ARPA-E Update, Job Opening, and First Shots Planned

LPP was notified in early August that our ARPA-E concept paper was not selected to proceed to the next application phase. While disappointing, we understood there would only be about 75 grants given out, and there were approximately 3,500 applications sent in. However, this was the preliminary funding round, and future rounds are anticipated.

Due to personal reasons, XinPei Lu, LPP’s experimental plasma physicist, has returned to China and will not be able to work with LPP as planned.  This has created an immediate job opening for an experimental plasma physicist. (UPDATE: Position filled. See Sep. 25 entry.)

Our most exciting news is the planned first shots of our soon-to-be-completed DPF. If all goes according to plan, September 24th will be the day we make our initial "shots". These preliminary shots will test the setup and components, with the capacitors charged to just 25 kV. Eventually we will charge them to 45 kV where the subsequent experiments will take place.