Feature Stories

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Science has selected Brookhaven National Laboratory to lead a new research effort focused on potential threats to crops grown for bioenergy production. Understanding how such bioenergy crops could be harmed by known or new pests or pathogens could help speed the development of rapid responses to mitigate damage and longer-term strategies for preventing such harm.

Everyone knows that the Computer—an artificial intelligence (AI)-like entity—on a Star Trek spaceship does everything from brewing tea to compiling complex analyses of flux data. But how are they used at real research facilities? How can AI agents—computer programs that can act based on a perceived environment—help scientists discover next-generation batteries or quantum materials? Three staff members at the National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II) described how AI agents support scientists using the facility’s research tools. As a U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Science user facility located at DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory, NSLS-II offers its experimental capabilities to scientists from all over the world who use it to reveal the mysteries of materials for tomorrow’s technology.

In honor of National Intern Day, PNNL and intern Jonathan Mills were named among the Top 100 in the nation by early-career recruiting firm WayUp.

Motivated by the need to eliminate expensive rare-earth magnets in utility-scale direct-drive wind turbines, Sandia National Laboratories researchers developed a fundamentally new type of rotary electrical contact. Sandia is now ready to partner with the renewable energy industry to develop the next generation of direct-drive wind turbines.

A new testbed facility capable of testing superconducting qubit fidelity in a controlled environment free of stray background radiation will benefit quantum information sciences and the development of quantum computing.

Based at Sandia National Laboratories, a team of scientists believes the key to preventing large-scale, catastrophic failures in bridges, airplanes and power plants is to look — very closely — at damage as it first appears at the atomic and nanoscale levels.