This paper gives an overview of OpenMC, an open source Monte Carlo particle transport code recently developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. OpenMC uses continuous-energy cross sections and a constructive solid geometry representation, enabling high-fidelity modeling of nuclear reactors and other systems. Modern, portable input/output file formats are used in OpenMC: XML for input, and HDF5 for output. High performance parallel algorithms in OpenMC have demonstrated near-linear scaling to over 100,000 processors on modern supercomputers. Other topics discussed in this paper include plotting, CMFD acceleration, variance reduction, eigenvalue calculations, and software development processes.

Transition-metal nanoparticles possess unique size-dependent optical, electronic, and catalytic properties on the nanoscale, which differ significantly from their bulk properties. In particular, palladium (Pd) nanoparticles have properties applicable to a wide range of applications in catalysis and electronics. However, predictable and controllable nanoparticle synthesis remains challenging because of harsh reaction conditions, artifacts from capping agents, and unpredictable growth. Biological supramolecules offer attractive templates for nanoparticle synthesis because of their precise structure and size. In this article, we demonstrate simple, controllable Pd nanoparticle synthesis on surface-assembled viral nanotemplates. Specifically, we exploit precisely spaced thiol functionalities of genetically modified tobacco mosaic virus (TMV1cys) for facile surface assembly and readily controllable Pd nanoparticle synthesis via simple electroless deposition under mild aqueous conditions. Atomic force microscopy (AFM) studies clearly show tunable surface assembly and Pd nanoparticle formation preferentially on the TMV1cys templates. Grazing incidence small-angle X-ray scattering (GISAXS) further provided an accurate and statistically meaningful route by which to investigate the broad size ranges and uniformity of the Pd nanoparticles formed on TMV templates by simply tuning the reducer concentration. We believe that our viral-templated bottom-up approach to tunable Pd nanoparticle formation combined with the first in-depth characterization via GISAXS represents a major advancement toward exploiting viral templates for facile nanomaterials/device fabrication. We envision that our strategy can be extended to a wide range of applications, including uniform nanostructure and nanocatalyst synthesis.

We demonstrate hierarchical assembly of tobacco mosaic virus (TMV)-based nanotemplates with hydrogel-based encoded microparticles via nucleic acid hybridization. TMV nanotemplates possess a highly defined structure and a genetically engineered high density thiol functionality. The encoded microparticles are produced in a high throughput microfluidic device via stop-flow lithography (SFL) and consist of spatially discrete regions containing encoded identity information, an internal control, and capture DNAs. For the hybridization-based assembly, partially disassembled TMVs were programmed with linker DNAs that contain sequences complementary to both the virus 5' end and a selected capture DNA. Fluorescence microscopy, atomic force microscopy (AFM), and confocal microscopy results clearly indicate facile assembly of TMV nanotemplates onto microparticles with high spatial and sequence selectivity. We anticipate that our hybridization-based assembly strategy could be employed to create multifunctional viral-synthetic hybrid materials in a rapid and high-throughput manner. Additionally, we believe that these viral-synthetic hybrid microparticles may find broad applications in high capacity, multiplexed target sensing.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology Reactor (MITR-II) is a research reactor in Cambridge, Massachusetts designed primarily for experiments using neutron beam and in-core irradiation facilities. It delivers a neutron flux comparable to current LWR power reactors in a compact 6 MW core using Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) fuel.