Laboratory Science Highlights | U.S. DOE Office of Science (SC)

A representation of a leaf-cutter ant fungal garden composed of leaf material being broken down by fungi that the ants consume. Bacteria in the garden can fix nitrogen and produce nutrients that the fungi need.

A Detailed Look at How Ants’ Fungal Gardens Break Down Plant Litter

Researchers developed a novel approach to map how a community of leaf-cutter ants, fungi, and bacteria work together to break down plant biomass.

High-energy, near-miss collisions of atomic nuclei allow scientists to probe the inner structure of protons and neutrons in a gold (Au) nucleus, including the density of the gluelike gluons (in yellow) that bind these nucleons’ inner building blocks.

Gluons’ Density Isn’t the Same in Bound vs Unbound Protons and Neutrons

Data show the distribution of gluon “glue” in protons and neutrons changes when they are bound together in nuclei.

Details of the properties of Mn3Si2Te6. (a) Reflectance ratios of Mn3Si2Te6 as a function of magnetic field at 5.5 K. (b) Crystal structure showing two distinct manganese sites.

Semiconductor Takes an Unconventional Path from Insulator to Metal

Scientists examine the unusual insulator-to-metal phase transition in Mn₃Si₂Te₆

Drawing of real charged particle tracks from a collision of two uranium nuclei, shown exaggerated in size and flattened by the effects of traveling close to the speed of light, over a sketch of the STAR detector at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider.

Imaging Nuclear Shapes by Smashing them to Smithereens

Scientists use high-energy heavy ion collisions in a new way to reveal subtleties of nuclear structure with implications for many areas of physics.

Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Biruk Feyissa, left, holds a five-month-old poplar tree expressing high levels of the BOOSTER gene, while former colleague Wellington Muchero holds a tree of the same age expressing lower levels of the gene.

Landmark Photosynthesis Gene Discovery Boosts Plant Growth, Advances Crop Science

A novel gene, BOOSTER, enhances plants’ photosynthesis efficiency and productivity.

In nuclear beta decay an up quark ‘u’ in a proton converts into an up down quark ‘d,’ turning the proton into a neutron and emitting a positron and a neutrino. This work affects interpretation of beta decay measurements across the chart of nuclides.

New Precise Calculation of Nuclear Beta Decays Paves the Way to Uncover Physics Beyond the Standard Model

Theorists identify new effects needed to compute the nuclear beta decay rate with a precision of a few parts in ten thousand.

The image using Coherent Correlation Imaging shows the areas where the borders of magnetic domains (called domain walls) accumulate over time and thus maps the presence of pinning sites. The image field of view is 700 nanometers.

Watching Magnetic Materials Get Organized in Real Time

A revolutionary Coherent Correlation Imaging method visualizes electronic ordering in magnetic materials and opens a path to new data storage technologies.

A depiction of proposed four-quark structures and their sizes relative to the proton. The labels u and c represent the up and charm quarks, respectively, while the labels u and c with bars indicate the corresponding antiquarks.

Can Four-Quark States Arise from Inside the Proton Itself?

Theoretical calculations suggest charm tetraquarks may be less compact than previously thought.

An artist’s impression of a quantum electrodynamics simulation using 100 qubits of an IBM quantum computer. The spheres and lines denote the qubits and connectivity of the IBM quantum processor; gold spheres denote the qubits used in the simulation.

Nuclear Physicists Create Scalable Quantum Circuits to Simulate Fundamental Physics

Researchers developed and executed algorithms for preparing the quantum vacuum and hadrons on more than 100 qubits of IBM quantum computers.

A photon (γ) and a jet of other particles emerges from a proton-proton (p-p) collision (left). But in a deuteron (d)-gold nucleus (Au) collision (right), the jet loses energy while the photon is not affected. Neutral pions (π0) are proxies for the jet.

Fresh Direct Evidence for Tiny Drops of Quark-Gluon Plasma

Particles of light from collisions of deuterons with gold ions provide direct evidence that energetic jets get stuck.

Strong interactions between neighboring metal and sulfur atoms are found to influence the properties of electronic excited states created by light absorption, as shown by X-ray spectroscopy methods at the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource.

Excited Electronic States of Metallic Atoms Rely on their Sulfuric Neighbors

Scientists discover that bond covalency is an important property of excited states in molecules containing metal-sulfur bonds.

Crystallographic and spectroscopic evidence now show that americium and curium yield a variety of polyoxometalate compounds that their lanthanide counterparts are unable to form.

Heavy Ligands Unravel New Chemistry for Heavy Elements

Heavy ligands, like polyoxometalates, open a new frontier in the chemistry of actinide elements.