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

Strained Materials Make Cooler Superconductors

University of Wisconsin-Madison engineers have added a new dimension to our understanding of why straining a particular group of materials, called Ruddlesden-Popper oxides, tampers with their superconducting properties.

Supercomputing the Emergence of Material Behavior

A team of chemists at the University of California, San Diego has now designed a two-dimensional protein crystal that toggles between states of varying porosity and density. This is a first in biomolecular design that combined experimental studies with computation done on several supercomputing systems: the San Diego Supercomputer Center, the National Institute for Computational Sciences, and the Texas Advance Computing Center.

UT Nuclear Engineering Student Chosen for Top Fellowship

UT’s Eric O’Quinn, a graduate student in nuclear engineering, has been chosen by the Department of Energy’s Office of Science for enrollment in its graduate student research program.

New Self-Assembling Protein Hydrogels May Hold Many Applications for Biomedicine

Delivering medications safely and accurately is of great interest to researchers and, of course, to people who need them. So is restoring function to damaged body parts. Jin K. Montclare, an associate professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, has taken a big step towards meeting both of these goals.

Artificial Intelligence Accelerates Discovery of Metallic Glass

A group led by scientists at Northwestern University, the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has reported a shortcut for discovering and improving metallic glass — and, by extension, other elusive materials — at a fraction of the time and cost.

Light ‘Relaxes’ Crystal to Boost Solar Cell Efficiency

A collaboration led by Rice University and Los Alamos National Laboratory found that constant illumination relaxes the lattice of a perovskite-like material, making it more efficient at collecting sunlight and converting it to energy.

Renewed Project Could Protect Environment for Millennia

A team that has included more than 85 researchers from three South Carolina universities is receiving $2 million to continue investigating how buried nuclear waste would react with soil and groundwater if it were to leak into the environment.

From Lotion to Ocean Liner

Researchers at RiKarbon, a University of Delaware start-up company, are combining plant scraps and natural oils, through chemistry, to engineer a bio-based oil that can be used as a renewable alternative to typical petroleum-based resources used in everything from popular skin lotions and sunscreens to lubricants for shipping, agriculture, food processing and hydropower production, among other things.

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$6.8M Initiative to Enable American Laser Renaissance

In an effort to improve American competitiveness in high-intensity laser research, the Department of Energy has established LaserNetUS, a $6.8 million initiative that involves the University of Michigan—one of the field’s pioneers.

First Two-dimensional Material that Performs as Both Topological Insulator and Superconductor

A transistor based on the 2-D material tungsten ditelluride (WTe2) sandwiched between boron nitride can switch between two different electronic states — one that conducts current only along its edges, making it a topological insulator, and one that conducts current with no resistance, making it a superconductor — researchers at MIT and colleagues from four other institutions have demonstrated.

Cornell Joins Battery Research Partnership

Chemist Geoffrey Coates will be part of the $120 million, five-year second phase of the Joint Center for Energy Storage Research (JCESR), an interdisciplinary project aimed at realizing next-generation batteries.

Red-hued Yeasts Hold Clues to Producing Better Biofuels

A team based at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center describe the genetic machinery that yeasts use to make pulcherrimin, which binds iron, an essential nutrient. The work is a key step toward harnessing the synthesis pathway for large-scale production of isobutanol as a biofuel.