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

DOE Early Career Award Goes to Nuclear Energy Elements Researcher

Chemistry professor Karah Knope, who researches elements essential to nuclear energy, is one of 84 scientists at universities and national laboratories receiving an Early Career Award from the U.S. Department of Energy. The award honors outstanding tenure-track researchers who received their Ph.D.s within the last 10 years and comes with a $150,000 grant each year for five years to cover salary and research expenses.

Kagome Discoveries

Boston College researcher Kun Jiang and Professor of Physics Ziqiang Wang help an international team of colleagues explain new findngs in the kagome magnet.

Reimagining Information Processing

West Virginia University physicists Cheng Cen, Lian Li, Yanjun Ma, Ming Yang and Chenhui Yan are looking beyond the limits of classical computing used in our everyday devices and are working toward making quantum device applications widely accessible.

Scientists Design Custom Nanoparticles With New 'Stencil' Method

A new technique developed by researchers at the University of Chicago, allows scientists to build custom coats for nanoparticles in all kinds of specific shapes.

Proton Transport 'Highway' May Pave Way to Better High-power Batteries

Researchers at Oregon State University have found that a chemical mechanism first described more than two centuries ago holds the potential to revolutionize energy storage for high-power applications like vehicles or electrical grids.

Breakthrough Reported in Fabricating Nanochips

An international team of researchers has reported a breakthrough in fabricating atom-thin processors — a discovery that could have far-reaching impacts on nanoscale chip production and in labs across the globe where scientists are exploring 2D materials for ever-smaller and -faster semiconductors.

New Water Splitting Catalyst Could Make it Easier to Generate Solar Fuel

Water splitting, the process of harvesting solar energy to generate energy-dense fuels, could be simplified thanks to new research including faculty at Binghamton University, State University of New York.

After Mapping Millions of Galaxies, Dark Energy Survey Finishes Data Collection

After scanning about a quarter of the southern skies over 800 nights, the Dark Energy Survey finished taking data on Jan. 9. It ends as one of the most sensitive and comprehensive surveys of its kind, recording data from more than 300 million distant galaxies.

Unlocking Graphene’s Superconducting Powers with a Twist and a Squeeze

A Columbia University-led team has developed a new method to finely tune adjacent layers of graphene—lacy, honeycomb-like sheets of carbon atoms—to induce superconductivity. Their research provides new insights into the physics underlying this two-dimensional material’s intriguing characteristics.

‘Realistic’ New Model Points the Way to More Efficient and Profitable Fracking

A new computational model could potentially boost efficiencies and profits in natural gas production by better predicting previously hidden fracture mechanics while accurately accounting for the known amounts of gas released during the process.

New Biosensor Highlights Best Biofuel-producing Microbes

A major goal of the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center is to harness the power of microbes to create biofuels. But often, it’s an expensive challenge for scientists to identify the most useful individual variants among thousands of similar microbe strains. A new study led by Vatsan Raman, an assistant professor of biochemistry at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, unveils a biosensor that may light the way to the best microbial candidates for biofuel production.

For Zombie Microbes, Deep-Sea Buffet is Just Out of Reach

Far below the ocean floor, sediments are teeming with bizarre zombie-like microbes. Although they’re technically alive, they grow in slow motion, and can take decades for a single cell to divide—something their cousins at the surface do in a matter of minutes. A new study from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) is beginning to pick apart how they survive by examining their source of “food”—nearby molecules of organic carbon.