Scientists at three Department of Energy national laboratories have discovered how to keep a promising new type of lithium ion battery cathode from developing a crusty coating that degrades its performance. The solution: Use a simple manufacturing technique to form the cathode material into tiny, layered particles that store a lot of energy while protecting themselves from damage.
Stan Brodsky, a professor of particle physics and astrophysics at Stanford University and the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, has received the 2015 Pomeranchuk Prize from the Institute for Theoretical and Experimental Physics (ITEP) in Moscow, Russia. He shares the award with Russian physicist Victor Fadin.
Eight scientists have shared the 2015 John Dawson Award for Excellence in Plasma Physics Research for an experiment that used the world’s most powerful X-ray laser to create and probe 3.6-million-degree matter in a controlled way for the first time.
Scientists from The Scripps Research Institute and the Crucell Vaccine Institute have now designed a protein fragment called mini-HA that stimulates the production of antibodies against a variety of influenza viruses. A key part of the work took place at the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource (SSRL), a DOE Office of Science User Facility at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, where the scientists used a technique called X-ray crystallography to look at the atomic structure of the mini-HA at each stage of its development.
The Large Underground Xenon (LUX) dark matter experiment, which operates nearly a mile underground at the Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF) in the Black Hills of South Dakota, has already proven itself to be the most sensitive dark matter detector in the world. Now scientists have significantly enhanced its ability to look for WIMPs, or weakly interacting massive particles, which are among the leading candidates for dark matter.
They sound like futuristic weapons, but electron guns are actually workhorse tools for research and industry: They emit streams of electrons for electron microscopes, semiconductor patterning equipment and particle accelerators, to name a few important uses. Now scientists at Stanford University and the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have figured out how to increase these electron flows 13,000-fold by applying a single layer of diamondoids – tiny, perfect diamond cages – to an electron gun’s sharp gold tip.
Researchers at the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have found a simple new way to study very delicate biological samples – like proteins at work in photosynthesis and components of protein-making machines called ribosomes – at the atomic scale using SLAC's X-ray laser.
Bombarding and stretching an important industrial catalyst opens up tiny holes on its surface where atoms can attach and react, greatly increasing its activity as a promoter of chemical reactions, according to a study by scientists at Stanford University and the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory.
The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation has awarded $13.5 million to Stanford University for an international effort, including key contributions from the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, to build a working particle accelerator the size of a shoebox based on an innovative technology known as “accelerator on a chip.”
In this Q&A, Particle Physics and Astrophysics Professor Lance Dixon of Stanford University and the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory explains one approach to developing such a theory, called quantum gravity.
Helen Quinn, a professor emerita at the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University, will receive the 2016 Karl Taylor Compton Medal for Leadership in Physics for her contributions to science education and theoretical physics.
Researchers used a powerful, custom-built X-ray microscope at the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory to directly observe the magnetic version of a soliton, a type of wave that can travel without resistance. Scientists are exploring whether such magnetic waves can be used to carry and store information in a new, more efficient form of computer memory that requires less energy and generates less heat.
The annual Discovery Day at AT&T Park was yet again a grand slam for science: About 35,000 visitors flocked to the ballpark of the San Francisco Giants on Nov. 7 to attend the fifth edition of the family-friendly science fair. With 150 exhibits and activities, science and technology organizations from across the Bay Area made science fun and accessible to the public.
A team led by scientists at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory combined powerful magnetic pulses with some of the brightest X-rays on the planet to discover a surprising 3-D arrangement of a material’s electrons that appears closely linked to a mysterious phenomenon known as high-temperature superconductivity.
Scientists from Stanford University and the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have shown they can make flexible, transparent electrical conductors with record-high performance for use in solar cells, displays and other devices by spreading polymers on a clear surface with a tiny blade, like a knife spreading butter on toast.
The recently commissioned MicroBooNE experiment at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory has reached a major milestone: It detected its first neutrinos on Oct. 15, marking the beginning of detailed studies of these fundamental particles whose properties could be linked to dark matter, matter’s dominance over antimatter in the universe and the evolution of the entire cosmos since the Big Bang.
Scientists from Stanford University and the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have made the first direct images showing that electrical currents can flow along the boundaries between tiny magnetic regions of a material that normally doesn’t conduct electricity. The results could have major implications for magnetic memory storage.
Arthur “Artie” Bienenstock, professor emeritus at Stanford University and the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, was honored with an all-day symposium in recognition of his outstanding contributions to science, academia, graduate student education and U.S. science policy.
President Obama welcomed SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory's Claudio Pellegrini into the Oval Office Tuesday morning as a recipient of the Enrico Fermi Award, one of the highest honors the U.S. government can give to a scientist.
Paul H. Fuoss has received the Farrel W. Lytle Award for developing a pioneering X-ray technique that is now used worldwide to explore the structure of complex materials. The award was presented during an Oct. 8 ceremony at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory.
The American Physical Society has honored two key figures of the BABAR particle physics experiment at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory with the 2016 W.K.H. Panofsky Prize in Experimental Particle Physics: SLAC Director Emeritus Jonathan Dorfan and California Institute of Technology Professor David Hitlin. They share the award with Stephen Olsen and Fumihiko Takasaki, two lead researchers of the Belle experiment in Japan.
Research at the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory reveals new details about how tiny, burrowing sea organisms can influence the chemistry and structure of rocks where hydrocarbon deposits such as oil and gas are found.
Former Stanford University graduate student Ming Yi has been awarded the $60,000 L’Oréal USA For Women in Science Fellowship, which is given to five U.S.-based women each year as part of an effort to raise awareness of women’s contributions to science and identify exceptional female researchers to serve as role models.
Researchers working at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have discovered that a mere 9-trillionths-of-a-meter reduction in the length of a chemical bond dramatically boosts the reactivity of a family of molecules that helps keep humans and many other organisms healthy.
A newly upgraded high-power laser at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory will blaze new trails across many fields of science by recreating the universe’s most extreme conditions, such as those at the heart of stars and planets, in a lab.
Feng Lin, a former postdoctoral researcher at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, has been selected to receive the annual William E. and Diane M. Spicer Young Investigator Award for X-ray experiments at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory that led to new approaches in the design of energy-efficient, color-changing "smart" windows and high-capacity lithium-ion batteries.
To find out more about the elusive particles and their potential links to cosmic evolution, invisible dark matter and matter’s dominance over antimatter in the universe, the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory is taking on key roles in four neutrino experiments: EXO, DUNE, MicroBooNE and ICARUS.
Roopali Kukreja, a former researcher at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory who received her PhD in materials science at Stanford University last year, will be honored during a SLAC conference next month with the Melvin P. Klein Scientific Development Award for her X-ray studies of nanoscale magnetic and electrical properties of materials.
Using an X-ray laser at the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, researchers have for the first time directly seen myoglobin move within quadrillionths of a second after a bond breaks and the protein releases a gas molecule. The Linac Coherent Light Source X-ray laser is a DOE Office of Science User Facility, and its short, bright pulses were essential for observing these ultrafast, atomic-scale motions.
Scientists used high-power laser beams at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory to simulate the shock effects of a meteorite impact in silica, one of the most abundant materials in the Earth’s crust. They observed, for the first time, its shockingly fast transformation into the mineral stishovite – a rare, extremely hard and dense form of silica.
New research led by scientists from the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University shows how individual atoms move in trillionths of a second to form wrinkles on a three-atom-thick material. Revealed by a brand new “electron camera,” one of the world’s speediest, this unprecedented level of detail could guide researchers in the development of efficient solar cells, fast and flexible electronics and high-performance chemical catalysts.
Researchers at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have for the first time seen a spin current – an inherent magnetic property common to all electrons – as it travels across materials. The result, which revealed a surprising loss of current along the way, is an important step toward realizing a next-generation breed of electronics known as “spintronics.”
A major international collaboration launched by the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory is laying the technical groundwork for taking individual, atomic-scale portraits of intact viruses, living bacteria and other microscopic samples using the brightest X-ray light on Earth.
At extremely high intensities, X-rays stop behaving like the ones in your doctor’s office and begin interacting with matter in very different ways. This “nonlinear” X-ray behavior can only be seen at X-ray free-electron lasers. Recent experiments at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have revealed a new, unexpected twist in that behavior that may be one for the textbooks and could change the way these powerful lasers probe matter.
The Department of Energy has approved the start of construction for a 3.2-gigapixel digital camera – the world’s largest – at the heart of the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST). Assembled at the DOE's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, the camera will be the eye of LSST, revealing unprecedented details of the universe and helping unravel some of its greatest mysteries.
A study led by researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and the University of California, Los Angeles has demonstrated a new, efficient way to accelerate positrons, the antimatter opposites of electrons. The method may help boost the energy and shrink the size of future linear particle colliders – powerful accelerators that could be used to unravel the properties of nature’s fundamental building blocks.
Graham George and Ingrid Pickering, a husband and wife X-ray research team, have worked for decades to understand how contaminants in water and soil are taken up by the body and affect human health. Much of that research has taken place at the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource (SSRL), a DOE Office of Science User Facility at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, where both are former staff scientists.
Scientists have revealed never-before-seen details of how our brain sends rapid-fire messages between its cells. They mapped the 3-D atomic structure of a two-part protein complex that controls the release of signaling chemicals, called neurotransmitters, from brain cells. Understanding how cells release those signals in less than one-thousandth of a second could help launch a new wave of research on drugs for treating brain disorders.
Researchers from the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University have developed a manufacturing technique that could double the electricity output of inexpensive solar cells by using a microscopic rake when applying light-harvesting polymers.
Accelerator technology pioneered at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory is on its way to powering X-ray science in South Korea: On Aug. 6, the lab shipped one of its unique radio-frequency amplifiers – an XL4 klystron – to Pohang Accelerator Laboratory (PAL), where it will become a key component for the optimal performance of a new X-ray free-electron laser under construction.
A new scientific instrument at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory promises to capture some of nature’s speediest processes. It uses a method known as ultrafast electron diffraction (UED) and can reveal motions of electrons and atomic nuclei within molecules that take place in less than a tenth of a trillionth of a second – information that will benefit groundbreaking research in materials science, chemistry and biology.
A biomedical breakthrough in the journal Nature reveals never-before-seen details of the human body’s cellular switchboard that regulates sensory and hormonal responses. The work is based on an X-ray laser experiment at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory.
A new material design tested in experiments at the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory could make low-cost solar panels far more efficient by greatly enhancing their ability to collect the sun’s energy and release it as electricity.
Researchers have used an X-ray laser to record, in detail never possible before, the microscopic motion and effects of shock waves rippling across diamond. The technique, developed at the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, allows scientists to precisely explore the complex physics driving massive star explosions, which are critical for understanding fusion energy, and to improve scientific models used to study these phenomena.
Scientists for the first time tracked ultrafast structural changes, captured in quadrillionths-of-a-second steps, as ring-shaped gas molecules burst open and unraveled. Ring-shaped molecules are abundant in biochemistry and also form the basis for many drug compounds. The study points the way to a wide range of real-time X-ray studies of gas-based chemical reactions that are vital to biological processes.
Research with the Large Hadron Collider has officially resumed. The world’s largest particle accelerator at CERN began on June 3 to collect data at a new record energy that could hold the key to new scientific discoveries. To keep up with the boost in performance, researchers at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have developed new technologies for ATLAS – one of two experiments involved in the 2012 discovery of the Higgs boson.
In a study that could improve the safety of next-generation batteries, researchers discovered that adding two chemicals to the electrolyte of a lithium metal battery prevents the formation of dendrites – “fingers” of lithium that pierce the barrier between the battery’s halves, causing it to short out, overheat and sometimes burst into flame.
X-ray studies at the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have for the first time observed an exotic property that could warp the electronic structure of a material in a way that reduces heat buildup and improves performance in ever-smaller computer components.
Claudio Pellegrini, a visiting scientist and consulting professor at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and distinguished professor emeritus at the University of California, Los Angeles, will receive the 2014 Enrico Fermi Award for his role in laying the scientific groundwork for the X-ray free-electron laser.
A new study predicts that researchers could use spiraling pulses of laser light to change the nature of graphene, turning it from a metal into an insulator and giving it other peculiar properties that might be used to encode information.
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