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A collaboration between Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s Physics Division and Applied Mathematics and Computational Research Division has yielded a new approach to quantum error mitigation - "noise estimation circuits" - that could help make quantum computing’s theoretical potential a reality.

The Salton Sea geothermal field in California potentially holds enough lithium to meet all of America’s domestic battery needs, with even enough left over to export some of it. But how much of that lithium can be extracted in a sustainable and environmentally friendly way? And how long will the resource last? These are just a few of the questions that researchers hope to answer in a new project sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy.

Researchers at Berkeley Lab are working with five other Department of Energy national labs to develop a roadmap for the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico to meet its 100% renewable energy mandate. A new fungal strain has been discovered in a spacecraft assembly facility and named after a long-time Berkeley Lab microbiologist, Tamas Torok. MIT physicists and colleagues, including scientists from Berkeley Lab, have discovered the “secret sauce” behind the exotic properties of a new quantum material known as a kagome metal.

Researchers changed the atomic structure of a thermoelectric material in a unique way with pulses of intense laser light. This new method has the potential to create unique materials with dramatic properties that are not seen in nature.

Sandwiching wiggly proteins between two other layers allows scientists to get the most detailed images yet of a protein that’s key to the spread of acute myeloid leukemia.

Hitting a material with laser light can produce a flash of superconductivity – the ability to carry electric current with no loss – and may offer a path toward room-temperature conductivity.

Upgrading a particle accelerator is a lot like modernizing a house. It just requires extra teamwork, a mountain of parts and a highly specialized understanding of the physics and technology that make accelerators work.

Superconductors have four classic traits, including conducting electric current without loss and levitating magnets. Now the discovery of the fourth and final trait caps 15 years of detective work.

Scientists have finally found a way to probe delicate microcrystals with powerful X-ray laser beams. They say their method could help advance semiconductor and solar cell development.

As the name implies, crystallography requires crystals – specifically, purified samples of the molecule of interest, coaxed into a crystal form. But most molecules form powders composed of jumbled granules, not picture-ready crystals. A new computer algorithm, combined with a state-of-the-art laser, can adapt X-ray crystallography for the many not-so-neat-and-tidy compounds that scientists seek to study.