U.S. Department of Energy Research News

Showing stories 176-200 out of 427 stories.
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1-Dec-2004
Big project reveals secrets of tiny materials
A big project studying the characteristics of the very small will provide insight into new materials with unprecedented properties. These small systems can be only a few atoms wide and are measured in billionths of meters, or nanometers.

10-Nov-2004
Neutron-rich mecca for biologists
Biologists can image proteins using electron and atomic force microscopes. They can visualize the three-dimensional structure of proteins--amino-acid sequences folded in complicated ways--by using X rays at ORNL and other DOE labs.

1-Nov-2004
Magnetically levitated train takes flight
SINCE the 1960s, transportation industry planners have sought an energy-efficient design for a train that can glide through air at speeds up to 500 kilometers per hour.

15-Oct-2004
Quenching marital bliss
Niobium, mined in Brazil, needs to be exquisitely purified. It is one of 26 metals in the periodic table with natural superconducting properties.

15-Oct-2004
When it comes to accelerators, what is cold?
Superconductivity arises in special materials at super cold temperatures. At these temperatures--a few degrees above absolute zero--the materials' electrical resistance virtually vanishes.

16-Sep-2004
Researchers 'redesigning' platinum
Researchers have developed a way of changing the properties of platinum by manipulating the metal at the nanoscale. The method mimics the action of photosynthetic proteins.

16-Sep-2004
Cold Molecules - New avenue to the 5th phase of matter
Using a method usually more suitable to billiards than atomic physics, researchers from Sandia and Columbia University have created extremely cold molecules that could be used as an improved first step in creating molecular Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs).

16-Sep-2004
Exploring the ultrawideband
Lawrence Livermore research efforts and inventions quietly advance many fields. In one instance, however, a Livermore invention that stemmed from laser research has spawned a variety of new commercial products, including some that support national and homeland security.

16-Sep-2004
SPEAR3 project wins DOE award for excellence
On August 13, Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham presented the Secretary's Excellence in Acquisition Award to the SPEAR3 Management team in a ceremony at the DOE headquarters in Washington, DC. The Fourth Annual DOE Project Management Awards pay tribute to those teams or individuals who have achieved outstanding results through resourceful, innovative thinking and implementation.

1-Sep-2004
'Nanotractor' studies micro-scale friction
Interest in the development of MEMS (microelectromechanical systems) has grown steadily during the past decade. These tiny devices, now used in such applications as auto airbag systems, inkjet printers, and display units, are attractive because they take up little space and require little or no assembly. They also are cheap to produce in batch quantities because they are made with a technology that is already mature -- the microlithography used to make silicon chips.

1-Sep-2004
'Nanotools' - Self-assembling durable nanocrystal arrays
A wish list for nanotechnologists would likely include a simple, inexpensive means of self-assembling nanocrystals into robust, orderly arrangements, like soup cans on a shelf or bricks in a wall, each separated from the next by an insulating layer of silicon dioxide.

24-Aug-2004
Fine-tuning carbon nanotubes
Since their discovery in the 1990s, carbon nanotubes have ensnared the imagination of chemists. Among them are researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory who are putting these fine filaments--ten-thousand times smaller than a hair--to work as biosensors and improving the way carbon nanotubes can be chemically customized to form the basis for a wide variety of devices.

24-Aug-2004
Supercritical fluids�making nanoparticles easy
It's not a liquid. It's not a gas. It's a supercritical fluid. Although it looks like a liquid, it has unique properties that allow scientists to work with it in ways they can't with liquids. Researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory are using supercritical fluids as solvents in a process that creates nanoparticles.

24-Aug-2004
From cosmetics to hydrogen storage�nanoscale materials push the frontier
Suresh Baskaran develops new projects in advanced materials and manufacturing technology. This includes materials and manufacturing technology for new applications in electronics, photonics, energy conversion, vehicular structures, sensors and emissions control.

11-Aug-2004
Progress through computation
If we continue to burn fossil fuels for energy at the current rate, they will last only another few hundred years. In the context of civilization, the fossil fuel era is drawing to a close. In addition, it would be wise to reduce our combustion of oil, gas, and coal because the process produces pollutants that are bad for our health and carbon dioxide that could change our climate in undesirable ways. One possible future source of electricity for the world is fusion energy.

11-Aug-2004
Shedding light on luminosity
What on earth is an inverse femtobarn and what does it have to do with the number of events an accelerator produces?Fittingly, it was in the farmlands of the Midwest that the term 'barn' was first applied to physics. In December 1942, at a dinner on the campus of Purdue University, physicists M. G. Holloway and C. P. Parker were lamenting the lack of a catchy name for discussing the size of an atomic nucleus.

10-Aug-2004
New research facility holds promise for nation's energy future
Ground was broken July 27 on a new facility at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), designed to increase collaboration among researchers and speed the time it takes for new technologies to move from the laboratory bench to commercial manufacturing.

1-Aug-2004
Exploring and modeling 21st Century materials
The 1986 discovery of high-temperature superconductivity sparked the quest for room-temperature superconductors that could transmit electrical current without heat losses and without the need for an expensive coolant such as liquid helium. Room-temperature superconductors could make possible ultra-efficient power transmission lines, practical electric cars, and superconducting magnets that could bring high-speed levitated trains and smaller, more efficient, and less costly rotating machinery, appliances, particle accelerators, electric generators, and medical imaging devices.

1-Aug-2004
Simulating supernovae
During the catastrophic death throes of massive stars, known as core-collapse supernovae, many elements were created, including those necessary for life on Earth. How and why these stars that were greater than 10 times the mass of our sun and that had evolved over millions of years died explosively in a few hours are mysteries that scientists cannot solve in laboratory experiments. However, simulations on supercomputers hold out hope of unraveling the secrets of supernovae.

13-Jul-2004
This instrument keeps the beat
As part of their responsibilities for stewardship of the nation's nuclear stockpile, Livermore researchers study the behavior of materials detonated with high explosives or struck with projectiles at extreme velocities. In diagnosing these experiments, researchers must measure velocities as great as 3,000 meters per second over distances from less than 0.5 millimeter to more than 50 millimeters.

12-Jul-2004
Nuclear energy to go: A self-contained, portable reactor
Nuclear energy supplies 20 percent of the electricity used in the U.S. and 16 percent of that used throughout the world. But as the global use of nuclear energy grows, so do concerns about the vulnerability of nuclear plants and fuel materials to misuse or attacks by terrorists.

12-Jul-2004
Going to extremes
Little is known about the chemistry that produces minerals in the deep regions of Earth or that creates the ammonia oceans of the outer planets and moons. What is known is that an element's fundamental properties--its optical, structural, electrical, and magnetic characteristics--can completely change when it is put under extreme conditions.

12-Jul-2004
Nature's greatest puzzles attract physicists to SLAC summer institute
With youthful enthusiasm, hundreds of scientists will explore Nature's Greatest Puzzles at the SLAC Summer Institute (SSI) on August 2-13.

12-Jul-2004
Getting more for your energy buck
As the U.S. attempts to move away from dependence on foreign oil and toward less-polluting forms of energy, converting wasted heat into useful energy is increasingly important. In our country today, as much as 30 percent of the energy involved in large-scale industrial processes is lost through smokestacks. Gasoline and diesel engines lose 35 to 40 percent of their fuel energy in waste heat, primarily in the exhaust.

12-Jul-2004
Nanoparticles may mean longer for enzymes
The biochemical world's workaholic is the enzyme. Enzymes are molecules in cells that lead short, active and brutal lives. They restlessly catalyze their neighbors, cleaving and assembling proteins and metabolizing compounds. After a few hours of furious activity, they are what chemists call "destabilized," or spent.

Showing stories 176-200 out of 427 stories.
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