analytics, hardware and firmware security, resilient operational technology
- Threat-informed and secure-by-design engineering, supply-chain assurance, rapid restoration
- Commercial potential, interoperability with energy-sector systems, measurable impact
Out of scope: No explicit list; stay inside CESER's operational technology mission.
Problem statements to prototype
- Detect anomalies in substation or pipeline control networks with passive, protocol-aware monitoring that fits legacy equipment without touching operations.
Lab to partner with: ICS security testbed lab in computer science or electrical engineering. - Attest firmware and hardware integrity of inverters and protective relays before they reach the field.
Lab to partner with: Computer engineering hardware-security group. - Contain a compromise and restore an energy control system safely with autonomous playbooks grounded in cyber-informed engineering.
Lab to partner with: Power systems paired with cybersecurity. - Score cyber risk across a grid with heavy distributed energy, so utilities know which mitigations to fund first.
Lab to partner with: Systems engineering and risk analytics.
Cybersecurity for Scientific High-Performance Computing
Security built for supercomputers: distributed nodes, GPUs, fast interconnects, schedulers and parallel file systems, in an open-science setting. Applicants must explain how HPC differs from enterprise IT and state target workloads.
What DOE wants
- Job isolation: authorized-only file system mounts, node sanitization between projects, isolation of jobs sharing a node
- AI-enabled observability that separates legitimate-but-unusual behavior from compromise, aligned to NIST SP 800-223 zones
Targets: Performance overhead must stay at or below 3% on named workloads. Anything above 3% is out of scope.
Out of scope: Generic enterprise security, and proposals without target workloads or an overhead estimate.
Problem statements to prototype
- Enforce per-job file system isolation and node sanitization between projects with under 3% overhead on named workloads.
Lab to partner with: Operating systems security group with a campus HPC center. - Detect cross-job interference and covert channels on shared GPU and CPU nodes at runtime.
Lab to partner with: Computer architecture security lab. - Fuse scheduler, interconnect and file-system telemetry to flag malicious behavior while ignoring unusual but legitimate science runs.
Lab to partner with: Machine learning with HPC operations staff. - Statically analyze job scripts and container images before submission to flag risky behavior with zero runtime cost.
Lab to partner with: Programming languages and security.
05 Hydrocarbons and Geothermal
A single topic covering coal, oil and gas, and geothermal, with special interest in produced water and near-real-time sensors.
Innovative Technologies for Hydrocarbons and Geothermal Energy
Get more out of existing subsurface resources: modernize coal plants and mines, raise unconventional oil and gas recovery, make produced water valuable, and find, start and optimize geothermal systems, including geothermal storage for the grid.
What DOE wants
- Real-time sensors for produced water and beneficial use beyond the oil field
- Advanced materials, conformance technologies, optimization methods and software
- Better geothermal targeting, new sources, and geothermal storage for grid reliability
Out of scope: Standalone carbon capture, bench-scale desalination development, Class II disposal, frac-water recycling, residential geothermal, offshore geothermal exploration.
Problem statements to prototype
- Measure produced-water chemistry in near real time with a ruggedized field sensor that enables reuse outside the oil field.
Lab to partner with: Analytical chemistry or sensor engineering with petroleum engineering. - Block thief zones in hot geothermal or unconventional reservoirs with a conformance material that survives high temperature.
Lab to partner with: Petroleum or geothermal engineering with polymer chemistry. - Raise unconventional-well recovery factor with completion and production optimization trained and validated on field data.
Lab to partner with: Petroleum engineering and data science. - Improve geothermal drilling success by fusing geophysical data into a better resource-targeting model.
Lab to partner with: Geophysics and subsurface energy engineering.
06 Nuclear Fission, Fuel and Waste
Four topics from across the nuclear lifecycle. Topics 10 to 12 must tie to at least one of the Office of Nuclear Energy's three goals: keep existing reactors running, deploy new reactors, and secure the fuel cycle. Universities with research reactors, hot cells or molten-salt loops are natural partners here.
Reactor Concepts Research, Development and Demonstration
Components, tools and methods that help existing reactors last and advanced reactors deploy: high-temperature gas, sodium, molten salt, microreactors, light-water SMRs and space power.
What DOE wants
- Graphite components and lifecycle support; thermal hydraulics for gas-cooled reactors
- Sodium and liquid-metal components (electromagnetic pumps, bearings, oxygen sensors); sCO2 components
- Molten-salt valves, pumps and heat exchangers, salt supply chain and radionuclide management
- Full-plant digital twins, nuclear heat for industry, lower construction cost, autonomy and robotics
Out of scope: Entirely new micro or small modular reactor concepts, and work not tailored to nuclear power.
Problem statements to prototype
- Qualify a domestic graphite grade or coating for gas-cooled or molten-salt service, with property data relevant to irradiation.
Lab to partner with: Nuclear materials lab, ideally with a university research reactor. - Build and bench-test a sodium- or salt-compatible pump, bearing, valve or oxygen sensor at operating temperature.
Lab to partner with: Nuclear engineering thermal-hydraulics loop with mechanical engineering. - Produce a validated full-system digital twin for a molten-salt or gas-cooled reactor that shortens licensing evidence work.
Lab to partner with: Computational nuclear engineering with HPC. - Purify, recycle and ship reactor salt at commercial quality, with radionuclide management built in.
Lab to partner with: Radiochemistry and molten-salt chemistry.
Fuel Cycle Research and Development
A secure, automated and economic fuel cycle: domestic fuel supply, safer fuel handling, recovery of value from used fuel, less waste, and advanced fuels and cladding.
What DOE wants
- Domestic fuel supply-chain capability and reduced regulatory risk
- Recovery and reuse of valuable components from used fuel
- Metallic fuel, molten-salt fuel, silicon carbide cladding and TRISO particle fuel
- Less waste volume, and materials control and accounting that limits proliferation risk
Out of scope: Border security, forensics, nuclear medicine, dosimetry, weapons, and unjustified surrogate materials in fuel fabrication.
Problem statements to prototype
- Raise manufacturing yield for TRISO particle coatings or SiC cladding joints with in-line inspection.
Lab to partner with: Ceramics and nuclear materials engineering. - Separate valuable components from used fuel more selectively with less secondary waste.
Lab to partner with: Radiochemistry and separations science. - Develop a domestic metallic-fuel fabrication route, justifying any surrogate materials, with scale-up data.
Lab to partner with: Nuclear fuels and metallurgy. - Cut the operating burden of materials control and accounting at advanced fuel-cycle facilities without raising proliferation risk.
Lab to partner with: Nuclear safeguards and instrumentation.
Nuclear Energy Enabling Technologies
Cross-cutting technology for the whole fleet: sensors and controls, advanced-manufactured materials, domestic supply chain, industry use of DOE simulation codes, and post-irradiation examination.
What DOE wants
- Resilient sensors, instrumentation and controls, including ones based on quantum effects
- High-performance materials enabled by advanced manufacturing
- Wider industry use of the NEAMS modeling and simulation tools
- New post-irradiation examination tools for hot cells that speed materials qualification
Out of scope: Molten-salt spectroscopy and full-plant digital twins, which belong in Topic 10.
Problem statements to prototype
- Deliver a radiation-tolerant, high-temperature in-core sensor, possibly quantum-based, with demonstrated drift resistance.
Lab to partner with: Nuclear instrumentation with a quantum sensing physics group. - Additively manufacture nuclear-grade alloy parts with qualified properties and a shorter qualification path.
Lab to partner with: Additive manufacturing and nuclear materials testing. - Package NEAMS codes into an industry-ready workflow (interface, API, support) for one specific industrial problem.
Lab to partner with: Computational nuclear engineering. - Create a small-specimen, remotely operated mechanical test or microscopy method for hot cells.
Lab to partner with: Nuclear materials characterization, with access to a hot cell.
Advanced Technologies for Used Nuclear Fuel and High-Level Waste Disposition
Technologies for storing, transporting and disposing of used fuel and high-level waste, and for licensing the proposed Nuclear Lifecycle Innovation Campuses.
What DOE wants
- Advanced materials and manufacturing for standardized waste packages: cladding, coatings, additive parts
- Multi-physics models predicting decades of concrete dry-storage overpack degradation
- New approaches to licensing a Campus: risk-informed, performance-based, probabilistic
- Site characterization and subsurface monitoring in crystalline, shale or salt rock
Targets: Extended storage of more than 100 years before geologic disposal.
Out of scope: No explicit list.
Problem statements to prototype
- Make waste canisters resist stress-corrosion cracking for 100+ years with cold-spray coatings or cladding, at lower lifecycle cost.
Lab to partner with: Corrosion science and materials engineering. - Predict a century of reinforced-concrete overpack degradation with a validated thermal, mechanical, chemical and radiological model.
Lab to partner with: Civil and structural engineering with computational mechanics. - Characterize crystalline, shale or salt host rock with long-life, high-temperature sensors and geophysical imaging.
Lab to partner with: Geophysics with sensor engineering. - Build a probabilistic, performance-based licensing toolkit for a Campus facility.
Lab to partner with: Nuclear engineering risk assessment group.
07 Fusion and Accelerators
Fusion's fuel cycle, not its plasma physics, and the accelerator hardware that DOE facilities, hospitals and industry buy. Both topics come with numbers to hit.
Fusion Fuel Cycle and Enabling Technologies
The deuterium-tritium fuel cycle for a fusion pilot plant: fueling, exhaust processing, detritiation, regeneration of getters and adsorbents, and tritium accountancy. Applicants should also address nonproliferation, export control, waste and accident scenarios.
What DOE wants
- Fuel-cycle subsystems handling fusion-relevant throughput (kilograms per day) with a techno-economic path to scale
- Reliability, availability, maintainability and inspectability as first-class design goals
- Integrated system work, including fuel-cycle modeling built on existing open-source software
Out of scope: Plasma physics, test-stand construction, cold fusion and LENR (muon-catalyzed fusion excepted), mostly-software projects.
Problem statements to prototype
- Regenerate and reuse the getters or adsorbents in D-T exhaust processing, with measured tritium recovery.
Lab to partner with: Chemical engineering in hydrogen isotope separation, with a tritium-capable facility. - Raise water-detritiation efficiency with a new catalyst, membrane or electrolysis route, plus a scaling cost model.
Lab to partner with: Electrochemical engineering and radiochemistry. - Build a tritium accountancy measurement that would work across a fusion pilot plant.
Lab to partner with: Nuclear instrumentation. - Demonstrate a kilogram-per-day-class fueling or exhaust-processing component designed for maintainability.
Lab to partner with: Vacuum and cryogenic engineering.
Innovative Accelerator Science and Technology
Turn accelerator prototypes into products for DOE facilities and adjacent medical, industrial and security markets: magnets, RF sources, photocathodes, lasers and diagnostics.
What DOE wants
- High-field superconducting magnets and HTS wire and tape
- Compact permanent-magnet combined-function elements
- Efficient RF sources, kicker pulsers and tunable SRF cavities
- Photocathodes and ultrafast drive lasers; smarter non-intercepting beam diagnostics
Targets: HTS wire: 400 A/mm² at 20 T and 4.2 K over 1 km lengths. RF: 50% (solid-state) or 70% (vacuum) efficiency at under $2/W. Photocathodes: 30 meV MTE or less. Loss detectors: under 10 µs.
Out of scope: Incremental engineering, and general-purpose RF sources, lasers or supplies without phase locking, low phase noise or pulse formatting.
Problem statements to prototype
- Make HTS REBCO tape in 1 km continuous lengths at 400 A/mm² (20 T, 4.2 K) with ±5% critical-current uniformity over 75 m.
Lab to partner with: Applied superconductivity and a magnet lab. - Build a solid-state RF amplifier above 50% efficiency under $2/W, or a 20 kV, 1,000 A kicker pulser with 100–200 ns rise.
Lab to partner with: RF engineering and power electronics. - Grow a photocathode with mean transverse energy at or below 30 meV, or a polarized cathode with more than 2% quantum efficiency at 780 nm.
Lab to partner with: Surface science with an accelerator photoinjector group. - Measure beam current from 10 nA to 100 µA at 100 ppm without intercepting the beam, in radiation-hard, self-calibrating electronics.
Lab to partner with: Accelerator instrumentation and electronics.
08 Instruments, Detectors and Electronics for Big Science
Three Office of Science topics written in spec-sheet language: optics and magnets for light and neutron sources, ultra-radiopure materials and cryogenics for particle physics, and readout chips that run at 4 K or in high radiation. The customers are DOE user facilities, but the spillover markets (semiconductors, quantum computing, medical imaging) are what make a business.
Novel Instrumentation for X-ray and Neutron Facilities
Hardware for X-ray and neutron user facilities across five areas, each with hard specs.
What DOE wants
- (a) Permanent-magnet quadrupoles for "Complex Bend" lattices
- (b) In-situ cleaning of carbon from X-ray mirrors and gratings in vacuum
- (c) Strain-engineered crystal analyzers for X-ray spectroscopy
- (d) Neutron supermirrors and monochromators; (e) high-rate neutron area detectors
Targets: Magnets: 0.5 T and 130 T/m in a 16 mm aperture, 15 µm alignment. Optics: up to 1 m substrates, UHV. Supermirror: over 80% reflectivity at m = 4. Detector: 30 × 30 cm, 10 MHz/cm², 0.5 mm resolution, over 70% efficiency.
Out of scope: No explicit list.
Problem statements to prototype
- Build a hybrid or Halbach permanent-magnet quadrupole reaching 0.5 T and 130 T/m in a 16 mm aperture, with post-assembly tuning of ±2%.
Lab to partner with: Accelerator magnet engineering with magnetic materials. - Clean carbon off meter-class X-ray mirrors in place with atomic hydrogen or plasma, without hurting roughness or figure, across Au, Ru, Pt, SiC, B4C, Mo/Si and Ni coatings.
Lab to partner with: Plasma and surface science with a synchrotron optics group. - Actively cancel bending strain in a sub-25 cm radius crystal analyzer to hold about 100 meV resolution at 10 keV.
Lab to partner with: X-ray optics with MEMS or precision mechanics. - Build a 30 × 30 cm neutron area detector at 10 MHz/cm² with 0.5 mm resolution and strong gamma rejection.
Lab to partner with: Detector physics or neutron science group.
Advanced Particle and Radiation Detectors
Detector materials and systems for the Electron-Ion Collider, HL-LHC upgrades, dark matter and neutrinoless double-beta decay searches. Proposals must show command of the state of the art and meet or beat the metrics.
What DOE wants
- (a) Ultra-low-radioactivity cables, structural metals, connectors and radon getters
- (b) High-rate, high-resolution detectors and scintillating ceramics or glasses
- (c) Vibration-free dilution refrigerators and sub-kelvin accelerometers
Targets: Structural metals with sub-ppt uranium and thorium at 1 cm thick. Scintillators above 6 g/cm³ and 15,000 photons/MeV at a few $/cm³. Timing under 50 ps at 200 kHz/cm². Fridge vibration below 10⁻⁷ g/√Hz at 10 mK.
Out of scope: Scintillating single crystals, general-purpose cryostats, standalone software.
Problem statements to prototype
- Produce nickel, tantalum or titanium stock with sub-ppt uranium and thorium at 1 cm thickness, with a verified low-background assay chain.
Lab to partner with: Low-background physics lab with metallurgy. - Make a dense transparent ceramic or glass scintillator in multi-cubic-meter volumes at a few dollars per cubic centimeter.
Lab to partner with: Ceramics and glass science with radiation detection. - Build a multigap resistive plate chamber with a thin pressure window that times under 50 ps at 200 kHz/cm².
Lab to partner with: Nuclear physics detector group. - Make a continuous dry dilution refrigerator or sub-kelvin accelerometer at the 10⁻⁷ g/√Hz vibration level. Quantum computing is a ready second market.
Lab to partner with: Low-temperature physics and cryogenic engineering.
High-Performance Electronics and Data Acquisition Systems
Low-power chips and data acquisition for next-generation experiments: cryogenic and superconducting readout, radiation-tolerant pixel front-ends, and streaming ADCs with on-chip machine learning.
What DOE wants
- (a) Cryogenic and superconducting readout for TES, SNSPD and MKID arrays, and 4–8 GHz cryogenic amplifiers
- (b) Radiation-tolerant, high-granularity front-end ASICs for MAPS, Skipper-in-CMOS and LGADs
- (c) Streaming ADCs with on-chip filtering and in-channel ML for pulse classification
Targets: Readout at 4 K or below: under 1 mW per channel, 64 channels, over 1 GHz, 14 ENOB minimum. Amplifiers: noise under 4 K. Front-ends: 10¹⁵ neq/cm². ADCs: over 12 ENOB at over 500 MSps.
Out of scope: Cryogenic CMOS ASICs, diamond sensor substrates, standalone software.
Problem statements to prototype
- Design a 64-channel, 14+ ENOB, GHz-bandwidth readout for 4 K that stays under 150 mW total, using superconducting logic rather than cryo-CMOS.
Lab to partner with: Superconducting electronics and mixed-signal IC design. - Build 4–8 GHz HEMT, SQUID or parametric amplifiers with noise temperature under 4 K for detector and qubit readout.
Lab to partner with: Microwave engineering and superconducting devices. - Tape out a MAPS or LGAD front-end that collects charge within 20 ns and survives 10¹⁵ neq/cm².
Lab to partner with: Semiconductor detector physics and radiation-effects testing. - Embed an ML pulse classifier in a 500 MSps ADC so experiments ship features instead of raw waveforms.
Lab to partner with: Mixed-signal electrical engineering and ML hardware.
09 AI, HPC Software, Materials Data and Bio-Sensing
The most software-friendly part of the solicitation. One topic pays to commercialize DOE's own open-source HPC stack, one wants AI-driven membrane discovery for critical minerals, and one spans quantum sensors, plant transformation and multimodal biology data.
Commercialization of ASCR/ECP-Funded Software
Make DOE-funded HPC software easier to use or embed in commercial products, beyond the supercomputing world. The work must critically depend on an ASCR, Exascale Computing Project or SciDAC package, with a citation proving it.
What DOE wants
- New capabilities, interfaces, language bindings, hardening, support and training around packages like PETSc, Trilinos, HYPRE, SUNDIALS, MFEM, Kokkos, HDF5, ADIOS2, Spack, E4S
- AI-enabling packages (DeepHyper, LBANN) and quantum software (BQSKit, Jaqal, Superstaq, QubiC) are in scope
- Bug fixes and general improvements contributed back upstream
Targets: Teams of up to three small businesses may apply jointly; academic or lab partners join as subcontractors. A letter from each key package's developers is encouraged.
Out of scope: Anything that does not critically depend on ASCR-funded software.
Problem statements to prototype
- Wrap PETSc, Trilinos or HYPRE solvers in a commercial-grade Python or cloud API that simulation vendors can adopt in a week.
Lab to partner with: Applied math or scientific computing; the upstream maintainers make strong letter writers. - Give non-HPC companies a managed install and GUI for Spack and E4S so they can run DOE software stacks on their own clusters.
Lab to partner with: HPC systems or software engineering group. - Productize Kokkos-based performance portability for a commercial CFD or finance code, with support contracts.
Lab to partner with: HPC with a domain simulation group. - Turn BQSKit or QubiC into a hardened, supported compiler or control product for quantum hardware vendors.
Lab to partner with: Quantum information science with compilers.
Data, Synthesis, and Characterization Strategies for SI-Driven Materials and Molecular Systems Discovery
AI models plus the data infrastructure to train them, applied to molecular membranes that separate critical minerals and rare earths. A good Phase I ingests messy data into a prototype schema and shows an early predictive link to a key membrane property.
What DOE wants
- (a) AI-guided membrane design: hybrid physics and data models that predict structure and selectivity, with an AI supervisor that down-selects by synthesizability and stability, validated on a synthesized subset
- (b) AI-powered data platforms for synthesis and characterization: messy data in, metadata auto-filled from notebook photos and audio, FAIR data out
Targets: Designs should be viable for mine tailings, reprocessed materials and seawater.
Out of scope: Engineering design, sensors, routine synthesis and fabrication.
Problem statements to prototype
- Predict rare-earth selectivity of functionalized polymer membranes with a hybrid physics and ML model, then synthesize and test the top candidates.
Lab to partner with: Polymer chemistry with computational chemistry. - Rank candidate membrane chemistries by synthesizability and stability in solution, using a model trained on MOF and COF data.
Lab to partner with: Computational materials science with a synthesis lab. - Build a FAIR lab-data platform that fills metadata from notebook photos and audio notes and exports ML-ready membrane datasets.
Lab to partner with: Computer science or data engineering, with a separations lab as first user. - Ingest spectra, permeation and microscopy data into one schema and predict a single key membrane property from it.
Lab to partner with: Chemical engineering and data science.
Enabling Technologies for Bioengineering and Quantum Science-Based Sensors
Four areas: quantum sensors for field environmental measurement, quantum-enabled bioimaging of plants and microbes, AI that makes bioenergy crop transformation more efficient, and analytics for petabyte-scale multimodal biology data.
What DOE wants
- (a) Field-ready quantum sensing for soil moisture, fluxes, aerosols and clouds
- (b) Quantum light sources, detectors and biosensors that beat classical imaging of plants and microbes
- (c) AI for plant regeneration and nucleic-acid delivery in sorghum, switchgrass, poplar, camelina and other non-food crops
- (d) Scalable software that integrates omics, imaging and structure data into testable hypotheses
Targets: DOE highly recommends discussing fit with the program before applying to area (c).
Out of scope: Space sensors, quantum communications, medical imaging and diagnostics, standalone quantum dots, computational-only studies, food crops.
Problem statements to prototype
- Harden an NV-center or atomic quantum sensor against vibration, EMI and drift for field measurement of soil moisture or surface fluxes.
Lab to partner with: Atomic or quantum physics with ecohydrology or atmospheric science. - Image live roots or microbes with entangled or squeezed light at lower photodamage than classical microscopy.
Lab to partner with: Quantum optics with a plant or microbial imaging lab. - Raise transformation efficiency in sorghum or switchgrass with models that pick explants and tune tissue-culture protocols.
Lab to partner with: Plant biotechnology with ML. - Unify omics, phenotype and 3D imaging data in one scalable platform that generates testable hypotheses.
Lab to partner with: Computational biology with HPC.
10 Nuclear Security and Nonproliferation
Two NNSA topics with defense-grade specs: detecting nuclear activities and materials, replacing dangerous radioactive sources, and monitoring for nuclear explosions. Expect environmental testing and blind trials in Phase II.
Proliferation Detection
Detect, locate and characterize nuclear activities and materials, and reduce reliance on high-activity radioactive sources in medicine and industry.
What DOE wants
- (a) A high-intensity entangled-photon source for remote sensing, at low size, weight and power
- (b) Better maritime hyperspectral analysis and atmospheric correction
- (c) Rugged gamma/neutron detectors, and drive-through systems that find sources in moving vehicles
- (d) Replacements for radioactive sources: dosimetry modeling, non-isotopic neutron generators, ultrasonic testing
Targets: Handheld detector: 4% resolution at 662 keV or better, PSD figure of merit above 3, 500 mW or less, 600 g or less, 72-hour endurance. Vehicles at 5–65 mph. Neutron generator: about 200 mrem/hr at 50 cm under 10 kW.
Out of scope: No explicit list.
Problem statements to prototype
- Build a 600 g, 500 mW CLYC or CLLBC detector with SiPM readout that identifies HEU and plutonium at 10 m.
Lab to partner with: Nuclear engineering radiation-detection lab with embedded electronics. - Locate and identify multiple sources inside vehicles moving up to 65 mph by fusing detector arrays with LiDAR and vision.
Lab to partner with: Nuclear engineering with computer vision and signal processing. - Replace AmBe and Cf-252 with a compact neutron generator delivering about 200 mrem/hr at 50 cm under 10 kW.
Lab to partner with: Plasma or accelerator physics with Monte Carlo moderator design. - Replace gamma radiography of pipes and boilers in cold, harsh sites with portable ultrasonic testing that works where couplants fail.
Lab to partner with: NDE and ultrasonics in mechanical engineering.
Nuclear Detonation Detection
Monitoring for underground nuclear explosions, with precise timing and multi-sensor field campaigns, plus radiation-resistant microcircuits for space.
What DOE wants
- (a) An integrated DAQ that time-syncs and controls many sensor systems in rugged sites like tunnels
- (b) A fieldable calibration tool for seismic, infrasound, hydroacoustic and EM sensors
- (c) Better seismometers, arrays, infrasound and hydroacoustic sensors for detection beyond 200 km
- (d) Radiation-resistant plastic-encapsulated microcircuits at much lower cost
Targets: Calibration within ±5% from 0 to 40 °C. Microcircuits: up to 100 krad total dose, over 80% yield, materials cost 5–10× below space-qualified parts.
Out of scope: No explicit list.
Problem statements to prototype
- Build a modular, GNSS-timed, ruggedized multi-node DAQ that syncs mixed seismic, acoustic and EM sensors in a tunnel with remote control and health tracking.
Lab to partner with: Embedded systems with a seismology field group. - Make a portable in-field calibrator for seismometers or infrasound sensors accurate to ±5% from 0 to 40 °C.
Lab to partner with: Metrology, acoustics or seismology. - Design a smaller, more sensitive, lower-power infrasound or seismic sensor for detection beyond 200 km.
Lab to partner with: Geophysics with MEMS sensor engineering. - Formulate a plastic encapsulant that survives 100 krad and limits Bremsstrahlung effects, at over 80% yield and a fraction of space-grade cost.
Lab to partner with: Polymer science with a radiation-effects test lab.
How to build the partnership before December 16
- Pick one topic and one problem. DOE topics punish breadth. Topic 1 literally requires one mineral, one feedstock provider and one target product. Choose the problem where your customer is clearest.
- Find the lab by its equipment, not its ranking. Search faculty pages and recent papers for the instrument the topic implies: a pouch-cell line, a molten-salt loop, a low-background counter, a cleanroom, a research reactor. Email the professor with a one-paragraph problem statement and the deadline.
- Check the national labs too. DOE's Lab Innovation Opportunities list lab-developed IP, software and datasets that small businesses can license and build on. Search them on the Lab Partnering Service . Under STTR, an FFRDC can be your research partner.
- Settle IP and the budget split early. STTR needs a signed IP agreement before work begins, and university tech-transfer offices are slow. Start the conversation now, even though the agreement comes after selection.
- Scope Phase I as proof of concept. Phase I awards are milestone-based. Name the single technical uncertainty you will retire, the metric that proves it, and what Phase II scales. Several topics spell out exactly what a Phase I deliverable looks like; mirror that language.
- Collect letters. Customer letters, feedstock-provider commitments and upstream-maintainer letters are required or encouraged in several topics (1, 7, 15). They also make the commercialization score.
- Use the office hours. November 19 and December 1. For Topic 19(c), DOE highly recommends checking fit with the program before you apply.
Topic titles, offices, scope and targets are from DOE's Fall 2026 Phase I Topics document ; funding, dates and process from the ConnectWerx Application Hub and the DOE announcement , as of October 31, 2026. Summaries are our paraphrase, and the topics document uses "SI" (super intelligence) where we write "AI". The research-area grouping, the problem statements and the lab suggestions are Serverless Ventures' own, not DOE's; check the topics document before you pitch. Spot something out of date? Tell us.