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

Something Deep Within: Nanocrystals Grown in Nanowires

This development could lead to new materials for ultra-small transistors, diodes, and more

A cage-like protein (gray) called ferritin was engineered to have metal hubs (blue) on its surface.

Modular Construction - on a Molecular Scale

Predictable assembly of protein building blocks result in a new class of porous materials, with potential uses ranging from efficient fuel storage to practical carbon capture and conversion.

Nanometer-sized junctions between two types of two-dimensional semiconductors could replace conventional wider three-dimensional junctions.

Patterning Smaller Junctions for Ultrathin Devices

Patterned arrays of nanometer-sized connections in two-dimensional semiconductors could enable ultrathin integrated circuits for smartphones and solar cells.

The crystallized oxide (lighter regions) spelling the word “small” was “printed” on a non-crystallized layer (darker gray) by a well-controlled beam in an electron microscope.

Atomic Sculpting with a Microscope

A new tool allows atomic 3D printing.

The discovery that electrically conductive, hair-like filaments on the surface of Geobacter bacteria could mark a new paradigm for the employment of biological materials in nanoscale electron devices.

Bacteria Hairs Make Excellent Electrical Wires

This discovery could lead to low-cost, non-toxic, biological components for light-weight electronics.

Snakes on a plane: This atomic-resolution simulation of a peptoid nanosheet reveals a snake-like structure never seen before. The nanosheet’s layers include a water-repelling core (yellow), peptoid backbones (white), and charged sidechains (magenta and cyan). The right corner of the nanosheet’s top layer has been “removed” to show how the backbone’s alternating rotational states give the backbones a snake-like appearance (red and blue ribbons). Surrounding water molecules are red and white.

Understanding and Predicting Self-Assembly

Newly discovered “design rule” brings nature-inspired nanostructures one step closer.

A vector map of the measured deflections of an atomic-sized electron beam scanned across different polar domains in the ferroelectric bismuth ferrite. The image was recorded in about a minute by the new electron microscope pixel array detector.

New High-Capability Solid-State Electron Microscope Detector Enables Novel Studies of Materials

Device allows fast, precise measurements of electric and magnetic fields at the atomic level, providing insights into the next generation of electronic, energy production, and storage materials.

DOE Isotope Program Provides Target Material for the Discovery of Superheavy Elements

New element 117 and its decay products establish the existence of long-sought Island of Stability.

A new algorithm reduces timing uncertainty by a factor of 300, revealing ultrafast dynamics on timescales as short as a quadrillionth of a second.

Creating a Better Way to Find Out “When”

Computer algorithm recovers histories and dynamics on timescales much faster than uncertainties inherent in experimental data.

This results demonstrate a temporal resolution sufficient to directly image chemical reactions.

Capturing Molecular Motion with Relativistic Electrons

The world’s fastest images of nitrogen molecules rotating in a gas were captured using electron diffraction.

MD simulation shows membranes with an asymmetric molecular distribution of about 0.6 nm; yellow = gold; red = organo-thiol ligand molecules.

Janus-like Nanoparticle Membranes

Sub-nanometer molecular asymmetry between the two different faces of nanoparticle membranes formed at air-water interface is revealed.

The deposition of a silicon dioxide layer (yellow layer) on a carbon nanotube (gray spheres) introduces solitary oxygen dopants (red spheres).

Using Nanotubes to Create Single Photons for Quantum Communication

Demonstration of room temperature, single photon emission in doped carbon nanotubes opens a new path toward quantum information technologies.