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7-Dec-2017

Studying gas mask filters so people can breathe easier

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

How do gas masks work? Scientists at Berkeley Lab are using X-rays to study how gas masks developed during World War I are able to handle modern chemical warfare agents. What they learn could eventually lead to more advanced gas masks for both military and civilian use.

6-Dec-2017

Heavy metal: How first supernovae altered early star formation

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

An international team of cosmologists and astrophysicists ran multi-scale, multi-physics 2-D and 3-D simulations at the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center to illustrate how heavy metals expelled from exploding supernovae held the first stars in the universe regulate subsequent star formation and influence the appearance of galaxies in the process.

5-Dec-2017

Dark fiber: Using sensors beneath our feet to tell us about earthquakes, water, and other geophysical activity

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Scientists at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have shown for the first time that dark fiber -- the vast network of unused fiber-optic cables installed throughout the country and the world -- can be used as sensors for detecting earthquakes, the presence of groundwater, changes in permafrost conditions, and a variety of other subsurface activity.

Journal: Geophysical Research Letters
Funder: US Department of Defense
Meeting: 2017 AGU Fall Meeting

4-Dec-2017

Research zooms in on enzyme that repairs DNA damage from UV rays

DOE/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

A research team at the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory is using the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) to study an enzyme found in plants, bacteria and some animals that repairs DNA damage caused by the sun's ultraviolet (UV) light rays.

30-Nov-2017

Fluctuating stripes seen in cuprates

DOE/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

Scientists at the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University have shown that copper-based superconductors, or cuprates -- the first class of materials found to carry electricity with no loss at relatively high temperatures -- contain fluctuating stripes of electron charge and spin that meander like rivulets over rough ground.

29-Nov-2017

Watching a quantum material lose its stripes

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

In quantum materials, periodic stripe patterns can be formed by electrons coupled with lattice distortions. To capture the extremely fast dynamics of how such atomic-scale stripes melt and form, Berkeley Lab scientists used femtosecond-scale laser pulses at terahertz frequencies. Along the way, they found some unexpected behavior.

Journal: Science Advances
Funder: Department of Energy

27-Nov-2017

SLAC-led Study Shows Potential for Efficiently Controlling 2-D Materials With Light

DOE/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory

In experiments with the lab's ultrafast 'electron camera,' laser light hitting a material is almost completely converted into nuclear vibrations, which are key to switching a material's properties on and off for future electronics and other applications.

24-Nov-2017

'Holy grail' for batteries: Solid-state magnesium battery a big step closer

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A team of Department of Energy scientists at the Joint Center for Energy Storage Research has discovered the fastest magnesium-ion solid-state conductor, a major step towards making solid-state magnesium-ion batteries that are both energy dense and safe.

Journal: Nature Communications
Funder: DOE/US Department of Energy

22-Nov-2017

How the Earth stops high-energy neutrinos in their tracks

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

In an analysis of data from an experiment embedded in Antarctic ice, a research collaboration including scientists from Berkeley Lab has demonstrated that the Earth stops high-energy neutrinos -- particles that only very rarely interact with matter.

Journal: Nature

20-Nov-2017

GraphBLAS: Building blocks for high performance graph analytics

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

After nearly five years of collaboration between researchers in academia, industry and national research laboratories -- including Berkeley Lab's Aydn Buluç--GraphBLAS, a collection of standardized building blocks for graph algorithms in the language of linear algebra, is publicly available.