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Raffaele Miceli has been interning on and off at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory over the course of nearly eight years, most recently tackling problems of quantum systems. Under the supervision of his mentor, Michael McGuigan of the Computational Science Initiative (CSI), Miceli has been creating plots and figures to help communicate the results of complex calculations — a task called data visualization.

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Catherine Trewhella, a recent graduate from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and current intern at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory, is taking a microscopic look at rocks at the National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II), a DOE Office of Science user facility. Her research will help prepare scientists for analyzing samples brought back from outer space, specifically Mars.

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Every year, the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory compiles a list of the biggest advances made by the Lab’s staff scientists, engineers, and visiting researchers. From uncovering mysteries of the universe to building better batteries, here, in no particular order, are our picks for the top 10 discoveries of 2018.

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January 2 marked the startup of the 19th year of physics operations at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), a particle collider for nuclear physics research at Brookhaven National Laboratory. Physicists will conduct a series of experiments to explore innovative beam-cooling technologies and map out the conditions created by collisions at various energies.

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Scientists made hollow nanosized boxes with corner holes, demonstrating how these “nanowrappers” can carry and release DNA-coated nanoparticles.

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Scientists and engineers at Brookhaven Lab just completed the production and assembly of 216 exceptional quality magnets for an innovative accelerator under construction at Cornell University.

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Taking part in the worldwide search for fuel cell cathode materials, researchers at the University of Akron developed a new method of synthesizing catalysts from a combination of metals—platinum and nickel—that form octahedral (eight-sided) shaped nanoparticles. While scientists have identified this catalyst as one of the most efficient replacements for pure platinum, they have not fully understood why it grows in an octahedral shape. To better understand the growth process, the researchers at the University of Akron collaborated with multiple institutions, including Brookhaven and its NSLS-II.

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Scientists from Brookhaven's nanocenter describe how a technique they developed can be used to define single-digit nanometer patterns.

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At a workshop hosted by Brookhaven, scientists and IT specialists discussed best practices for managing data from light source facilities.

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A group of physicists analyzing the patterns of particles emerging from collisions of small projectiles with large nuclei at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) say these patterns are triggered by quantum mechanical interactions among gluons, the glue-like particles that hold together the building blocks of the projectiles and nuclei.

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Brookhaven Lab's Computational Science Initiative hosted its second hackathon on graphics processing units for accelerating scientific discovery.

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F. William Studier, a Senior Biophysicist Emeritus at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory and Adjunct Professor of Biochemistry at Stony Brook University, has been elected as a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI). He is among 148 renowned academic inventors being recognized by NAI for 2018.

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Nuclear physicists analyzing data from the PHENIX detector at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) have published additional evidence that collisions of miniscule projectiles with gold nuclei create tiny specks of the perfect fluid that filled the early universe.

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The improvements will facilitate solar energy research conducted by scientists from Brookhaven Lab and outside institutions.

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Scientists mapping out the quantum characteristics of superconductors--materials that conduct electricity with no energy loss--have entered a new regime. Using newly connected tools named OASIS at Brookhaven Lab, they've uncovered previously inaccessible details of the "phase diagram" of one of the most commonly studied "high-temperature" superconductors.

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Scientists have demonstrated an x-ray imaging technique that could enable the development of smaller, faster, and more robust electronics that exploit electron spin.

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Physicists synthesized 2-D atom-thin sheets of boron with large crystal domains, which are needed to make next-gen electronics.

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A team of scientists has discovered a single-site, visible-light-activated catalyst that converts carbon dioxide (CO2) into building block molecules that could be used for creating useful chemicals. The discovery opens the possibility of using sunlight to turn a greenhouse gas into hydrocarbon fuels.

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Scientists at the National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II)--a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science User Facility at DOE's Brookhaven National Laboratory--have used ultrabright x-rays to image single bacteria with higher spatial resolution than ever before. Their work, published in Scientific Reports, demonstrates an x-ray imaging technique, called x-ray fluorescence microscopy (XRF), as an effective approach to produce 3-D images of small biological samples.

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Microscopes make the invisible visible. And compared to conventional light microscopes, transmission x-ray microscopes (TXM) can see into samples with much higher resolution, revealing extraordinary details. Researchers across a wide range of scientific fields use TXM to see the structural and chemical makeup of their samples--everything from biological cells to energy storage materials.

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UPTON, NY—Scientists from the Center for Functional Nanomaterials (CFN)—a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science User Facility at Brookhaven National Laboratory—have dramatically improved the response of graphene to light through self-assembling wire-like nanostructures that conduct electricity.

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Using an x-ray technique available at the National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II), scientists found that the metal-insulator transition in the correlated material magnetite is a two-step process. The researchers from the University of California Davis published their paper in the journal Physical Review Letters.

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His Nobel Prize-winning studies of the ribosome’s structure were conducted in part at Brookhaven’s former National Synchrotron Light Source.

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Brookhaven National Laboratory has launched a podcast based on its live science café and conversation series, PubSci. Since 2014, PubSci has been offering the public a chance to see a more casual side of the groundbreaking science happening every day at Brookhaven Lab.

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Her research focuses on cylindrical carbon structures with useful properties for energy storage, aircraft components, and other applications.

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Scientists from the Center for Functional Nanomaterials developed a technique for making nonreflecting glass, silicon, and plastic surfaces.

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Leon Lederman, a co-winner of the 1988 Nobel Prize in physics for the discovery of the muon neutrino, spent his life as a leader in a range of roles promoting science. He died on October 3, 2018, at the age of 96. Lederman conducted his Nobel Prize-winning research at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory in the early 1960s.

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The American Physical Society (APS), the world’s largest physics organization, has elected three scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory as 2018 APS fellows.

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Capturing ultrafast atomic-scale motion could help scientists optimize the performance of materials with strong electronic correlations.

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Observation could help scientists find the universal key ingredient in the recipe for high-temperature superconductivity.

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Scientists have developed a new catalyst for breaking carbon-fluorine bonds, one of the strongest chemical bonds known. The discovery is a breakthrough for efforts in environmental remediation and chemical synthesis.

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Brookhaven Lab will lead and contribute to DOE-funded research aimed at advancing next-gen technologies in computing, sensing, and other areas.

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Scientists identify new details of how a sugar-signaling molecule helps regulate oil production in plant cells. The work could point to new ways to engineer plants to produce substantial amounts of oil for use as biofuels or in the production of other oil-based products.

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The largest liquid-argon neutrino detector in the world has just recorded its first particle tracks, signaling the start of a new chapter in the story of the international Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE). DUNE’s scientific mission is dedicated to unlocking the mysteries of neutrinos, the most abundant (and most mysterious) matter particles in the universe.

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Image classification models trained on brain MRIs of dementia patients could help support early diagnosis for more effective treatment.

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Materials scientist Dmytro Nykypanchuk of the Soft and Bio Nanomaterials Group at the Center for Functional Nanomaterials (CFN) takes advantage of the specificity and programmability of DNA to guide the nanoscale self-assembly of materials whose structures evolve in response to environmental cues or external stimuli.

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The Brookhaven Lab scientists, engineers, and support staff who run the Solenoidal Tracker (STAR) experiment at the Lab’s Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) received one of 17 Achievement Awards presented by Secretary of Energy Rick Perry at the Secretary’s Honor Awards ceremony held in Washington, D.C. August 29.

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This summer, 20 science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) undergraduates funded by the National Science Foundation came to Brookhaven Lab for a new three-week workshop to develop their scientific computing skills for solving real-world problems.

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When Jasmine Hatcher started community college, she was encouraged by her family to pursue a nursing career. But her mindset quickly changed when her chemistry professor suggested she intern for a research team at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory. There, a new field captured her interest as she spent her summer investigating chemical elements crucial for dealing with nuclear waste.

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David Livoti developed a passion for designing and studying the performance of electronics while building devices to measure snowfall amounts as an intern at Brookhaven Lab. One year later, Livoti is helping to maintain acceleration systems for the Lab’s particle accelerators .

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Brookhaven National Laboratory shipped state-of-the-art components to a revolutionary particle detector now being assembled at CERN, the European laboratory for particle physics.

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Today at CERN, the Large Hadron Collider collaborations ATLAS and CMS jointly announced the discovery of the Higgs boson transforming into bottom quarks as it decays. This is predicted to be the most common way for Higgs bosons to decay, yet was a difficult signal to isolate because background processes closely mimic the subtle signal.

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Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory have developed a new approach to 3-D x-ray imaging that can visualize bulky materials in great detail—an impossible task with conventional imaging methods. The novel technique could help scientists unlock clues about the structural information of countless materials, from batteries to biological systems.

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On August 9, 2018, the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory bid farewell—for now—to approximately 250 students at the concluding ceremony to their 10 weeks of summer research. The daylong celebration honored the students’ efforts and accomplishments—and gave them the opportunity to showcase their work to their mentors, fellow interns, university administrators and faculty, and Brookhaven Lab staff.

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Undergraduate students of Southern University at New Orleans (SUNO) biology professor Murty Kambhampati come to Brookhaven Lab during the summer to conduct research in natural resource management.

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Scientists have discovered that the electrical resistance of this material changes in an unusual way under very high magnetic fields—a finding that could help direct the search for materials that can perfectly conduct electricity at room temperature.

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Brookhaven Lab nuclear engineer Lap-Yan Cheng has been selected to co-chair a group helping to ensure that future nuclear reactors are designed to meet nonproliferation and national security goals.

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Researchers have identified details of how certain plants scavenge and accumulate pollutants in contaminated soil. Their work revealed that plant roots effectively “lock up” toxic arsenic found loose in mine tailings—piles of crushed rock, fluid, and soil left behind after the extraction of minerals and metals.

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A new experimental station (beamline) has begun operations at the National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II)—a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science User Facility at DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory. Called the Beamline for Materials Measurement (BMM), it offers scientists state-of-the-art technology for using a classic synchrotron technique: x-ray absorption spectroscopy.

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Designing a new pharmaceutical drug takes years of research, and now chemists and computational and computer scientists have developed a software framework that could help expedite this process by supporting accurate and rapid calculations of how strongly drug compounds bind to target molecules.