2016 | U.S. DOE Office of Science (SC)

Enhancing the Superconducting Properties of an Iron-Based Material

A team of scientists at Brookhaven National Laboratory has come up with a way to double the amount of electrical current an iron-based material can carry without losing its superconducting properties, while increasing the material's critical temperature.

A Cooperative Way to Make Ammonia

Researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory are gaining a better understanding of how bacteria fix nitrogen molecules into ammonia that could lead to energy savings in industrial processes such as those that produce fertilizer.

Brookhaven Lab to Play Major Role in Two DOE Exascale Computing Application Projects

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory will play major roles in two of the 15 fully funded application development proposals recently selected by the DOE's Exascale Computing Project (ECP) in its first-round funding of $39.8 million.

Water Vapor Sets Some Oxides Aflutter

A research team led by Yang Shao-Horn, the W.M. Keck Professor of Energy at MIT, used a transmission electron microscope at the Center for Functional Nanomaterials (CFN), a U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science User Facility at Brookhaven National Laboratory, to discover a new phenomenon that could affect materials in batteries and water-splitting devices.

Transformational X-ray Project Takes a Step Forward

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has confirmed the need for a unique source of X-ray light that would produce beams up to 1,000 times brighter than are now possible at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s (Berkeley Lab) Advanced Light Source (ALS), enabling new explorations of chemical reactions, battery performance, biological processes and exotic materials.

Physicists Quench Their Thirst for Modeling Superfluids

A multi-institution team lead by researchers at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is using Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s supercomputer Titan to compare and corroborate experimental findings on the effects of extreme conditions on various materials’ properties and interactions.

Brookhaven Lab's National Synchrotron Light Source II Wins Project Management Institute 2016 Project of the Year Award

The National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II) project at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory has been awarded the Project Management Institute's (PMI) prestigious Project of the Year Award.

Crystalline Fault Lines Provide Pathway for Solar Cell Current

A team of scientists studying solar cells made from cadmium telluride, a promising alternative to silicon, has discovered that microscopic "fault lines" within and between crystals of the material act as conductive pathways that ease the flow of electric current.

Construction of World’s Most Sensitive Dark Matter Detector Moves Forward

LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ), a next-generation dark matter detector that will be at least 100 times more sensitive than its predecessor, has cleared another approval milestone and is on schedule to begin its deep-underground hunt for theoretical particles known as WIMPs, or weakly interacting massive particles, in 2020.

Berkeley Lab Collaboration Enhances Optical Chip Design Process

A unique collaboration between a U.S. telecommunications equipment provider and a Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science national laboratory has helped dramatically improve design cycle times for future high-speed optical networking components.

GreenWood Resources Licenses ORNL Invention to Boost Biofuel Yield

GreenWood, a global timberland investment and asset management company based in Oregon, plans to commercialize the technology to select and breed better varieties of poplar with less lignin content, which simplifies the conversion process and ultimately lowers the overall costs of biofuel production.

Scientists Find Twisting 3-D Raceway for Electrons in Nanoscale Crystal Slices

The international team of scientists from Berkeley Lab, UC Berkeley, and Germany observed, for the first time, a unique behavior in which electrons rotate around one surface, then through the bulk of the material to its opposite surface and back.