Federal agency name: defense advanced research projects agency (DARPA), defense sciences office (DSO) funding opportunity title: young faculty award (YFA) funding opportunity number:…

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's Defense Sciences Office awarded a $250,000 cooperative agreement to University of California, Davis on September 30, 2025, under the Research and Technology Development program (CFDA 12.910) to conduct research on stimulating nuclear reactions with light using specially tuned ultrashort laser pulses to create non-equilibrium environments in materials and lower the barrier to nuclear decay processes. The research aims to catalyze controlled, enhanced nuclear reactions that would enable revolutionary tools for medical, industrial, and defense applications. The award covers the period through September 29, 2027, with place of performance in California.

Federal agency name: defense advanced research projects agency (DARPA), defense sciences office (DSO) funding opportunity title: young faculty award (YFA) funding opportunity number: DARPARA2501CATALOG of federal domestic assistance (cfda) number(s): 12.910 research and technology developmentprogram description: DARPA is soliciting innovative research proposals in the areas of interest to the following DARPA technical offices: defense sciences office (DSO), information innovation office (I2O), microsystems technology office (MTO), and the tactical technology office (TTO). Further detail regarding the specific technical areas of interest can be found below under open office topics. Proposed research should investigate innovative approaches that enable revolutionary advances in science, devices, or systems. Specifically excluded is research that primarily results in evolutionary improvements to the existing state of practice.summary what are we trying to do? We aim to stimulate nuclear reactions with light. Specifically, we will use specially tuned, ultrashort laser pulses to create non-equilibrium environments in materials. Our goal is to use these environments to lower the barrier to nuclear decay processes, that is, catalyze nuclear reactions. Such controlled, enhanced nuclear processes would enable revolutionary tools for medical, industrial, and defense applications.background how is IT done today? Nuclear decay reactions are useful for applications from energy production, e.g. radioisotope thermal generators, to medicine, e.g. localized radiation therapy. However, while chemical reactions can be controlled via catalysts that lower activation energies, nuclear decay rates can typically only be changed at the few-percent-level by environmental factors 1, 2 . To date, these environmental factors have involved changes to the equilibrium environment of reaction-active nuclei for instance, decaying nuclei have been embedded in metallic lattices 3-10 .our approach what is new? Here, we will take a new approach: we will create dramatically non-equilibrium environments around reaction-active nuclei via laser excitation of resonant oscillations in materials, that is, polaritons. Polaritons are quasiparticle excitations that exist when photons couple with material excitations, e.g. electron gas oscillations (plasmons) or lattice vibrations (phonons). We will excite polaritons with strong electric fields from ultrafast laser pulses. The electric fields from modern, compact ultrafast lasers routinely reach 10 v NM. Such fields have enabled access to non-perturbative effects involving outer-shell electrons, e.g. x-RAY generation via high-harmonic generation 11, 12 . Here, we will couple similarly intense laser fields to surface plasmon and phonon polaritons to create extreme local electronic and lattice environments, respectively. These extreme environments will displace inner-shell electrons, and accordingly, they will affect nuclear decays that are sensitive to the local electronic environment. Specifically, we will focus on two such nuclear processes: electron capture and beta decay.impact who cares? These experiments could demonstrate the control and enhancement of nuclear decay rates with a compact, table-top system. Such experiments are virtually unprecedented, and technologically, such a demonstration could start a race to similarly enhance other nuclear processes, from fusion to decay chains for applications-oriented radioisotopes. Scientifically, our experimental platform will provide an unprecedented ability to distort the local environment around reaction-active nuclei, and our experiments will create an expanded map of nuclear decay rates versus environmental conditions for the nuclear science community.