Mosier-Boss worked on strategies to understand nuclear effects and near-surface interactions. She joined the United States Naval Research Laboratory, where she secured more patents than any woman in the history of the lab.[4] She was based in the Naval Information Warfare Center Pacific, where she developed battery systems, piezoelectric ceramics and phages.[4] Phages are viruses that are hosts to bacteria (e.g. anthrax). Mosier-Boss developed a strategy to attach phages, head-down, onto a grid. These grids could be attached to silicon chips, which would facilitate the determination of whether or not particular bacteria were present.[4]
Mosier-Boss proposed that low-energy nuclear reactions could generate neutrons that could be used to fission uranium. Such an approach, so-called cold fusion, would eliminate the need for radioactive sources. In particular, Mosier-Boss developed a co-deposition process to deposit thin films of palladium and deuterium. In these devices, deuterium is compressed electrochemically within the palladium lattice, which can generate nuclear events.[5] The co-deposition process involved the simultaneous deposition of deuterium and palladium from electrolytes that contain palladium salts dissolved in heavy water. The films must be deposited on a substrate that does not absorb hydrogen (e.g. gold) at high negative potentials.[5][6] She worked on CR-39 as a nuclear track detector,[7] which works by monitoring the ionization trails left after the atoms of CR-39 recoil in response to high energy neutrons.[4] By treating these detectors with an etching system she showed that it was possible to differentiate triple tracks, which she assigned to alpha particles generated in the 12C(n,n′)3α carbon reaction.[7] She went on to show that when the Pd cell was placed within an external field[8] a transmutation occurs, which changes the surface morphology of the Pd/D films.[9]
In 2013, Mosier-Boss was awarded the Infinite Energy Preparata Medal in recognition of her work on cold fusion.[4]