2017 | U.S. DOE Office of Science (SC)

Atomistic Calculations Predict that Boron Incorporation Increases the Efficiency of LEDs

Using predictive atomistic calculations and high-performance supercomputers at the NERSC computing facility, researchers Logan Williams and Emmanouil Kioupakis at the University of Michigan found that incorporating the element boron into the widely used InGaN (indium-gallium nitride) material can keep electrons from becoming too crowded in LEDs, making the material more efficient at producing light.

Reaching for Neutron Stars

For more than a decade, a cross-disciplinary team of chemists and physicists in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis has been chasing the atomic nucleus. With progressive studies, they moved up the element chain to Calcium-48, an extremely rare solid commodity that has more neutrons than protons and, as such, carries a hefty price tag of $100,000 per gram.

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Not So Elementary

A UC Santa Barbara physicist and colleagues review three experiments that hint at a phenomenon beyond the Standard Model of particle physics.

ASU-led Scientists Discover Why Rocks Flow Slowly in Earth's Middle Mantle

A recent study, led by Arizona State University's School of Earth and Space Exploration Associate Professor Dan Shim, has re-created in the laboratory the conditions found deep in the earth, and used this to discover an important property of the dominant mineral in Earth's mantle, a region lying far below our feet.

New Form of Carbon that's Hard as a Rock, Yet Elastic, Like Rubber

A team including several Carnegie scientists has developed a form of ultrastrong, lightweight carbon that is also elastic and electrically conductive. A material with such a unique combination of properties could serve a wide variety of applications from aerospace engineering to military armor.

Scientists Discover a 2-D magnet

A team led by the University of Washington and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has for the first time discovered magnetism in the 2-D world of monolayers, or materials that are formed by a single atomic layer.

Physicists Use Numerical ‘Tweezers’ to Study Nuclear Interactions

Researchers from North Carolina State University and the Ruhr-Universität Bochum have developed numerical “tweezers” that can pin a nucleus in place, enabling them to study how interactions between protons and neutrons produce forces between nuclei.

Triple Play Boosting Value of Renewable Fuel Could Tip Market in Favor of Biomass

UW–Madison researchers and collaborators have developed a new “green” technology for converting non-edible biomass into three high-value chemicals that are the basis for products traditionally made from petroleum.

Discovery of an Alga’s ‘Dictionary of Genes’ Could Lead to Advances in Biofuels and Medicine

Plant biologists and biochemists from UCLA, UC Berkeley and UC San Francisco have produced a gold mine of data by sequencing the genome of a green alga called Chromochloris zofingiensis.

Stanford Scientists Use Nanotechnology to Boost the Performance of a Key Industrial Catalyst

The discovery focuses on an industrial catalyst known as cerium oxide, or ceria, a spongy material commonly used in catalytic converters, self-cleaning ovens and various green-energy applications, such as fuel cells and solar water splitters.

Ames Laboratory Celebrates 70 Years of Science and Discovery on Iowa State’s Campus

The U.S. Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory is celebrating 70 years on the Iowa State University campus. The close university-laboratory ties have helped recruit researchers, educate students, build research teams and make scientific discoveries possible.

Refining the Ocean’s Thermometer

Researchers from Oregon State University, the University of California, Davis, the University of Washington, and the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have found that the layers of magnesium in the shells of marine creatures known foraminifera are due to daily cycles of sunlight.