2017 | U.S. DOE Office of Science (SC)

SLAC Study Helps Explain Why Uranium Persists in Groundwater at Former Mining Sites

A recent study led by scientists at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory helps describe how the contaminant cycles through the environment at former uranium mining sites and why it can be difficult to remove.

Scientists Determine Precise 3-D Location and Identity of All 23,000 Atoms in a Nanoparticle

Scientists from the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) at the Molecular Foundry used one of the world’s most powerful electron microscopes to map the precise location and chemical type of 23,000 atoms in an extremely small particle made of iron and platinum.

Simulations Reveal the Invisible Chaos of Superluminous Supernovae

To better understand the physical conditions that create superluminious supernova, astrophysicists are running two-dimensional (2D) simulations of these events using supercomputers at the Department of Energy’s National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC) and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) developed CASTRO code.

Researchers Flip Script for Li-Ion Electrolytes to Simulate Better Batteries

A team led by the California Institute of Technology’s (Caltech’s) Thomas Miller used the Cray XK7 Titan supercomputer at the US Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) to identify potential electrolyte materials and predict which ones could enhance the performance of lithium-ion batteries.

Taking Down a Giant: 699 Tons of SLAC’s Accelerator Removed for Upgrade

The western end of SLAC's historic linear accelerator has been stripped of all its equipment both above and below ground and will soon house a new, superconducting accelerator that will power LCLS-II, an upgrade to the lab's premier X-ray laser.

Vitamin B12: Power Broker to the Microbes

Scientists at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory report their findings about vitamin B12's importance to microbial communities, affecting energy and food production, the environment, human health, and many other processes.

Berkeley Lab Breaks Ground on Integrative Genomics Building

The groundbreaking for the Integrative Genomics Building (IGB) on January 31, 2017, at the former site of a storied particle accelerator, celebrates the future colocation of two partnering scientific user community resources and launches construction of the first building in the long-term vision for a consolidated biosciences presence on Berkeley Lab’s main site.

Study of Microbes Reveals New Insight About Earth’s Geology and Carbon Cycles

Argonne National Laboratory researchers have discovered that the types of carbon “food” sources available to microbial communities significantly affected the composition and activity of the communities and the types of mineral products that form in their environment.

Co-Design Centers to Help Make Next-Generation Exascale Computing a Reality

As collaborators in four co-design centers created by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Exascale Computing Project (ECP), researchers at the DOE's Argonne National Laboratory are helping to solve increasingly complex problems through modeling large-scale systems and pave the way for the creation of exascale supercomputers.

PPPL Scientist Uncovers Physics Behind Plasma-Etching Process

Physicist Igor Kaganovich at the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) and collaborators have uncovered some of the physics that make possible the etching of silicon computer chips, which power cell phones, computers, and a huge range of electronic devices.

Solid-State Processing: New Paths to New Materials

Scientists at Ames Laboratory and the Iowa State University are creating materials by solid-state processing because it offers advantages: costs less than other methods, doesn’t require solvents, often can be done without heat, and uses relatively low energy inputs.

Taking Materials into the Third Dimension

To create more efficient catalysts and separation devices, scientists would like to start with porous materials with controlled atomic-scale structures as random defects can hamper performance. At Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, a team created a one-pot method that produces complex, highly oriented three-dimensional pore structures.