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

Breakthrough Could Launch Organic Electronics Beyond Cellphone Screens

A discovery by an international team of researchers from Princeton University, the Georgia Institute of Technology and Humboldt University in Berlin points the way to more widespread use of an advanced technology generally known as organic electronics.

A New Window into Electron Behavior

Scientists at MIT have found a way to visualize electron behavior beneath a material’s surface. The team’s technique is based on quantum mechanical tunneling, a process by which electrons can traverse energetic barriers by simply appearing on the other side.

High-Altitude Observatory Sheds Light on Origin of Excess Anti-Matter

A mountaintop observatory in Mexico, built and operated by an international team of scientists led by the University of Maryland, has captured the first wide-angle view of gamma rays emanating from two rapidly spinning stars.

Synthetic Circuits Can Harvest Light Energy

By organizing pigments on a DNA scaffold, an MIT-led team of researchers has designed a light-harvesting material that closely mimics the structure of naturally occurring photosynthetic structures.

MSU to Establish Training Program to Address National Shortage in Accelerator Scientists, Engineers

The Accelerator Science and Engineering Traineeship program will bring together MSU’s strengths to formulate a graduate student curriculum that will be implemented by physics and astronomy faculty in the College of Natural Science, the College of Engineering and the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams.

Learning from Photosynthesis

A new study, from Hao Yan and Neal Woodbury from ASU’s Biodesign Institute and colleagues from Harvard and MIT, outlines the design of a synthetic system for energy gathering, conversion and transport that may point the way to innovations in solar energy, materials science, nanotechnology and photonics

Read more about Learning from Photosynthesis

Supercomputing Speeds Up Deep Learning Training

A team of researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, the University of California, Davis and the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) published the results of an effort to harness the power of supercomputers to train a deep neural network (DNN) for image recognition at rapid speed.

LIGO Mirror Coatings Get an Upgrade with New Stanford-led National Collaboration

Stanford scientists will lead a new national cooperative effort, the LIGO Scientific Collaboration Center for Coatings Research, to improve detection of gravitational waves at the twin LIGO facilities.

When Water Met Iron Deep Inside the Earth, It Might Have Created Conditions for Life

Reservoirs of oxygen-rich iron between the Earth’s core and mantle could have played a major role in Earth’s history, including the breakup of supercontinents, drastic changes in Earth’s atmospheric makeup, and the creation of life, according to recent work from an international research team published in National Science Review.

Supercomputer Simulates Dynamic Magnetic Fields of Jupiter, Earth, Sun

As the Juno space probe approached Jupiter in June last year, researchers with the Computational Infrastructure for Geodynamics’ Dynamo Working Group which is headquartered at UC Davis, were starting to run simulations of the giant planet’s magnetic field on one of the world’s fastest computers. While the timing was coincidental, the supercomputer modeling should help scientists interpret the data from Juno, and vice versa.

Sensors Applied to Plant Leaves Warn of Water Shortage

MIT engineers have created sensors that can be printed onto plant leaves and reveal when the plants are experiencing a water shortage. This kind of technology could not only save neglected houseplants but, more importantly, give farmers an early warning when their crops are in danger.

Research is Making Plant Waste a Viable Option in Ethanol Production

UC Riverside researchers have developed a streamlined process that could finally make the ethanol production cost from abundant “second generation” plant wastes competitive with “first generation” ethanol made from sugars.