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

UCLA-led Research Offers Clearest Evidence Yet of Long-Sought Majorana Particle

A UCLA-led team of engineers and scientists has found a “smoking gun” signature of the long sought-after Majorana particle. The particle, whose existence was first proposed by Italian theoretical physicist Ettore Majorana in 1937, could be the foundation for a class of robust topological quantum computers.

Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment Breaks Ground

UC Davis researchers including Professor Robert Svoboda, Professor Emilija Pantic, postdoctoral researcher Jingbo Wang, graduate student Steven Gardiner and Hans Berns, research engineer at the Crocker Nuclear Laboratory are participating in a global mega-science experiment involving 1,000 other researchers from 30 countries who are studying neutrinos, which are subatomic particles with most unusual properties.

Tulane Team Advances Knowledge Toward More Efficient Electronics

A recent discovery by a team of researchers led by Tulane University advances fundamental knowledge that could one day lead to more energy-efficient computers, televisions, cellphones and other electronics.

Fungi that Evolved to Eat Wood Offer New Biomass Conversion Tool

Barry Goodell and colleagues at UMass Amherst have discovered a unique system that some microorganisms, notably brown rot fungi, use to digest and recycle wood.

Restoring Loss: Bio-inspired Materials Give Boost to Regenerative Medicine

Arizona State University researchers working in tech field that could one day help treat diseases including stroke, heart attacks, Parkinson’s and arthritis.

UMD Engineers Invent the First Bio-Compatible, Ion Current Battery

Engineers at the University of Maryland have invented an entirely new kind of battery. It is bio-compatible because it produces the same kind of ion-based electrical energy used by humans and all living things.

UWM Researchers Create First 3-D Movie of a Virus in Action

A research collaboration led by the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee has for the first time created a three-dimensional movie showing a virus preparing to infect a healthy cell.

New Ultrathin Semiconductor Materials Exceed Some of Silicon’s ‘Secret’ Powers

Electrical engineers at Stanford have identified two semiconductors – hafnium diselenide and zirconium diselenide – that share or even exceed some of silicon’s desirable traits, starting with the fact that all three materials can “rust.”

Virginia Tech Researchers Discover Potentially Harmful Airborne Nanoparticles Produced Through Burning of Coal

Environmental scientists led by the Virginia Tech College of Science have discovered that the burning of coal produces incredibly small particles of a highly unusual form of titanium oxide.

Finding Neutrinos – a Q&A with Matthew Green

Matthew Green is an assistant professor of physics at NC State. He was involved in a multi-institutional research project aimed at detecting a process called Coherent Elastic Neutrino Nuclear Scattering (CEvNS).

Tiny Terahertz Laser Could be Used for Imaging, Chemical Detection

Researchers at MIT and colleagues at Sandia National Laboratories and the University of Toronto describe a novel design that boosts the power output of chip-mounted terahertz lasers by 80 percent.

Landscapes Give Latitude to 2-D Material Designers

Rice lab of theoretical physicist Boris Yakobson and colleagues at Oak Ridge National Laboratory are combining theory and experimentation to prove it’s possible to give 2-D materials specific defects, especially atomic-scale seams called grain boundaries.