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Berkeley Lab scientists at the Molecular Foundry have pioneered a new chemical mapping method that provides unprecedented insight into materials at the nanoscale. These new maps will guide researchers in deciphering molecular chemistry and interactions that are critical for artificial photosynthesis, biofuels production and light-harvesting applications such as solar cells.

In a three-pronged attack on one of the stubbornest problems in materials sciences, groups from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, with colleagues from the University of California at Berkeley and Stanford University, have produced the strongest evidence yet that the mysterious pseudogap, hallmark of high-temperature superconductors, is not a gradual transition to the superconducting phase as long supposed, but instead is a unique and hitherto unknown phase of matter.

Scientists have found the strongest evidence yet that a puzzling gap in the electronic structures of some high-temperature superconductors could indicate a new phase of matter. Understanding this "pseudogap" has been a 20-year quest for researchers who are trying to control and improve these breakthrough materials, with the ultimate goal of finding superconductors that operate at room temperature.

Borrowing a page from Albert Einstein's Theory of Special Relativity, scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have perfected a way to accelerate modeling of laser-plasma wakefield accelerators up to a million times faster. While "tabletop" laser-plasma accelerators promise high energies in short spaces, 3-D simulation of electron acceleration by a laser beam moving through a plasma has presented a computational challenge that until now has been beyond practical solution by supercomputers.

Berkeley Lab researcher have enhanced the spontaneous magnetization in a special form of the popular multiferroic bismuth ferrite. What's more, they can turn this magnetization "on/off" through the application of an external electric field, a critical ability for the advancement of spintronic technology.

Systems biology holds promise for advances in such important areas as pharmaceuticals, environmental remediation and sustainable energy, but, according to two leading authorities from Berkeley Lab, its most profound impact is that it might one day provide an answer to the central question: What is life?

Scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of Californuia at Berkeley have learned to control the quantum pathways that determine how light scatters in graphene. A sheet of carbon just a single atom thick, graphene's extraordinary crystalline structure gives rise to unique electronic and optical properties. Controlling light scattering not only provides a new tool for studying graphene but points to practical applications for managing light and electronic states in graphene nanodevices.

Berkeley Lab researchers have designed a new composite material for hydrogen storage consisting of nanoparticles of magnesium metal sprinkled through a polymer related to Plexiglas that rapidly absorbs and releases hydrogen at modest temperatures without oxidizing the metal after cycling. This achievement is a major breakthrough in materials design for hydrogen storage, batteries and fuel cells.

A Berkeley Lab study has shown how communities of different types of breast cells self-organize into breast tissue. This work helps explain how the processes of stem cell differentiation and tissue architecture maintenance are coordinated, and might lead to a better understanding of what goes wrong in cancer.

Berkeley Lab researchers, led by cancer authority Mina Bissell, have shown how the protein laminin, long thought to provide only structural support in the microenvironment of breast and other epithelial tissue, can play a leading role in the development of cancer.