NEWS RELEASES

Orbitronics devices use an electron’s orbital angular momentum to store and process more information, much more efficiently. Typically, generating orbital currents requires magnetic metals that are heavy and expensive. For the first time ever, researchers prove that atomic vibrations can transfer orbital angular momentum directly to electrons in a non-magnetic material, quartz. The method will work on other chiral materials, such as tellurium, selenium and hybrid organic/inorganic perovskites, and is the most streamlined system yet for orbitronics research.

A Rice research lab’s signature keepsake helped perfect a method for growing patterned diamond surfaces that could help decrease operating temperatures in electronics by 23 degrees Celsius.

Sandia National Laboratories earned eight honors in the 2025 R&D 100 Awards, including seven technology awards and the program’s Researcher of the Year professional award. 

Each molecule has its own unmistakable tone, but the voices of individual molecules are so faint that traditional infrared spectroscopy can only detect the collective chorus of millions or billions of molecules at once. Now researchers at UC San Diego, led by Shaowei Li, have found a way to hear a single molecule sing, using an approach they call infrared-integrated STM, or IRiSTM.

A team led by researchers at Penn State used a plant-based material to separate and recover dysprosium, a heavy rare earth element used in industrial manufacturing, from other rare earth elements. According to the researchers, the approach is environmentally friendly, more sustainable and efficient than other commercial approaches.

Among the enduring challenges of storing energy—for wind or solar farms, or backup storage for the energy grid or data centers—is batteries that can hold large amounts of electricity for a long time. In addition to having a large capacity—potentially enough to power a neighborhood or small city for days or weeks—ideally these batteries would be safe, affordable and environmentally harmless. With an eye toward meeting those benchmarks, researchers at Case Western Reserve University are developing novel electrolytes—fluids that can conduct ions—for rechargeable flow batteries.

PPPL-led simulations have identified why far more exhaust particles strike the inner divertor target than the outer one in tokamaks, a long-observed phenomenon that previous models couldn’t fully explain. The key is combining cross-field drift effects with core plasma rotation. When researchers added both factors to their simulations, the results finally matched experimental measurements. The finding could improve exhaust system designs for future fusion power plants.

Food scraps, manure and sewage are natural byproducts of the U.S. agricultural industry. They are also rich in biogas, a mixture that contains methane and other valuable chemicals. A team of researchers at Sandia National Laboratories are developing chemistry that could help capture methane from biogas and separate it from other gases so it can be put to good use.