News Archive | U.S. DOE Office of Science (SC)

Simulations of different geometric states of fluid (red) in rock (tan). Using Titan, researchers validated a geometric model for characterizing fluid flow in porous rock and geologic materials from theory. Image courtesy of James McClure

New Geometric Model Improves Predictions of Fluid Flow in Rock

Researchers led by computational scientist James McClure of Virginia Tech used the 27-petaflop Titan supercomputer at the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF) to develop a geometric model that requires only a few key measurements to characterize how fluids are arranged within porous rock—that is, their geometric state.

Argonne researching are using Singularity as part of their work with the CANDLE project, which aims to predict cancer type and drug response using histopathology images from the National Cancer Institute’s Patient-Derived Models Repository. (Image credit: Rick Stevens, Argonne National Laboratory)

Software Stack in a Snapshot

Scaling code for massively parallel architectures is a common challenge the scientific community faces. When moving from a system used for development—a personal laptop, for instance, or even a university’s computing cluster—to a large-scale supercomputer like those housed at the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility (ALCF), a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science User Facility, researchers traditionally would only migrate the target application: the underlying software stack would be left behind.

Read more about Software Stack in a Snapshot

Funding: Department of Energy to Provide $30 Million for New Data Science Approaches for Chemistry and Materials Research

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced plans to provide $30 million for new research using modern data science approaches to accelerate discovery in chemistry and materials sciences.

This graphic shows the “hybrid orbitals” in which atoms can share electrons in cobalt borate catalysts, making it a better water-splitting catalyst than cobalt phosphate. (Image by Argonne National Laboratory.)

Scientists Take X-ray Aim in Effort to Discover New Fuel Catalyst

In a new study of a related group of cobalt oxides, scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory sought to determine why two similar catalysts with somewhat different domain sizes behaved differently.

Standing at the WAND2 instrument, researchers (from left to right) Michael Heere and Yaroslav Filinchuk with ORNL beamline scientists Matthias Frontzek and Simon Kimber. (Image credit: ORNL/Jeremy Rumsey)

Neutrons Unlock Properties of Novel Porous Metal-Hydride for Possible New Energy Storage Applications

Yaroslav Filinchuk, a professor of chemistry from the Universite Catholique de Louvain, Belgium, and Michael Heere, a researcher from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and affiliate of the Forschungsreaktor München II research reactor in Munich, Germany, are using neutron scattering at the Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) to investigate a material that could change the way we harvest valuable industrial materials.

A mysterious process called oxygen oxidation strips electrons from oxygen atoms in lithium-rich battery cathodes and degrades their performance, shown at left. Better understanding this property and controlling its effects could lead to better performing electric vehicles. (Gregory Stewart/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory)

Untangling a Strange Phenomenon that Both Helps and Hurts Lithium-ion Battery Performance

New research offers the first complete picture of why a promising approach of stuffing more lithium into battery cathodes leads to their failure. A better understanding of this could be the key to smaller phone batteries and electric cars that drive farther between charges.

This is an example of a “hypersurface” fit to many experiments with slightly different noise parameters, ɣ1 and ɣ2. Black points are measurements of an observable with different noise rates. The red “X” is the noise-free result. Blue, orange and green surfaces are first, third and fourth order fits. (Image by Argonne National Laboratory.)

Argonne Researchers Develop New Method to Reduce Quantum Noise

In a recent issue of Physical Review A, Argonne researchers reported a new method for alleviating the effects of “noise” in quantum information systems, a challenge scientists around the globe are working to meet in the race toward a new era of quantum technologies. The new method has implications for the future of quantum information science, including quantum computing and quantum sensing.

A research team led by Jonathan Ajo-Franklin of Berkeley Lab’s Earth and Environmental Sciences Area (EESA) is turning parts of a 13,000-mile-long “dark fiber” testbed owned by DOE’s ESnet into a highly sensitive seismic activity sensor. L-R: Inder Monga (ESnet), Verónica Rodríguez Tribaldos (EESA), Jonathan Ajo-Franklin, and Nate Lindsey (EESA). (Credit: Paul Mueller/Berkeley Lab)

Dark Fiber Lays Groundwork for Long-Distance Earthquake Detection and Groundwater Mapping

Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) are turning parts of a 13,000-mile-long testbed of “dark fiber,” unused fiber-optic cable, owned by the DOE Energy Sciences Network (ESnet), into a highly sensitive seismic activity sensor that could potentially augment the performance of earthquake early warning systems currently being developed in the western United States.

Novel Experiment Validates a Widely Speculated and Important Mechanism During the Formation of Stars and Planets

A novel experiment at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) has demonstrated the validity of a widespread theory known as “magnetorotational instability,” or MRI, that seeks to explain the formation of heavenly bodies.

This image shows a 3D superinsulator, in which vortex condensate (green lines) squeezes the electric field lines connecting charge-anticharge pairs (red and blue balls) into the electric strings (orange strips). These strings tightly bind these charge-anticharge pairs, completely immobilizing them, so electric current cannot be produced. (Image by Argonne National Laboratory.)

Superinsulators to Become Scientists' Quark Playgrounds

An international group of scientists that includes materials scientist Valerii Vinokur from the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory have devised a theory around a new state of matter called a superinsulator, in which electrons display some of the same properties as quarks.

PNNL researchers have been able to observe in unprecedented detail how rust happens. Credit: Zsolt Palantinus on Unsplash

Rust Never Sleeps

Scientists at the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory report in the journal PNAS a breakthrough in visualizing the reactivity of rust minerals when deprived of oxygen, such as those below the soil surface. Using iron isotopes and atom probe tomography, or APT, they traced these so-called redox reactions to create the first 3D “atomic maps” of the re-arrangement of different iron atoms in a small iron oxide crystal.

ArgoNeuT Hits a Home Run With Measurements of Neutrinos in Liquid Argon

Scientists on the ArgoNeuT experiment have developed a method that enables them to better distinguish the tracks that particles leave behind in liquid argon, as well as a way to better differentiate between signals and background. And thanks to the software’s great performance, ArgoNeuT will aid larger neutrino experiments in their quest to understand the nature of the subtle neutrino.