MaRIE: Matter-Radiation Interactions in Extremes Capability and Fulfilling the Requirements of Future Multi-Scale Materials Modeling

DOE and NNSA have a mission need for flexible, reduced-cost product-based solutions to materials through accelerated qualification, certification, and assessment. Development and especially life-cycle certification of such solutions requires predictive capability of material’s production and performance. The science challenge lies between the nanoscale and the integral device scale, at the middle or "mesoscale" where interfaces, defects, and microstructure determine the performance. What is the future of multi-scale materials modeling, enabled by exascale and beyond computing, and how do we challenge that modeling to ensure it is effective? Experimental data of high fidelity and resolution in both time and space are necessary to discover the right mechanisms to model, validate and calibrate models in codes. Achieving this capability requires taking advantage of the on-going revolution in coherent imaging of non-periodic features and using scattering off periodic structures. These imaging techniques require a coherent x-ray source, brilliant and high repetition rate, with high energy to see into and through the mesoscale. The Matter-Radiation Interactions in Extremes (MaRIE) Project is intended to deliver such capability through a very-high-energy X-ray free electron laser.