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

New Magnetic Materials Overcome Key Barrier to Spintronic Devices

A team of scientists just developed an unprecedented material that cracks open this hermetic magnetism, confirming a decades-old theory and creating new engineering possibilities. The team, led by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory and the University of Tennessee, designed AFM materials with spin—the quantum mechanism behind all magnetism—that can be easily controlled with minimal energy.

Department of Energy Announces $36.4 Million for Fusion Energy Sciences Research

The U.S. Department of Energy announced $36.4 million in funding for 37 research awards at universities, national laboratories, and private industry on a range of topics in fusion energy sciences. The research is designed to help lay the groundwork for the development of nuclear fusion as a future practical energy source.

New Competition for MOFs: Scientists Make Stronger COFs

A team at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has used a chemical process discovered decades ago to make the linkages between COFs much more sturdy, and to give the COFs new characteristics that could expand their applications.

The Quest for Longer-Lasting Solar Cells

Maria Chan, nanoscientist at Argonne’s Center for Nanoscale Materials, and Ji-Sang Park, a CNM facility user from the Imperial College London, are studying the causes of silicon solar cell degradation in an effort to make solar power more affordable.

The High-tech Evolution of Scientific Computing

To leverage emerging computing capabilities and prepare for future exascale systems, the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility, a DOE Office of Science User Facility, is expanding its scope beyond traditional simulation-based research to include data science and machine learning approaches.

Arnab Banerjee: Traversing the Unknown, Befriending Uncertainty

Banerjee is a staff scientist working in the Neutron Scattering Division at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory where he primarily uses neutrons to study the bizarre and exotic nature of quantum phenomena.

DUNE Collaboration Completes Interim Design Report for Gigantic Particle Detectors

The more than 1,000 scientists and engineers from 32 countries working on the international Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE), hosted by the Department of Energy’s Fermilab, achieved a milestone on July 29 when the collaboration released its 687-page Interim Design Report for the construction of gigantic particle detector modules a mile underground in South Dakota.

Newest Supercomputer to Help Develop Fusion Energy in International Device

Scientists led by Stephen Jardin, principal research physicist and head of the Computational Plasma Physics Group at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, have won 40 million core hours of supercomputer time to simulate plasma disruptions that can halt fusion reactions and damage fusion facilities, so that scientists can learn how to stop them. The PPPL team will apply its findings to ITER, the international tokamak under construction in France to demonstrate the practicality of fusion energy.

Tin Type

Tin, an element perhaps best known for its use in tin cans, may help with the world’s data demands. A team of scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory are examining tin as a silicon-friendly material to help create new cost-effective memory devices. The new candidate, discovered in a recent study of solid-state memory components, offers the same performance advantages of more commonly used elements such as copper or silver, yet is compatible with silicon.

Department of Energy Announces $10 Million for Earth System Model Development and Analysis

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced $10 million in funding for 13 projects aimed at further enhancing one of the world’s most sophisticated computer models for understanding weather and climate patterns.

Pictures of Success in 3-D Printing

Argonne researchers and their collaborators were able to observe the detailed dynamics of powder spattering during the 3-D printing process. Their conclusions may ultimately help a variety of industries mitigate defects.

Berkeley Lab-Developed Digital Library is a Game-Changer for Environmental Research

A digital tool developed by a collaboration of scientists led by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) will make it much easier to use high-quality observations collected over years to power computer models and examine and predict ecosystem and watershed behaviors over time scales stretching from seasons to decades to centuries.