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

Breaking Bad Metals with Neutrons

By exploiting the properties of neutrons to probe electrons in a metal, a team of researchers led by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory has gained new insight into the behavior of correlated electron systems, which are materials that have useful properties such as magnetism or superconductivity.

DOE Under Secretary for Science Paul Dabbar Visits Jefferson Lab

On Jan. 11, Department of Energy Under Secretary for Science Paul Dabbar visited Jefferson Lab. While at the lab, he met several members of the lab’s senior leadership team, as well as members of the lab’s User Community and DOE Thomas Jefferson Site Office staff, and a number of the lab’s young scientists.

Neutrons Inspect Salt-inclusion Materials to Improve Long-term Waste Storage

A team of researchers from the University of South Carolina is using neutrons to develop more durable and efficient materials called waste forms for safely storing hazardous substances.

Miaofang Chi: Molecular Artistry

As a research staff member at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Chi develops novel electron microscopy techniques to help scientists solve problems and synthesize materials with optimal physical properties.

Going Organic

Argonne researchers have gotten a better look at how the molecular structures of organic solar cells form, which provides new insights that can improve their efficiency.

ORNL Researchers Use Titan to Accelerate Design, Training of Deep Learning Networks

A team of researchers from the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory has married artificial intelligence and high-performance computing to achieve a peak speed of 20 petaflops in the generation and training of deep learning networks on the laboratory’s Titan supercomputer.

Q&A: Alan Heirich and Elliott Slaughter Take On SLAC’s Big Data Challenges

As the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory builds the next generation of powerful instruments for groundbreaking research in X-ray science, astronomy and other fields, its Computer Science Division is preparing for the onslaught of data these instruments will produce.

Real World Native Biocrusts: Microbial Metabolism

Berkeley Lab researchers led by the Northen lab report that specific compounds are transformed by and strongly associated with specific bacteria in native biological soil crust (biocrust) using a suite of tools Northen calls “exometabolomics.” Understanding how microbial communities in the biocrusts adapt to their harsh environments could provide important clues to help shed light on the roles of soil microbes in the global carbon cycle.

ESnet’s DOE Early-Career Awardee Works to Overcome Roadblocks in Computational Networks

Mariam Kiran – a network engineer for the Energy Sciences Network (ESnet), a DOE Office of Science user facility managed by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory – is using an early-career research award from DOE’s Office of Science to develop methods combining machine-learning algorithms with parallel computing to optimize such networks.

Tweaking Quantum dots Powers-up Double-pane Solar Windows

Researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory are creating double-pane solar windows that generate electricity with greater efficiency and create shading and insulation for good measure.

CFN Scientist Spotlight: Gregory Doerk Guides the Self-Assembly of Materials to Make Diverse Nanoscale Patterns

Some materials have the unique ability to self-assemble into organized molecular patterns and structures. Materials scientist Gregory Doerk of the Electronic Nanomaterials Group at the Center for Functional Nanomaterials (CFN)—a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science User Facility at Brookhaven National Laboratory—takes advantage of this ability in materials called block copolymers.

Mallory Ladd: A molecular-scale Arctic expedition

The University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UTK) Bredesen Center student last year finished her third trip to Alaska to collect field data for the Next Generation Ecosystem Experiments-Arctic (NGEE-Arctic) program, supported by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Biological and Environmental Research.