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The US Department of Energy (DOE) recently awarded Sourabh Saha, in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, with $875,000 over five years to pursue research on the role of entanglement in quantum materials and manufacturing cost-effective fuel capsules for fusion energy. The Department of Energy has funded these early career awards since 2010, and this year distributed $138 million to 91 scientists nationwide.
Saha focuses on generating novel, advanced manufacturing capabilities that will massively reduce the cost of fabricating fuel capsules for inertial fusion energy, as part of his research. Fusion can be a clean, safe, abundant, and reliable source of electricity, but controlling it on Earth is a major challenge for researchers. For fusion to be a cost-effective source of electricity, the expense of producing these precise fuel capsules must be reduced from tens of thousands of dollars to less than a dollar.
The Early Career Research Program will allow Saha to focus on advancing the scientific knowledge base for scalable manufacturing of fusion targets or fuel capsules. As per Saha, to solve many of engineering’s current grand challenges, the science of manufacturing scale-up should be considered early on — and in concert with researching other aspects of technology.
“The DOE award allows our group to do precisely this kind of research in the area of fusion energy. I am humbled to be able to work on one of the most challenging but worthwhile problems of our time,” Saha said.
“Investing in cutting-edge research and science is a cornerstone of DOE’s mission and essential to maintaining America’s role as a global innovation leader,” said U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm.
Saha completed his PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2014 and B. Tech and M. Tech from Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, 2008.
