Researchers are exploring chromium defects in silicon carbide as potential spin qubits. These spin qubits would be compatible with telecommunications optical fibers, making them potentially useful for optical fiber-based quantum networks. Researchers recently investigated new ways to make high-quality chromium defects in silicon carbide.
Today, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced a plan to provide up to $6 million to support frontier plasma science experiments at several plasma research facilities across the nation.
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today announced a $420 million funding opportunity for DOE’s Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRC). This funding will advance climate solutions through early-stage research on clean energy technology, advanced and low-carbon manufacturing, and quantum information science.
Magnetic confinement fields in tokamaks can contain areas called magnetic islands in which plasma particles move extra quickly, preventing the plasma from reaching fusion temperatures. Researchers have now observed the spontaneous formation of a structure in the plasma with multiple magnetic islands. These “heteroclinic islands” do not merge into each other while embedded in a larger magnetic field tube. This information will aid the design and operation of future fusion reactors.
The Department of Energy (DOE) announced today that it is accepting nominations from the DOE national laboratories for the Department’s Distinguished Scientist Fellows Program.
The Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Office of Science will sponsor the participation of 153 undergraduate students from across the nation in two STEM-focused workforce development programs at 17 DOE national laboratories and facilities during Spring 2022.
Recent work shows that the plant microbiome—the microorganisms in a plant and its immediate environment—influences plant health, survival, and fitness. New research on the microbiome of several types of poplar trees found that the composition of the microbiome changed dramatically over time, and the trees’ genetic makeup proved to be less of a factor than researchers had expected.
Until the last decade, scientists examining gas-solid heterogeneous catalysis often studied these reactions under conditions not found in real-world industrial applications. That has changed, and now researchers have developed a suite of approaches to improve scientific understanding of the interactions between the catalyst surface and the near-surface gases at conditions relevant to operating catalysts.
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced $35 million in funding for diverse small businesses to pursue scientific, clean energy, and climate solutions. The funding will support 158 projects across 29 states that will aim to develop an array of clean energy technology, from climate research tools to improved batteries for electric vehicles.
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced $8 million for theoretical research in nuclear interactions, nucleon structure, and properties of nuclei and nuclear matter via collaborations that bring together leading nuclear scientists to address well-defined topical areas.
Some microbes can form thin films called biofilms that give those microbes an advantage by protecting them from stresses such as a lack of nutrients. Some biofilms also benefit plants and other host organisms. New research has identified an enzyme in bacteria that is key to the formation of helpful biofilms on willow and cottonwood trees. The research could lead to advances in studies of microbes important to medicine and agriculture.
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced $35 million for research in computation and simulation techniques and tools to understand the nucleon structure, nuclear matter, and strong force via collaborations that enable effective use of DOE high performance computers.
At MIT, associate professor Jesse Thaler develops new ways to analyze and interpret particle collision data from experiments like the Large Hadron Collider, with the ultimate goal of advancing our knowledge of fundamental physics.
Researchers believe that fluctuations in the magnetic fields tokamaks use to confine plasma can reduce fusion energy production by causing particle and heat losses from the plasma to the reactor walls. New research has developed a novel light probe that uses polarization to reveal small-scale magnetic turbulence in detail. This will help validate the models used to design reactors and predict their performance.
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced a plan to provide up to $30 million for basic research that will lead to transformative approaches to determine and validate gene function in plant species relevant to the sustainable production of bioenergy and bioproducts.
Particles in quantum systems have many potential values, making them hard to simulate with a conventional computer. Researchers have proposed a new way to prepare energy states of a simulated quantum system using a quantum computer. Researchers first determine the energy state they are interested in creating. The quantum computer starts the system in a simplified state, then produces different combinations of how the variables evolve over time, then eliminates the energy states that don’t match researchers’ targets.
Computer models of water and land help scientists understand the effects of fire, drought, and human activity, but these models are challenging to build, especially in complex landscapes like the Arctic tundra. Scientists have developed a new mathematical formulation that enables models to predict water runoff in these complex landscapes. This approach will also advance researchers’ ability to predict how surface and subsurface water flow will change over time in a given watershed.
The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Science and DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announced a plan to provide up to $6.5 million to support work related to High-Energy Density Laboratory Plasmas (HEDLP).
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced a plan to provide up to $36 million for basic research into microbial processes and community interactions in natural systems.
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced awards for eight projects with private industry that will allow for collaboration with DOE national laboratories on overcoming challenges in fusion energy development.
Beta-voltaic radioisotope power sources last for years under harsh conditions without maintenance, making them ideal for applications such as spacecraft. These devices directly convert beta particles from a radioisotope into electrical energy. Researchers recently explored a new approach for making beta-voltaic RPSs more efficient at converting heat into electricity, making these RPSs even better for providing long-term, compact power in remote and extreme environments, especially in small devices.
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced $9.25 million for research in the behavior and properties of structural materials under molten salt reactor conditions, via collaborations that enable effective use of DOE’s high performance computers.
Advancing quantum computing requires models that can solve challenging many-body problems quickly and accurately. This research proposes a new algorithm for performing quantum calculations on chemical systems using a mathematical tool called “connected moments.” This reduces the number of qubits needed to reach target levels of accuracy and could lead to advances in chemistry and applications in catalysis, biochemistry, and materials.
Ilke Arslan is the director of the Center for Nanoscale Materials user facility, where understanding everything starts at the nanoscale.
In support of the Biden-Harris Administration’s commitment to build the American economy back better, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced a plan to provide $54 million for small businesses pursuing climate and energy research and development (R&D) projects as well the development of advanced scientific instrumentation through a funding opportunity announcement (FOA).
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced a plan to provide up to $110 million for basic research and technology development to design and engineer plants and microbes for the production of advanced biofuels, bioproducts, and biomaterials.
Globular clusters are collections of hundreds of thousands of stars that scientists believe evolved completely isolated from the rest of the universe. As such, they are perfect “stellar laboratories.” This research turned to the nuclear physics of an important type of reaction involving the sodium in these stars to help unlock what happened in the interiors of these stars to create the universe as we know it today.
Researchers inspired by natural cells are developing their own materials made of interconnected microscopic shapes. But synthetic materials can’t be reshaped as many ways as biological materials without breaking apart and being rebuilt from scratch. This study introduces a new way to manipulate a material’s arrangement of cells at the microscale using a simple liquid, opening new possibilities for innovative materials.
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced $2 million in funding to establish a first-of-its-kind traineeship program in isotope R&D, production, and processing.
Supported by his 2011 Early Career award, physicist Daniel Sinars created the first platforms and images of the X-ray sources created on the Z machine at Sandia National Laboratories.
Physicists have proposed a method to measure the speed of sound characterizing matter created in nuclear collisions. Heavy nuclei consist of hundreds of protons and neutrons, which themselves are composed of quarks and gluons. In heavy-ion collisions, the energy density of matter reaches very high levels, and the nucleons become a quark-gluon plasma. Experimental analyses can reveal properties of the quark-gluon plasma, helping scientists learn about the thermodynamics of dense nuclear matter.
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced $5.7 million for six projects that will implement artificial intelligence methods to accelerate scientific discovery in nuclear physics research.
Scientists know that ethylene comes from microbes, but the only known natural microbial processes that produce ethylene require oxygen. But now a team of scientists have discovered an enzyme system from bacteria called methylthio-alkane reductases that work without oxygen, instead scavenging sulfur to produce ethylene, ethane, or methane as a byproduct. The research may have applications in biofuels.
Julia R. Greer, a professor of Materials Science, Mechanics and Medical Engineering at Caltech, created a new nano-fabrication approach to understand how materials in nuclear reactors can withstand radiation damage with the support of her 2011 Early Career Research Program award.
In an important step toward future fusion reactors, scientists have made novel experimental observations of how silicon carbide’s atomic structure changes as it accumulates radiation damage. This material shows promise for use in fusion reactors and other structures. The experiment used two Department of Energy user facilities to identify new details in this deformation and how it occurs.
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced plans to provide $70 million for research in Earth system model development which will contribute to further development of the Energy Exascale Earth System Model (E3SM) through collaborations that will use DOE high performance computers to enable advanced modeling via mathematical and computational solutions.
At Argonne National Laboratory, staff scientist Jinlong Zhang performs R&D on the CERN ATLAS and DAQ systems. These systems select and collect data from the billion-plus proton-proton collisions per second in particle physics experiments.
Gina Tourassi is the director of the National Center for Computational Sciences, leading world-class computing infrastructure programs and projects. This is one in a series of profiles on the directors of the SC-stewarded user facilities.
Anne White at MIT had a vision for an innovative approach to experiments to aid in the study and understanding of tokamak turbulence. Her work has developed rigorous validation of the models used to detail measurements of the turbulence, towards fusion’s promise of clean and nearly unlimited energy.
Ecologists know that adding more plant food that prey animals eat can also benefit predators. Scientists wanted to know if the same principles apply in bacterial food webs. They found that predatory bacteria grow faster and consume more resources than non-predators, and they use predatory behavior and physical features to hunt and feast on prey bacteria.
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced $30 million for research in computation and simulation techniques and tools to understand the universe via collaborations that enable effective use of DOE high performance computers.
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced plans to provide $10 million for new grants to universities, other academic institutions, non-profit organizations, for profit organizations, and other federal agencies within the area of Earth and environmental systems modeling research.
Scientists use various satellite and airborne systems to study how vegetation changes in response to climate change. However, these systems have low resolution that makes it hard to identify detailed patterns. This is especially true in the Arctic due to the region’s highly mixed vegetation. Now, scientists have adopted unoccupied aerial systems—also known as drones—for high-resolution vegetation monitoring.
Proteins bind together through a complex mix of chemical interactions. What if some proteins bind due to their shapes, a much simpler process? Researchers used the Summit supercomputer to model a type of interaction that requires proteins to chemically “fit” precisely. The team found that among a sample of 46 protein pairs that bind to one another, 6 often assembled based on their shapes.
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced $6 million for collaborative research in high energy physics that involves substantial collaboration with Japanese investigators.
Carter Hall works with colleagues around the world to search for ancient relic particles from the Big Bang, using the LUX and LZ dark matter detectors at the Sanford Underground Research Facility in Lead, SD.
Scientists have created crystalline sheets one molecule thick using a synthetic molecule called a polypeptoid. Scientists take images of these nanosheets using electron microscopes, but until recently these images were blurry. This new study used machine learning to process about 500,000 independent images to produce the first clear image of individual atoms in a synthetic soft material.
The Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) is a tropical rainfall pattern that excites waves of air that can affect weather outside of the tropics. New research shows that warming temperatures will cause the “teleconnection” that allows the MJO to affect non-tropical weather to extend further over the North Pacific than it now does. This change will increase the variability of rainfall in California.
To form, cloud droplets need aerosol particles and humidity in the atmosphere. Scientists previously believed cloud droplets formed only when the humidity rose above 100%. Now, new research found that if the humidity falls below 100%, the primary driver of cloud formation involves small changes in humidity caused by turbulence.
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced $105 million in funding for small businesses to pursue the deployment of clean energy technologies, as part of the Biden-Harris Administration’s commitment to building a clean energy economy and achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.
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