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

cutaway view of the Advanced Light Source shows new equipment (colored rings) that will be installed during the ALS Upgrade project. (Credit: Berkeley Lab)

Toward a New Light: Advanced Light Source Upgrade Project Moves Forward

The Advanced Light Source (ALS), a scientific user facility at the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), has received federal approval to proceed with preliminary design, planning and R&D work for a major upgrade project that will boost the brightness of its X-ray beams at least a hundredfold.

A new FPGA (field programmable gate array) module developed by Gang Huang, a research scientist in Berkeley Lab’s Accelerator Technologies and Applied Physics Division, and Larry Doolittle, a staff engineer in Berkeley Lab’s Engineering Division, for scalable control of superconducting qubits. (Credit: Peter DaSilva/Berkeley Lab)

Berkeley Lab to Push Quantum Information Frontiers With New Programs in Computing, Physics, Materials, and Chemistry

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory this week announced support from the Department of Energy that significantly expands the Lab’s research efforts in quantum information science, an area of research that harnesses the phenomenon of quantum coherence, in which two or more particles are so tightly entangled that a change to one simultaneously affects the other. Quantum information science seeks to utilize this phenomenon to hold, transmit, and process information.

Brookhaven scientists are pictured at NSLS-II beamline 8-ID, where they used ultra-bright x-ray light to "see" the chemical complexity of a new catalytic material. Pictured from left to right are Klaus Attenkofer, Dong Su, Sooyeon Hwang, and Eli Stavitski.

National Clean Energy Week: Converting CO2 into Usable Energy

Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory are part of a scientific collaboration that has identified a new electrocatalyst that efficiently converts CO2 to carbon monoxide (CO), a highly energetic molecule.

Argonne intern Savanna Dautle and chemist David Bross discuss research to develop more reliable computer models for gaseous systems. (Image by Argonne National Laboratory.)

"Model" Students Enjoy Argonne Campus Life

Savanna Dautle, an intern from Rowan University in Glassboro, New Jersey, spent her summer working with assistant chemist David Bross at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory.

Heat of the Moment

The addition of a new infrared camera at Argonne’s Advanced Photon Source narrows the gap between basic and applied research in additive manufacturing.

Neutrons Produce First Direct 3D Maps of Water During Cell Membrane Fusion

New 3D maps of water distribution during cellular membrane fusion are accelerating scientific understanding of cell development, which could lead to new treatments for diseases associated with cell fusion. Using neutron diffraction at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, researchers have made the first direct observations of water in lipid bilayers used to model cell membrane fusion.

Department of Energy Announces $218 Million for Quantum Information Science

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced $218 million in funding for 85 research awards in the important emerging field of Quantum Information Science (QIS).

a visualization of a magnesium-based MOF made up of magnesium ions (green) and organic linkers consisting of carbon (tan), oxygen (orange), and hydrogen (white) atoms, and Ashleigh Barnes

Faces of Summit: Getting Acclimated

Postdoctoral research associate Ashleigh Barnes adds functionality to the LSDalton chemistry code to solve bigger problems using the world’s most powerful supercomputer, the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility’s (OLCF’s) 200-petaflop IBM AC922 Summit.

Carlos Jones/Oak Ridge National Laboratory, U.S. Dept. of Energy

Chemists Demonstrate Sustainable Approach to Carbon Dioxide Capture from Air

Chemists at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory used a solar-powered oven to generate mild temperatures that liberate carbon dioxide trapped in guanidine carbonate crystals in an energy-sustainable way.

battery’s solid electrode – illustrated here in hexagonal slices

X-rays Uncover a Hidden Property that Leads to Failure in a Lithium-ion Battery Material

X-ray experiments at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have revealed that the pathways lithium ions take through a common battery material are more complex than previously thought.

Summit Speeds Calculations in the Search for Exotic Particles

In pursuit of numerical predictions for exotic particles, researchers are simulating atom-building quark and gluon particles over 70 times faster on Summit, the world’s most powerful scientific supercomputer, than on its predecessor Titan at the US Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL).

A cast cylinder head made from 16HT, an alloy in the ACMZ family. Image Credit: Carlos Jones, ORNL

Titan Speeds Inquiry Into Engine Alloys That Can Take the Heat

Simulations performed on the Cray XK7 Titan supercomputer at the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF) filled in a knowledge gap about high-temperature–capable alloys and inspired engineers to successfully develop a new cast aluminum–copper alloy that promises to withstand engine temperatures as high as 300°C—a temperature too extreme for current aluminum alloys—and offer more design flexibility.