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6-Dec-2024

DOE partners with UK’s DESNZ and Tokamak Energy Ltd. to accelerate fusion energy development through a $52M upgrade to the privately owned ST40 facility

DOE/US Department of Energy
Grant and Award Announcement

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), the U.K.’s Department of Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ), and the private fusion company Tokamak Energy Ltd. (TE) today announced a plan to jointly sponsor a $52 million upgrade to the ST40 experimental fusion facility to advance fusion science and technology needed to deliver a future fusion pilot plant. Fusion powers the sun and stars, and, if harnessed on Earth, could provide an abundant, safe, and carbon-emissions-free energy source. This collaboration was selected through the 2025 fiscal year Office of Science open funding opportunity.

4-Dec-2024

Carbon rings under stress

DOE/US Department of Energy

When molecules interact with ultraviolet (UV) light, they can change shape in processes that typically take just tens of picoseconds. In this study, researchers imaged these changes using X-ray free electron laser technology. They found that a strained bicyclic molecule emerges from the chemical reaction that occurs when a cyclopentadiene molecule absorbs UV light.

Journal: The Journal of Physical Chemistry A

2-Dec-2024

Researchers use vitamins to decode complex interactions in the soil microbiome

DOE/US Department of Energy

In a pair of publications, researchers investigated how different species of microbes interact with one another and exchange resources such as vitamins. The studies focused on corrinoids, the vitamin B12 family of nutrients. Many bacteria in the environment cannot produce these chemicals. The studies demonstrated that the presence of corrinoids can influence how individual soil bacteria grow in the laboratory and how they survive and coexist in soil.

Journal: The ISME Journal

27-Nov-2024

Improved spin and density correlation simulations give researchers clearer insights on neutron stars

DOE/US Department of Energy

Inside a neutron star, protons and electrons combine into uncharged neutron matter. Researchers have now calculated spin and density correlations in neutron matter using realistic nuclear interactions at higher densities of neutrons than previously explored. They also developed a new algorithm that greatly reduces the computational effort needed to calculate observables involving multiple particles.

Journal: Physical Review Letters

25-Nov-2024

X-ray measurements reveal an unexpected role for copper in photocatalysts

DOE/US Department of Energy

Copper is a promising catalyst for converting carbon dioxide into reduced species, a step in converting carbon dioxide into fuels. Although often initiated by electrical energy, this reaction can also be achieved using solar energy. In this work, scientists used X-rays to investigate how copper catalysts change when operating only with light and no applied electricity. The work found that the copper plays an unexpected role, producing an oxidized, not reduced, species.

Journal: ACS Nano

22-Nov-2024

Researchers obtain the first high-precision mass measurement of aluminum-22

DOE/US Department of Energy

Researchers at the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams made a high-precision mass measurement of aluminum-22, reaching the “proton dripline” of the nuclear chart. The project found that aluminum-22 formed a proton halo, where the last proton added is only loosely bound to the nucleus. This measurement helps scientists determine how tightly bound the atomic nuclei are as they get closer to the dripline.

Journal: Physical Review Letters

20-Nov-2024

Scientists compare throughput for quantum vs. conventional networks

DOE/US Department of Energy

Entangled quantum bits per second (ebps) indicates a quantum network’s throughput. In this study, researchers collected ebps measurements over a suite of fiber connections on a quantum network testbed. They then compared these measurements with capacity estimates for a conventional fiber-optic network at a range of distances. The study finds that ebps throughput decays sharply with distance in ways that differ from conventional networks.

19-Nov-2024

Bromoform molecules like to rearrange their atoms

DOE/US Department of Energy

For the first time, scientists can distinguish the proportion of bromoform molecules that directly break bonds (dissociate) vs. those that rearrange (isomerize). This is an important step toward understanding the formation of bromoform isomers, which had long been predicted but had not been fully experimentally confirmed. Bromoform molecules are important in part for their role in ozone degradation in the Earth’s atmosphere.

Journal: Journal of the American Chemical Society

18-Nov-2024

Adjusting accelerators with help from machine learning

DOE/US Department of Energy

Banks of computer screens stacked two and three high line the walls. The screens are covered with numbers and graphs that are unintelligible to an untrained eye. But they tell a story to the operators staffing the particle accelerator control room. The numbers describe how the accelerator is speeding up tiny particles to smash into targets or other particles.

14-Nov-2024

Scientists gain new insights into how mass is distributed in hadrons

DOE/US Department of Energy

The trace anomaly is one of the quantities that encodes the energy and momentum of particles built from quarks. Scientists believe the trace anomaly is crucial for keeping quarks bonded in subatomic particles. In this study, scientists calculated the trace anomaly for nucleons and pions. The calculations show that in the pion, the mass distribution is similar to the charge distribution of the neutron and in the nucleon, the mass distribution is similar to the charge distribution of the proton.

Journal: Physical Review D