Feature Stories

Next-generation technologies, such as leading-edge memory storage solutions and brain-inspired neuromorphic computing systems, could touch nearly every aspect of our lives — from the gadgets we use daily to the solutions for major global challenges. These advances rely on specialized materials, including ferroelectrics — materials with switchable electric properties that enhance performance and energy efficiency. A research team led by scientists at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory has developed a novel technique for creating precise atomic arrangements in ferroelectrics, establishing a robust framework for advancing powerful new technologies.

Chain Reaction Innovations, the entrepreneurship program at Argonne National Laboratory, supports startups that have raised more than a half-billion dollars in follow-on funding since the program’s inception in 2016.

As a kid, you may have tried to dig a hole in your backyard to reach China. Obviously, that didn’t happen. 

But digging out a lot of ground can be quite productive. Instead of reaching another country, the scientists, engineers, and construction workers on the LBNF-DUNE project dug up rock to enable groundbreaking science. 

Argonne’s ReCell Center hosted a two-day Industry Collaboration Meeting. It was attended by major energy storage and battery recycling stakeholders in the Chicagoland community.

More than 150 students and their mentors, as well as leaders from 20 STEM development organizations, gathered at Chicago’s Pullman State Historic Site on August 2 to showcase projects completed during summer STEM programs.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory is home to several state-of-the-art user facilities that are key in basic research and scientific discovery. This summer, 13 students had the unique opportunity to carry out a research project across three of them: the Tandem Van de Graaff facility, Center for Functional Nanomaterials (CFN), and National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II).

DOE's Atmospheric Radiation Measurement user facility has established a cutting-edge atmospheric observatory in an Alabama forest to investigate the complex interactions among clouds, vegetation, and aerosols and advance weather and climate research.

As the upgrade of the Advanced Photon Source nears completion at Argonne National Laboratory, scientists anticipate the experimental possibilities.

The prototype DUNE 2x2 detector will capture up to 10,000 neutrino interactions per day. Researchers developed the new detector and advanced machine learning techniques to probe what all those neutrinos are up to.

The Department of Energy (DOE) has given the green light for construction to begin on a high-energy upgrade that will further boost the performance of the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS), the world’s most powerful X-ray free-electron laser (XFEL) at the DOE’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. When complete, the upgrade will allow scientists to explore atomic-scale processes with unprecedented precision and address fundamental questions in energy storage, catalysis, biology, materials science and quantum physics like never before.