A Route Towards Actinide Heterostructure Synthesis and Science

The presence of 5f electrons in actinide materials enables them, and their compounds, to possess unique physics not found anywhere else in the periodic table. While they have a wide set of applications as nuclear fuel materials due to their inherent radioactivity, the aspects of their fundamental physics remains comparatively unexplored. In order to uncover some of the phenomena that arise from their unique electronic configuration, it is paramount that samples are the highest quality possible: monocrystalline, low defect density, and low density of impurities. In addition, governmental regulations and safety standards make this material system difficult to work with. Idaho National Laboratory has a long standing history of working with nuclear materials and has created a path for the synthesis and characterization of high quality actinide samples using molecular beam epitaxy (MBE). A new MBE chamber has been recently commissioned to address this need, to study critical materials for the nuclear industry, their surrogates, and the fundamental physics underlying their synthesis and properties. In addition to uranium and thorium (5f electron containing and non-containing elements, respectively) we have added cerium, zirconium, manganese, nickel, and chromium to our chamber in order to establish a robust program of research around actinides and related compounds. Results from these studies have the potential to provide validation for computational models with strongly-correlated electrons and to uncover novel alloys for nuclear applications and beyond.