News Releases

Berkeley Lab and several collaborating institutions have successfully demonstrated a machine-learning technique to accelerate discovery of materials for film capacitors — crucial components in electrification and renewable energy technologies. The technique was used to screen a library of nearly 50,000 chemical structures to identify a compound with record-breaking performance.

Undocumented orphaned wells pose hazards to both the environment and the climate. Scientists are building modern tools to help locate, assess, and pave the way for ultimately plugging these forgotten relics.

Researchers used the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument to map how nearly 6 million galaxies cluster across 11 billion years of cosmic history. Their observations line up with what Einstein's theory of general relativity predicts.

A difficult-to-describe nanoscale object called the magnetic skyrmion might one day yield new microelectronic devices that can do much more — for example, massive data storage — all while consuming much less power. But researchers need a more detailed understanding of skyrmions if they are ever to be used reliably in computational devices, including quantum computers. Berkeley Lab scientists led a project to make 3D X-ray images of skyrmions that can characterize or measure the orientations of spins inside the whole object.

Manganese is earth-abundant and cheap. A new process could help make it a contender to replace nickel and cobalt in batteries.

A newly discovered cluster-scale strong gravitational lens, with a rare alignment of seven background lensed galaxies, provides a unique opportunity to study cosmology.

New results from the world’s most sensitive dark matter detector put the best-ever limits on particles called WIMPs, a leading candidate for what makes up our universe’s invisible mass.

A new technique developed at Berkeley Lab will make it much easier for researchers to discover the traits or activities encoded by genes of unknown function in microbes, a key step toward understanding the roles and impact of individual species within the planet’s diverse microbiomes.

Researchers at Berkeley Lab’s 88-Inch Cyclotron successfully made superheavy element 116 using a beam of titanium-50. That milestone sets the team up to attempt making the heaviest element yet: 120.