Setting up a supercomputer is far more complicated than just bringing it home from the electronics store. Staff members of the Department of Energy’s supercomputing user facilities spend years on the process, from laying out requirements through troubleshooting. In the end, they run some of the most powerful computers in the world to help solve some of science’s biggest problems.
Plutonium has more verified and accessible oxidation states than any other actinide element, an important insight for energy and security applications.
Calculations of a subatomic particle called the sigma provide insight into the communication between subatomic particles deep inside the heart of matter.
This is a continuing profile series on the directors of the Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science User Facilities. These scientists lead a variety of research institutions that provide researchers with the most advanced tools of modern science including accelerators, colliders, supercomputers, light sources and neutron sources, as well as facilities for studying the nano world, the environment, and the atmosphere.
Researchers succeed in producing larger quantities of a long-lived radioisotope, titanium-44, that generates a needed isotope, scandium-44g, on demand.
Scientists invented an approach to creating ordered patterns of nitrogen-vacancy centers in diamonds, a promising approach to storing and computing quantum data.
Scientists may be able to use self-assembly to design new materials with custom characteristics. Understanding self-assembly is particularly important for working with nanoparticles. Scientists supported by the Department of Energy are investigating two major methods of self-assembly. They are looking into both particles that assemble on their own as well as “nano-Velcro” that can pull together particles that wouldn’t otherwise connect on their own.
Using a genetically modified line of switchgrass, scientists reduced plant cell wall recalcitrance while increasing sugar release over three generations.
FIONA (For the Identification Of Nuclide A) is a newly installed device designed to measure the mass numbers of individual atoms of heavy and superheavy elements. FIONA will let researchers learn about the shape and structure of heavy nuclei, guide the search for new elements, and offer better measurements for nuclear fission and related processes.
Despite popular conceptions as an offshoot of the environmental movement, much of the field of ecology evolved to meet the needs of the federal government during the Atomic Age. The Department of Energy’s national laboratories played a key role, from developing fundamental theories to computer models. The contributions from the institutions that became Savannah River Ecology Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory still influence the field today.
The universe is stretching out ever more rapidly – a phenomena known as cosmic acceleration – and scientists don’t know why. Understanding the “dark energy” that is causing this expansion would help them put together a clearer picture of the universe’s history. Scientists supported by the Department of Energy’s Office of Science are using massive telescopes to chart how dark energy has influenced the structure of the universe over time.
Scientists are devising ways to protect plants, biofuels and, ultimately, the atmosphere itself from damage caused by an element that sustains life on earth.
Plants and soil microbes may be altered by climate warming at different rates and in different ways, meaning vital nutrient patterns could be misaligned.
Today U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry announced that six leading U.S. technology companies will receive funding from the Department of Energy’s Exascale Computing Project (ECP) as part of its new PathForward program, accelerating the research necessary to deploy the nation’s first exascale supercomputers.
In some of the coldest places in the world, scientists supported by the Department of Energy’s Office of Science are studying how permafrost thaws. Using both field and laboratory data, these researchers are collaborating with modelers to improve our understanding of future climate change.
Researchers perform first spectroscopic measurements on antihydrogen in pursuit of one of our biggest scientific mysteries: why is there so little antimatter in the universe?