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

Scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) experiments have been used to visualize the formation of composite particles called “heavy electrons” with the lowering of temperature.

Visualizing the Onset of “Heavy Electron” Superconductivity

Electrons can behave as if they are a hundred times heavier than free electrons and superconducting.

The structure of the iron MOF showing iron (orange), nitrogen (blue), and carbon (gray) atoms, as viewed along the triangular channels.

Fewer Steps to Higher Octane Gasoline in Petroleum Refining

A novel metal-organic framework (MOF) efficiently separates higher octane components from the low value ones, offering great potential for significant cost reduction in gasoline production.

Scanning electron micrograph of a new solid electrolyte material (lithium thiophosphate) showing its surface morphology and the nanoscale porosity which are responsible for its high ionic conductivity; Inset shows its crystal structure.

New Materials for High-Energy, Long-Life Rechargeable Batteries

Using sulfur-rich, highly ionic compounds as cathodes and electrolytes enables solid-state lithium-sulfur rechargeable batteries.

Protons and x-rays permit direct, nondestructive imaging of melting and solidification of metal alloys.

Using Protons to Peer into Metal Solidification

Proton radiography is a new tool for imaging melting and solidification of metals.

Resonant scattering with coherent x-rays is used to probe the size and the dynamics of magnetic domains in a Dysprosium (one of the elements with highest magnetic strength) crystal with three different domains (shown in three colors in the schematic).

Magnetic Systems Mimic Granular Materials

Magnetic domains exhibit the same dynamic jamming behavior universal to granular materials, polymers, glasses and emulsions.

Cartoon depicting how the ionic liquid molecules arrange in electrically charged interfaces (not to scale).

Don’t Count Your Ions Before They Dissociate

Ionic liquids found to behave differently than expected.

High-energy x-ray diffraction pattern from a single grain of a gadolinium – cadmium alloy (shown in center) displaying the novel five-fold rotational symmetry, characteristic of an icosahedral quasicrystal.

A New Class of Magnetic Materials with Novel Structural Order

The discovery of the first binary magnetic quasicrystals will enable the unraveling of the fundamental relationship between the structure and magnetism in aperiodic materials.