2018 | U.S. DOE Office of Science (SC)

Physicists Jackson Matteucci and Will Fox with poster displaying their research.

Surprise Finding: Discovering a Previously Unknown Role for a Source of Magnetic Fields

Magnetic forces ripple throughout the universe, from the fields surrounding planets to the gasses filling galaxies, and can be launched by a phenomenon called the Biermann battery effect. Now scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) have found that this phenomenon may not only generate magnetic fields, but can sever them to trigger magnetic reconnection – a remarkable and surprising discovery.

This shows X-ray diffraction on a single crystal of an antiferromagnetic material. This material, scientists found, exhibits an extremely large anomalous Hall effect, a sign of its topological character. (Image by Argonne National Laboratory.)

Scientists Find Unusual Behavior in Topological Material

Argonne scientists have identified a new class of topological materials made by inserting transition metal atoms into the atomic lattice of a well-known two-dimensional material.

STAR Detector on the Move

How long does it take to roll a twelve-hundred-ton detector one hundred feet? In late August, it took 10 hours for the STAR detector to roll from its regular spot in the interaction region of the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) to the assembly building to undergo maintenance. It’s all part of a program to keep this giant multi-purpose particle detector (kind of like a giant 3D digital camera) in tip-top condition for capturing subatomic smashups at RHIC, a DOE Office of Science user facility for nuclear physics research at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory.

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Genetic Behavior Reveals Cause of Death in Poplars Essential to Ecosystem, Industry

Scientists studying a valuable, but vulnerable, species of poplar have identified the genetic mechanism responsible for the species’ inability to resist a pervasive and deadly disease.

southern links of the network dark red, indicating data transfers exceeding 50 Gbps during the 5,000-mile transfer conducted by SLAC and Zettar Inc.

ESnet's Network, Software Help SLAC Researchers in Record-Setting Transfer of 1 Petabyte of Data

Using a 5,000-mile network loop operated by ESnet, researchers at the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (SLAC) and Zettar Inc. recently transferred 1 petabyte in 29 hours, with encryption and checksumming, beating last year's record by 5 hours, an almost 15 percent improvement.

Pushing the (Extra Cold) Frontiers of Superconducting Science

Ruslan Prozorov, a physicist at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory, and his research team have developed a method to measure magnetic properties of superconducting and magnetic materials that exhibit unusual quantum behavior at very low temperatures in high magnetic fields.

ORNL Researcher Kate Page's Athletic Past Accents Value of Collaboration

Neutron scattering scientist Katharine Page believes in team work – as a staff scientist at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, a lead on the DISCOVER project, an IDREAM team member, and a mentor.

This new agreement will allow Argonne and ALABC researchers investigate better lead battery technologies using equipment (shown here) at Argonne’s Electrochemical Discovery Laboratory. (Image by Advanced Lead Acid Battery Consortium (ALABC).)

Battery Mainstay Headed for High-tech Makeover

Under the terms of a new agreement signed with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory, 14 members of the Advanced Lead Acid Battery Consortium (ALABC) have joined forces with Electric Applications to use the bright x-ray beams at the laboratory’s Advanced Photon Source to investigate the further potential of lead batteries.

ORNL computational systems biologist Dan Jacobson, left, and OLCF computational scientist Wayne Joubert

Computing Genes to Support Living Clean

ORNL computational systems biologist Dan Jacobson and OLCF computational scientist Wayne Joubert are part of a team that was named a finalist for the 2018 Gordon Bell Prize for its work to advance genomic science on the Summit supercomputer.

Graduate student Eugene Evans in front of PPPL's field-reversed configuration device

New Simulations Confirm Efficiency of Waste-removal Process in Plasma Device

Just as fire produces ash, the combining of light elements in fusion reactions can produce material that eventually interferes with those same reactions. Now, scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) have found evidence suggesting that a process could remove the unwanted material and make the fusion processes more efficient within a type of fusion facility known as a field-reversed configuration (FRC) device.

Photo - Sally Shaw, a UC Santa Barbara postdoctoral researcher, stands beside a 12-foot-tall acrylic tank at a manufacturing site in Colorado. The tank was built for the LUX-ZEPLIN dark matter search experiment now under construction in Lead, South Dakota. (Credit: LZ Collaboration)

Acrylic Tanks Provide Clear Window Into Dark Matter Detection

Scientists have a new window into the search for dark matter – an acrylic vessel that features a grouping of 12-foot-tall transparent tanks with 1-inch-thick walls.

Daniel Bowring holds up a component for detecting dark matter particles called axions. Photo: Reidar Hahn

Fermilab Scientists to Look for Dark Matter Using Quantum Technology

Fermilab’s Aaron Chou is leading a multi-institutional consortium to apply the techniques of quantum metrology to the problem of detecting axion dark matter.