Using DNA-based assembly, the Center for Functional Nanomaterials postdoc has assembled functional proteins into ordered lattices and coated nanostructures for drug delivery.
Scientists studying particle collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider have produced definitive evidence for two physics phenomena predicted more than 80 years ago: that matter/antimatter can be generated directly from collisions of photons and that a magnetic field can bend polarized light along different paths in a vacuum.
Scientists at Brookhaven and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories have been developing an automated experimental setup of data collection, analysis, and decision making.
Jason Kahn, a staff scientist at the Center for Functional Nanomaterials (CFN), is conducting research in DNA-based assembly and building a one-of-a-kind automated platform to explore self-assembly processes.
Brand new, state-of-the-art components for an upgraded 1000-ton particle detector are being installed at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory. Known as sPHENIX, the detector is a radical makeover of the PHENIX experiment, which first began taking data at the Lab's Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) in 2000.
Every year, the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory opens its gates to thousands of community members for open house events called Summer Sundays. Visitors get to meet the Lab’s scientists and tour a different world-class science facility each week, including the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), the National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II), and the Center for Functional Nanomaterials (CFN)—all DOE Office of Science User Facilities.
Researchers at Stony Brook University (SBU) and the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory have identified the primary reaction mechanism that occurs in a rechargeable, water-based battery made from zinc and manganese oxide. The findings, published in Energy and Environmental Science, provide new insight for developing grid-scale energy storage.
States of local broken symmetry at high temperature—observed in several materials, including one with a metal-insulator transition, an iron-based superconductor, and an insulating mineral part of the Earth's upper mantle—may enable the technologically relevant properties arising at much-lower temperature.
UPTON, NY—The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory has named Alex Harris as Director of the Lab’s Energy Sciences Department, effective May 1, 2021. In his new position, Harris will manage several divisions of the Laboratory, including the Center for Functional Nanomaterials, the Chemistry Division, and the Condensed Matter Physics and Materials Science Division.
Ruomei Gao—an associate professor at SUNY College at Old Westbury—has been using facilities at the Center for Functional Nanomaterials at Brookhaven Lab to investigate two primary processes of photosensitization for cancer therapy and prevention.
Scientists demonstrate how ground-breaking image reconstruction and analysis algorithms filter out cosmic ray tracks in the MicroBooNE neutrino detector to pinpoint elusive neutrino interactions with unprecedented clarity.
Scientists have published the first detailed atomic-level model of the SARS-CoV-2 "envelope" protein bound to a human protein essential for maintaining the lining of the lungs. The findings may speed the search for drugs to block the most severe effects of COVID-19.
Scientists studied what happens when very short pulses of laser light strike a magnetic material. Understanding how magnetic correlations change over short timescales is the first step in being able to control magnetism for applications.
UPTON, NY—A team of researchers led by chemists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory has studied an elusive property in cathode materials, called a valence gradient, to understand its effect on battery performance. The findings, published in Nature Communications, demonstrated that the valence gradient can serve as a new approach for stabilizing the structure of high-nickel-content cathodes against degradation and safety issues.
This latest-generation tool, which combines a scanning electron microscope and focused-ion beam, has advanced capabilities for preparing and analyzing nanomaterial samples.
Through the U.S. Department of Energy’s Technologist in Residence program, Brookhaven Lab and Northrop Grumman scientists will partner on quantum materials research.
Scientists mapped the electronic states in an exotic superconductor. The maps point to the composition range necessary for topological superconductivity, a state that could enable more robust quantum computing.
Scientists have identified the primary cause of failure in a state-of-the-art lithium-metal battery, of interest for long-range electric vehicles: electrolyte depletion.
Scientists developed a new mathematical model for predicting how COVID-19 spreads, accounting for individuals’ varying biological susceptibility and levels of social activity, which naturally change over time.
You’ve probably heard that the first two vaccines approved for battling COVID-19 in the United States use a relatively new approach—injections of simple packets containing mRNA, a genetic material that instructs our cells to make coronavirus spike proteins. But the technology for generating sufficient amounts of those mRNA packets dates back to the 1980s, when F. William Studier, then a senior biophysicist at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory, developed a way to harness the molecular machinery of a very different virus.
UPTON, NY — Inspired by the mastery of artificial intelligence (AI) over games like Go and Super Mario, scientists at the National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II) trained an AI agent — an autonomous computational program that observes and acts — how to conduct research experiments at superhuman levels by using the same approach. The Brookhaven team published their findings in the journal Machine Learning: Science and Technology and implemented the AI agent as part of the research capabilities at NSLS-II.
Where does snow come from? This may seem like a simple question to ponder as half the planet emerges from a season of watching whimsical flakes fall from the sky--and shoveling them from driveways. But a new study on how water becomes ice in slightly supercooled Arctic clouds may make you rethink the simplicity of the fluffy stuff. It describes definitive, real-world evidence for "freezing fragmentation" of drizzle as a major source of ice in slightly supercooled clouds. The findings have important implications for forecasting weather and climate.
Lena Funcke, a theoretical physicist who conducts research at the intersection of fundamental particles, the cosmos, and quantum computing, has been named a recipient of the Leona Woods Distinguished Postdoctoral Lectureship Award by the Physics Department at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory.
Scientists have found an energy band gap—an energy range where no electrons are allowed—opens at a point where two allowed energy bands intersect on the surface of an iron-based superconductor. This unusual electronic energy structure could be used for quantum information science and electronics.
What do you need to study the fine details of the building blocks of matter? A new kind of particle accelerator called an Electron-Ion Collider, planned to be built in the United States over the next decade, and a state-of-the-art detector to capture the action when electrons and ions collide.
A new analysis of collisions conducted at different energies at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) shows tantalizing signs of a critical point—a change in the way that quarks and gluons, the building blocks of protons and neutrons, transform from one phase to another. The findings will help physicists map out details of these nuclear phase changes to better understand the evolution of the universe and the conditions in the cores of neutron stars.
Just prior to the start of this year's run at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), a team of scientists, engineers, technicians, and students completed the installation of important new components of the collider's STAR detector. The new components will expand STAR’s ability to track jets of particles emerging in an extreme “forward” direction to give scientists insight into how the internal components of protons and neutrons—quarks and gluons—contribute to the overall properties of these building blocks of matter.
Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory, Stony Brook University (SBU), and other collaborating institutions have uncovered dynamic, atomic-level details of how an important platinum-based catalyst works in the water gas shift reaction. The experiments provide definitive evidence that only certain platinum atoms play an important role in the chemical conversion, and could therefore guide the design of catalysts that use less of this precious metal.
The UC Santa Cruz professor uses computing resources at Brookhaven Lab's Center for Functional Nanomaterials to run calculations for quantum information science, spintronics, and energy research.
UPTON, NY—A team of researchers led by chemists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory has identified new details of the reaction mechanism that takes place in batteries with lithium metal anodes. The findings, published today in Nature Nanotechnology, are a major step towards developing smaller, lighter, and less expensive batteries for electric vehicles.
Accelerator physicists are preparing the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), a DOE Office of Science user facility for nuclear physics research at DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory, for its 21st year of experiments, set to begin on or about February 3, 2021. Instead of producing high-energy particle smashups, the goal for this run is to maximize collision rates at the lowest energy ever achieved at RHIC.
New results from an atmospheric study over the Eastern North Atlantic reveal that tiny aerosol particles that seed the formation of clouds can form out of next to nothingness over the open ocean. Understanding the process will improve how aerosols and clouds are represented in models that describe Earth’s climate.
UPTON, NY—Marking a major achievement in the field of spintronics, researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory and Yale University have demonstrated the ability to control spin dynamics in magnetic materials by altering their thickness. The study, published today in Nature Materials, could lead to smaller, more energy-efficient electronic devices.
On January 8, 2021, the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory welcomed the first virtually visiting researchers to the Laboratory for BioMolecular Structure (LBMS), a new cryo-electron microscopy facility.
With all the remarkable changes and challenges that took place in 2020, the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory had a banner year in science.
Attempts to put genes for making specialty fatty acids into crops have led to plants that make less oil. Now scientists have identified the mechanism behind the oil-production slowdown. The work paves the way for making at least one industrially important specialty fatty acid in plants—and may work for many others.
Two students working under the mentorship of Desigan Kumaran, a structural biologist at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory, have helped to identify molecules that could potentially lead to new antiviral drugs for treating COVID-19. Though the students conducted their fall 2020 internships remotely, the potential of their work is firmly planted in the real world and could have lasting impact.
Jack Steinberger, who with Leon Lederman and Melvin Schwartz was awarded the 1988 Nobel Prize in physics for their 1962 discovery of the muon neutrino, died on Saturday, December 12, 2020, at his home in Geneva. He was 99.
Applying his passions for science and art, Nikhil Tiwale—a postdoc at Brookhaven Lab's Center for Functional Nanomaterials—is fabricating new microelectronics components.
Scientists improved the performance of bismuth vanadate, an electrode material for converting solar energy to hydrogen—an energy-dense and clean-burning fuel.
UPTON, NY—Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory have begun building a quantum-enhanced x-ray microscope at the National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II). This groundbreaking microscope, supported by the Biological and Environmental Research progam at DOE’s Office of Science, will enable researchers to image biomolecules like never before.
The American Physical Society has selected physicist Ivan Bozovic of the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory as a co-recipient of the 2021 James C. McGroddy Prize for New Materials. Bozovic and his collaborators were recognized “For pioneering the atomic-layer-by-layer synthesis of new metastable complex-oxide materials, and the discovery of resulting novel phenomena.”