A collaboration between the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory and a Florida-based medical device manufacturer has led to the addition of 500 jobs in the Miami area to support the mass production of N95 respirator masks.
Chemists studying how life started often focus on how modern biopolymers like peptides and nucleic acids contributed, but modern biopolymers don't form easily without help from living organisms.
The National Institute for Aviation Research (NIAR) at Wichita State University announces a new $13.5 million award from the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Aviation & Missile Center (CCDC AvMC) for continued applied research on emerging materials for high-speed missile applications.
An international research team led by PNNL has published a vision for electron microscopy infused with the latest advances in data science and artificial intelligence. Writing a commentary in Nature Materials, the team proposes a highly integrated, autonomous, and data-driven microscopy architecture to address challenges in energy storage, quantum information science, and materials design.
Perovskite materials are increasingly popular as the active layer in solar cells, but internal forces in these materials cause distortions in their crystal structures, reducing symmetry and contributing to their intrinsic instability. Researchers at Soochow University examined the mechanisms at play, as well as several degradation factors that influence the performance of perovskite photovoltaics. In APL Materials, they clarified the factors influencing the degradation and they summarized some feasible approaches for durable perovskite photovoltaics.
For the past year, three small-scale x-ray spectroscopy devices tucked away at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) have begun to dramatically speed up the testing and analysis of candidate novel materials used in energy storage research and environmental remediation. They are also expected to reduce the number of expensive off-site research trips.
An international multi-institution team of scientists has synthesized graphene nanoribbons – ultrathin strips of carbon atoms – on a titanium dioxide surface using an atomically precise method that removes a barrier for custom-designed carbon nanostructures required for quantum information sciences.
Researchers are working on new materials that actively self-assemble. In this research, scientists used a magnetic field to make metal particles spin at the liquid interface. This spinning activity created swarms of rod-like particles that then formed vortices that assembled into dynamic lattice structures that are reconfigurable and capable of self-healing.
With the support from a NASA Early Career Faculty Award, Shankar Narayanan, an assistant professor of mechanical, aerospace, and nuclear engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, aims to develop new materials that can protect objects from extreme radiation and temperature variations in space — an important step toward enabling long-distance space exploration.
Then and Now looks at what a 2010 Department of Energy Office of Science Early Career Award meant for Matt Law, now an associate professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of California, Irvine.
A new study published in Risk Analysis, “Reinventing cloth masks in the face of pandemics,” by Stephen Salter, P.Eng., describes how Effective Fiber Mask Programs (EFMPs) can help communities find a balance between the economy and curbing community spread.
Researchers from the Colorado School of Mines used neutrons at Oak Ridge National Laboratory's High Flux Isotope Reactor to measure residual stress of welds used to make large steel tanks that store molten salts for industrial concentrating solar plants.
As insulators, metal oxides – also known as ceramics – may not seem like obvious candidates for electrical conductivity. While electrons zip back and forth in regular metals, their movement in ceramic materials is sluggish and difficult to detect.
Scientists at the University of Wisconsin–Madison have discovered a way to control the growth of twisting, microscopic spirals of materials just one atom thick. The continuously twisting stacks of two-dimensional materials built by a team led by UW–Madison chemistry Professor Song Jin create new properties that scientists can exploit to study quantum physics on the nanoscale.
Purdue University innovators are taking cues from nature to develop 3D photodetectors for biomedical imaging.
Researchers at Empa and ETH Zurich succeeded in developing a material that works like a luminescent solar concentrator and can even be applied to textiles. This opens up numerous possibilities for producing energy directly where it is needed, i.e. in the use of everyday electronics.
PNNL researchers devised a new method to probe the atomic structure of plutonium-containing microcrystals using laboratory-based equipment.
Irvine, Calif., Oct. 21, 2020 – With one of the more awe-inspiring names in the animal kingdom, the diabolical ironclad beetle is one formidable insect. Birds, lizards and rodents frequently try to make a meal of it but seldom succeed. Run over it with a car, and the critter lives on. The beetle’s survival depends on two key factors: its ability to convincingly play dead and an exoskeleton that’s one of the toughest, most crush-resistant structures known to exist in the biological world.
A COVID-19 transmission model inspired by gas-phase chemistry is helping the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) forecast COVID-19 deaths across the country. Developed by Yunfeng Shi, an associate professor of materials science and engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and Jeff Ban, a professor of civil engineering at the University of Washington, the model uses fatality data collected by Johns Hopkins University and mobility data collected by Google to predict disease spread based on how much a population is moving within its community.
The development of a new method to make non-volatile computer memory may have unlocked a problem that has been holding back machine learning and has the potential to revolutionize technologies like voice recognition, image processing and autonomous driving.
Park, a staff researcher at Brookhaven Lab's Center for Functional Nanomaterials, is designing and building an automated system to generate high-quality ultrathin "flakes," which can be stacked into layered structures that are essentially new materials.
This new technology addresses two major goals of battery research: extending the driving range of electric vehicles and reducing the danger that laptops, cell phones and other devices will burst into flames.
Solar thermal cells continue to attract much interest as they have massive potential to heat water in a cost-effective and sustainable process. To date, the efficiency of these cells has been limited as the polymers used in their manufacture are poor thermal conductors.
Momentum Technologies Inc., a Dallas, Texas-based materials science company that is focused on extracting critical metals from electronic waste, has licensed an Oak Ridge National Laboratory process for recovering cobalt and other metals from spent lithium-ion batteries.
Researchers at PNNL have increased the conductivity of composite copper wire by 5%. That small percentage can make a big difference in motor efficiency. The laboratory teamed with General Motors to test out the souped-up copper wire for use in vehicle motor components, as part of a cost-shared research project.
Wound dressing, tissue scaffolding, controlled and sustained drug delivery, and cardiac patching are all biomedical processes requiring a material that combines strength with functionality. Core-sheath polymer fibers, fibers comprised of a strong core surrounded by a biologically applicable sheath layer, are an affordable way to meet these requirements. In the journal Applied Physics Reviews, researchers discuss methods of producing core-sheath polymer fibers and their promising applications.
Researchers at CSIRO, Australia's national science agency, have found that SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for COVID-19, can survive for up to 28 days on common surfaces including banknotes, glass - such as that found on mobile phone screens - and stainless steel.
Seven Los Alamos National Laboratory scientists and engineers have been named 2020 Laboratory Fellows: Tanmoy Bhattacharya, Christopher Fontes, Vania Jordanova, Thomas Leitner, John Lestone, Joseph Martz and Ralph Menikoff.
ExxonMobil chemist and user of Brookhaven Lab's Center for Functional Nanomaterials (CFN) Yunlong Zhang is characterizing molecules in petroleum with high-resolution atomic force microscopy.
In celebration of National Nanotechnology Day, Molecular Foundry Director Kristin Persson explains atomic-scale engineering at four different levels – for a kindergartner, a middle schooler, a high school senior, and a graduate student
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) researchers are among the developers of the top 100 industrial inventions worldwide, winning an R&D 100 award.
Scientists have shown that an algorithm added to image processing software can improve the resolution and accuracy of cryo-electron microscopes, which are one of the most crucial tools in microbiology and medical research.
The precisely controlled photon source, made from an atomically thin semiconducting material, could aid the development of advanced quantum communication
A team led by the University of Washington reports that carefully constructed stacks of graphene — a 2D form of carbon — can exhibit highly correlated electron properties. The team also found evidence that this type of collective behavior likely relates to the emergence of exotic magnetic states.
ORNL story tips: Remote population counting, slowing corrosion and turning down the heat
A newly patented method of connecting precast beams and columns will make it possible to quickly repair concrete buildings damaged by earthquakes and hurricanes.
Using a novel technique, scientists working at the Florida State University-headquartered National High Magnetic Field Laboratory have found evidence for a quantum spin liquid, a state of matter that is promising as a building block for the quantum computers of tomorrow.
Led by the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, a study of a solar-energy material with a bright future revealed a way to slow phonons, the waves that transport heat.
A shoe scanner that would allow people to keep on their footwear as they pass through airport security and a cement that repairs itself are among five PNNL R&D 100 Award recipients. PNNL now has garnered a total of 116 since the program’s inception.
Scientists have developed a new material that can sense glutamate in the brain, and may lead to new tools to combat neurological disorders.
Metals such as iron and calcium play a crucial role inside the human body, so it’s no surprise that bioengineers would like to integrate them into the soft, stretchy materials used to repair skin, blood vessels, lungs and other tissue.
At the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, machine learning is opening new avenues to advance the lab’s unique scientific facilities and research.
2D Electronics, Plant Biofactories, Transforming Waste, and Vaccine Development.
A team of scientists led by Berkeley Lab has gained important new insight into electrons’ role in the harvesting of light in artificial photosynthesis systems.
The University of Illinois Chicago has received an $8 million award from the Army Research Laboratory, or ARL, to support the development of specialized sensors to enable drones to use different types of fuel. They also will seek to advance hybrid-electric optimization, which has relevance for commercial drones and other vehicle types.
For the first time, researchers from Missouri S&T have shown that highly ordered copper thin films can be crystallized directly on a one-molecule-thick layer of organic material rather than on the inorganic substrates that have been used for years.The copper thin films they’ve produced are excellent candidates for use as underlying substances for solar cells, LEDs, and high-temperature superconductors, says Dr.
Penn State's Materials Research Science and Engineering Center has successfully renewed NSF funding for six more years.
Researchers are developing new ways to advance lithium-rich batteries and using new materials for practical use, according to researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory.
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