University Research | U.S. DOE Office of Science (SC)

ASU Research Finds Better Predictors of Metal Structure Failures

An Arizona State University research team has released new insights about intergranular stress-corrosion cracking (SCC), an environmental cause of premature failure in engineered structures, including bridges, aircraft and nuclear power generating plants.

A New Dimension for Batteries

Engineers at the University of Maryland have created a thin battery, made of a few million carefully constructed “microbatteries” in a square inch. Each microbattery is shaped like a very tall, round room, providing much surface area – like wall space – on which nano-thin battery layers are assembled.

New Biofuel Production System Powered by a Community of Algae and Fungi

MSU scientists have a new proof of concept for a biofuel production platform that uses two species of marine algae and soil fungi. It lowers cultivation and harvesting costs and increases productivity, factors that currently hold back biofuels from being widely adopted.

New Insights into Semiconductors for Spintronic Applications from Hard X-Ray Photoemission

“Spintronics” holds promise for new types of devices for information processing and data storage, with ones and zeros being stored in the spin state of electrons as well as their electric charge. Such devices could be faster and more energy efficient than current electronics.

Internship Profile: Swati Narasimhan, Mechanical Engineering’19

University of Miami student Swati Narasimhan spent her summer as a research intern in the Battery Manufacturing Facility, working with the Roll-to-Roll Manufacturing Group at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Department of Energy Invests $1.1 Million in Sorghum Disease Resistance Research at Illinois

Sorghum is traditionally grown for the grain, but newer cultivars have been developed to maximize vegetative biomass, a key trait for lignocellulosic bioenergy production. But before sorghum can meet its full potential as a bioenergy crop, it will need to become more resistant to diseases that can reduce its ability to produce biomass.

The Career Pivot: It's Not Just for People

Originally known solely for its work in high energy physics, SLAC pivoted its accelerator in 2009 to the LCLS, which looks at everything from living cells to chemical reactions. This December, the laser will go dark for two years to make way for its daunting successor—LCLS-II, which will be 10,000 times brighter.

UH Engineer Part of $800K DOE Study Targeting Safer Storage for Nuclear Waste

Dr. Jeffrey Rimer, with the University of Houston Cullen College of Engineering, is studying the corrosion behavior of glass containers often used to store nuclear waste. Its goal is to find solutions to reduce or avoid the degeneration of the containers.

Paris Perdikaris Predicts Complex Outcomes of Physical Systems

An assistant professor in the University of Pennsylvania's Department of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics, Perdikaris is taking a new approach to modeling complex and unpredictable physical systems, research that is being funded by an Early Career Award from the Department of Energy (DOE).

Scientists Take Important Step Toward Understanding Higgs Boson Decay

The Large Hadron Collider collaborations ATLAS and CMS jointly announced the discovery of the Higgs boson transforming into bottom quarks as it decays. This is predicted to be the most common way for Higgs bosons to decay, yet was a difficult signal to isolate because background processes closely mimic the subtle signal.

Catalyst Advance Could Lead to Economical Fuel Cells

Researchers at Washington State University have developed a new way to make low-cost, single-atom catalysts for fuel cells — an advance that could make important clean energy technology more economically viable.

Researchers Discover How Caged Molecules 'Rattle and Sing'

A team of energy researchers from the University of Minnesota and University of Massachusetts Amherst has discovered that molecular motion can be predicted with high accuracy when confining molecules in small nanocages.