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Made from solar concentrate

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A team of scientists with Berkeley Lab and the University of Illinois created solar cells that collect higher energy photons at 30 times the concentration of conventional solar cells, the highest luminescent concentration factor ever recorded.

Journal: ACS Photonics
Funder: DOE/US Department of Energy

Q&A: Researchers explain a strange high-intensity result at SLAC's X-ray laser

DOE/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

At extremely high intensities, X-rays stop behaving like the ones in your doctor's office and begin interacting with matter in very different ways. This 'nonlinear' X-ray behavior can only be seen at X-ray free-electron lasers. Recent experiments at the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have revealed a new, unexpected twist in that behavior that may be one for the textbooks and could change the way these powerful lasers probe matter.

Gaming computers offer huge, untapped energy savings potential

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

In the world of computer gaming, bragging rights are accorded to those who can boast of blazing-fast graphics cards, the most powerful processors, the highest-resolution monitors, and the coolest decorative lighting. They are not bestowed upon those crowing about the energy efficiency of their system. If they were, gaming computers worldwide might well be consuming billions of dollars less in electricity use annually, with no loss in performance, according to new research from Berkeley Lab.

Journal: Energy Efficiency

World's most powerful digital camera sees construction green light

DOE/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
Business Announcement

The Department of Energy has approved the start of construction for a 3.2-gigapixel digital camera -- the world's largest -- at the heart of the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST). Assembled at the DOE's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, the camera will be the eye of LSST, revealing unprecedented details of the universe and helping unravel some of its greatest mysteries.

Soaking up carbon dioxide and turning it into valuable products

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Berkeley Lab researchers have incorporated molecules of porphyrin CO2 catalysts into the sponge-like crystals of covalent organic frameworks (COFs) to create a molecular system that not only absorbs carbon dioxide, but also selectively reduces it to CO, a primary building block for a wide range of chemical products.

Antimatter catches a wave at SLAC

DOE/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A study led by researchers from the US Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and the University of California, Los Angeles has demonstrated a new, efficient way to accelerate positrons, the antimatter opposites of electrons. The method may help boost the energy and shrink the size of future linear particle colliders -- powerful accelerators that could be used to unravel the properties of nature's fundamental building blocks.

Journal: Nature

Cellular contamination pathway for plutonium, other heavy elements, identified

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have reported a major advance in understanding the biological chemistry of radioactive metals, opening up new avenues of research into strategies for remedial action in the event of possible human exposure to nuclear contaminants.

Journal: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Funder: DOE/US Department of Energy, National Institutes of Health

Berkeley Lab releases most comprehensive analysis of electricity reliability trends

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

In the most comprehensive analysis of electricity reliability trends in the United States, researchers at Berkeley Lab and Stanford University have found that, while, on average, the frequency of power outages has not changed in recent years, the total number of minutes customers are without power each year has been increasing over time.

Funder: Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability, National Electricity Delivery Division of the US Department of Energy

Another milestone in hybrid artificial photosynthesis

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Berkeley Lab researchers using a bioinorganic hybrid approach to artificial photosynthesis have combined semiconducting nanowires with select microbes to create a system that produces renewable molecular hydrogen and uses it to synthesize carbon dioxide into methane, the primary constituent of natural gas.

Journal: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

X-ray duo's research helps launch human trial for treatment of arsenic poisoning

DOE/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

Graham George and Ingrid Pickering, a husband and wife X-ray research team, have worked for decades to understand how contaminants in water and soil are taken up by the body and affect human health. Much of that research has taken place at the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource (SSRL), a DOE Office of Science User Facility at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, where both are former staff scientists.