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A surprising discovery: magnetism in a common material for microelectronics

DOE/US Department of Energy

Nickel monosilicide (NiSi), a material widely used to connect transistors in semiconductor circuits, was wrongly predicted by theory to be non-magnetic. Now scientists have used neutron scattering to identify an elusive form of magnetic order in NiSi. This finding could lead to improved semiconductors for computers and computer memory.

Journal: Advanced Materials

The facility for rare isotope beams observes five never-before-seen isotopes

DOE/US Department of Energy

The Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) has discovered five never-before-seen heavy element isotopes: thulium-182 and 183, ytterbium-186 and 187, and lutetium-190. Researchers found the new isotopes in the debris of collisions between a stable beam of platinum-198 and a carbon target. These results show the potential for FRIB as it increases its capabilities.

Journal: Physical Review Letters

DOE lands top two spots on list of fastest supercomputers

DOE/US Department of Energy
Business Announcement

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Aurora supercomputer has officially broken the exascale barrier. Today at the 2024 ISC High Performance conference in Hamburg, Germany, the 63^rd edition of the high performance computing Top500 list announced that DOE holds the #1 and #2 positions for most powerful supercomputers in the world. The Top500’s benchmark has long been the world’s measuring stick for large scale supercomputing performance.

Novel hybrid scheme speeds the way to simulating nuclear reactions on quantum computers

DOE/US Department of Energy

The interactions of protons and neutrons can be too complex to model using conventional computers and quantum computers face reliability issues. This research combined conventional computers and quantum computers to simulate the scattering of two neutrons. This opens a path to computing nuclear reaction rates for situations that are difficult or impossible to measure in a laboratory.

Journal: Physical Review A

For sustainable aviation fuel, researchers engineer a promising microorganism for precursor production

DOE/US Department of Energy
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Researchers used advanced computing techniques to engineer the bacteria Pseudomonas putida to optimize its production of isoprenol using carbon from plant material. Isoprenol has a potential role in the production of jet biofuel blendstocks. This work is therefore a step toward sustainable jet fuel production, which could help control carbon dioxide emissions and climate change.

Journal: Metabolic Engineering

Department of Energy announces $160 million for research to form microelectronics science research centers

DOE/US Department of Energy
Grant and Award Announcement

Today, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced $160 million to advance President Biden’s vision to secure the future of American leadership in semiconductor innovation by implementing a key provision in the historic CHIPS and Science Act of 2022 (42 U.S.C. §19331), Microelectronics Research for Energy Innovation. This funding will support the formation of Microelectronics Science Research Centers (MSRCs) focused on energy efficiency and extreme environments.

Expanding the hunt for hidden dark matter particles

DOE/US Department of Energy

Theoretical models of dark matter predict that its signals can be detected using low-background radiation detectors. By looking for specific types of dark matter and finding no signal, scientists operating the Majorana Demonstrator experiment have significantly narrowed the characteristics of potential dark matter particles. The results will help design future experiments.

Journal: Physical Review Letters

National AI Research Resource Pilot Awards first round access to 35 projects in partnership with DOE

DOE/US Department of Energy
Grant and Award Announcement

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) are thrilled to announce the first 35 projects that will be supported with computational time through the National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource (NAIRR) Pilot, marking a significant milestone in fostering responsible AI research across the nation.

The KDK collaboration identifies rare nuclear decay in long-lived potassium isotope

DOE/US Department of Energy

Potassium-40 usually decays to calcium-40, but about 10 percent of the time it decays to argon-40 through electron capture. One variant of this decay path ends in argon-40 in its ground state. The rate of this decay is important for using argon-40 to determine the age of geologic features and studying neutrinoless double beta decay. Researchers recently made the first direct observations of this very rare but critical decay path.

Journal: Physical Review Letters

What if metals could conduct light?

DOE/US Department of Energy

Conventional metals cannot conduct light in their interiors, but scientists have discovered that in the quantum metal ZrSiSe, electrons can give rise to plasmons. These are collective oscillations in a material that are strong and long lived, and they can combine with photons to form new modes called polaritons that can carry photons along zig-zag paths in the material.

Journal: Science Advances

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