University Research | U.S. DOE Office of Science (SC)

MSU Chemistry Professor and Graduate Student Publish Research in ‘Science’

Converting nitrogen into a form that people and plants can use can exact a heavy toll on the Earth, but a team involving two Montana State University researchers has discovered a much more eco-friendly method – a finding that has implications for food and alternative fuel production.

Researchers Find a Way to Extend Life and Improve Performance of Fuel Cell Electrodes

Researchers at MIT have developed a practical and physically-based way of treating the surface of materials called perovskite oxides, to make them more durable and improve their performance.

New Approach to Microlasers

Researchers at MIT and Sandia National Laboratories describe a new way to build terahertz lasers that could significantly reduce their power consumption and size, while also enabling them to emit tighter beams, a crucial requirement for most practical applications.

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Stanford Researchers Find New Way of Making Hydrogen Fuel from Water and Improve Grid-Scale Batteries

Stanford engineer Yi Cui and colleagues have developed new ways to improve hydrogen production and rechargeable zinc batteries.

CWRU Physicists Deploy Magnetic Vortex to Control Electron Spin

Researchers at Case Western Reserve University have developed a way to swiftly and precisely control electron spins at room temperature.

Discovery of Gold Nanocluster “Double” Hints at Other Shape Changing Particles

Polymorphs, or materials with the same composition but different structures, are common in bulk materials, and now researchers at Columbia University confirm they exist in nanomaterials, too.

Penn Chemists Establish Fundamentals of Ferroelectric Materials

Chemists from the University of Pennsylvania are enabling the next generation of research into ferroelectric materials by providing a new understanding about what it takes for polarizations within these materials to switch.

Making a Solar Energy Conversion Breakthrough With Help From a Ferroelectrics Pioneer

Designers of solar cells may soon be setting their sights higher, as a discovery by a team of researchers including scientists from Drexel University, has revealed a class of materials that could be better at converting sunlight into energy than those currently being used in solar arrays.

Toward Practical Quantum Computers

Researchers from MIT and MIT Lincoln Laboratory report an important step toward practical quantum computers, with a paper describing a prototype chip that can trap ions in an electric field and, with built-in optics, direct laser light toward each of them.

To Infinity and Beyond with Nanosatellites

Moving a nanosatellite around in space takes only a tiny amount of thrust. Engineers from Michigan Technological University and the University of Maryland teamed up, put a nanoscale rocket under a microscope, and watched what happened.

Rice University Researchers Say 2-D Boron May be Best for Flexible Electronics

The Rice lab of theoretical physicist Boris Yakobson and experimental collaborators observed examples of naturally undulating, metallic borophene, an atom-thick layer of boron, and suggested that transferring it onto an elastic surface would preserve the material’s stretchability along with its useful electronic properties.

U of A Researchers Observe Dynamic Structure of Plant Protein

Research at the University of Arkansas shows that a plant protein’s dynamic structure plays a critical role in how the plant builds up its photosynthetic machinery, potentially informing the design of artificial solar energy conversion devices.