Finding emerging nuclear research
Explore preprint articles
arXiv is an open access site where researchers post early versions of their work before peer review. Because papers appear here long before they’re published, it’s a useful place to spot emerging methods and results, with the caveat that manuscripts haven’t yet been vetted.
For NERS students, several arXiv subject areas overlap with departmental research and can be helpful to follow for early developments in nuclear science, plasmas, materials, and radiation detection.
Potential arXiv subject areas of interest:
cond-mat.mtrl-sci— Materials Sciencehep-ph— High Energy Physics – Phenomenologyhep-ex— High Energy Physics – Experimentnucl-ex— Nuclear Experimentnucl-th— Nuclear Theoryphysics.ins-det— Instrumentation and Detectorsphysics.plasm-ph— Plasma Physicsphysics.comp-ph— Computational Physicsphysics.atom-ph— Atomic Physicsphysics.space-ph— Astrophysical Plasmas
→ Preprints are also indexed in Scopus, Web of Science and Engineering Village
→ Learn more about finding preprints inside U-M databases
Set up alerts
→ arXiv: Set up daily listings alerts || Set up RSS feeds from subject areas
→ ToC alerts from journals: From a journal’s homepage, you can subscribe to email alerts that announce each new issue and its table of contents.
→ Saved-search alerts in databases: These let you track new research automatically. Create an alert for a keyword search (e.g., “coronal mass ejection”) or for specific authors, and the database will notify you whenever new articles match. Contact your nuclear librarian for help.
Monitor National Lab Research Output
→ Labs such as Los Alamos, Sandia, Argonne publish open research
→ See below for details on each lab's research libraries
Emerging Patents
- Applications are private for at least 18 months
- Non-publication requests delay public release
- Search via Google Patents, USPTO, Espacenet, InnovationQ
- Set alerts via USPTO PAAS (Google Patents does not support alerts)
National Laboratories
The US Department of Energy oversees 17 national laboratories conducting high-impact research in nuclear energy, radiation science, plasma physics, materials under extreme environments, and national security. Their technical reports and publications are excellent sources for emerging research.
OSTI is a major but incomplete aggregation of the technical output of national labs.
Argonne National Laboratory (ANL)
Nuclear energy systems, materials science, high-energy physics, hard x-ray science, supercomputing
Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL)
Nuclear and particle physics, accelerator science, materials science, quantum information science
Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab)
Particle physics, accelerator technology, neutrino science, detector development
Fermilab Technical Publications
Idaho National Laboratory (INL)
Nuclear reactor technologies, fuel cycle research, safeguards, national security
INL Scientific & Technical Information
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL)
Nuclear science, accelerator physics, materials science, energy technologies, advanced computing
LBNL Publications (eScholarship)
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL)
High-energy-density physics, plutonium science, nuclear security, supercomputing, fusion research
Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL)
Nuclear weapons science, materials under irradiation, supercomputing, nonproliferation, fusion experiments
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL)
Fission and fusion energy, neutron science, isotopes, extreme-environment materials, high-performance computing
ORNL Publications Publications are on separate pages: Biosciences Pubs | Environmental Sciences Pubs
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL)
Radiological science, nuclear safeguards, materials characterization, energy systems
Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL)
Fusion energy science, plasma physics, magnetic confinement, computational plasma modeling
Sandia National Laboratories (SNL)
Weapons systems, fusion research, pulsed-power, materials science, cybersecurity, nuclear security
Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) National Accelerator Laboratory
Accelerator physics, ultrafast photon science, particle physics, detector development
SLAC Publications are found inside INSPIRE-HEP (a high-energy physics open access database)
Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (Jefferson Lab)
Nuclear physics, electron scattering, superconducting RF technology