News Releases

Energy Sciences

Updates every hour. Last Updated: 1-May-2025 09:08 ET (1-May-2025 13:08 GMT/UTC)

Atomic 'GPS' elucidates movement during ultrafast material transitions

DOE/Brookhaven National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory have created the first-ever atomic movies showing how atoms rearrange locally within a quantum material as it transitions from an insulator to a metal. With the help of these movies, the researchers discovered a new material phase that settles a yearslong scientific debate and could facilitate the design of new transitioning materials with commercial applications.

Journal: Nature Materials

NREL researchers highlight opportunities for manufacturing perovskite solar panels with a long-term vision

DOE/National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Researchers working at the forefront of an emerging photovoltaic (PV) technology are thinking ahead about how to scale, deploy, and design future solar panels to be easily recyclable.

Solar panels made of perovskites may eventually play an important role amid global decarbonization efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. As the technology emerges from the testing stages, it is a perfect time to think critically about how best to design the solar panels to minimize their impact on the environment decades from now.

Journal: Nature Materials

Argonne-led research working toward reducing electronic waste with biodegradable luminescent polymers

DOE/Argonne National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Argonne-led research working toward reducing electronic waste with biodegradable luminescent polymers with high light-emitting efficiencies.

Journal: Nature Sustainability

A new approach to accelerate the discovery of quantum materials

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Researchers at Berkeley Lab have successfully demonstrated an innovative approach to find breakthrough materials for quantum applications. The approach uses rapid computing methods to predict the properties of hundreds of materials, identifying short lists of the most promising ones. Then, precise fabrication methods are used to make the short-list materials and further evaluate their properties.

Journal: Nature Communications

Scientists develop new artificial intelligence method to create material ‘fingerprints’

DOE/Argonne National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Researchers at the Advanced Photon Source and Center for Nanoscale Materials of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory have developed a new technique that pairs artificial intelligence and X-ray science.

Journal: Nature

Caught in the actinium

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Researchers grew crystals containing actinium and illuminated them with X-rays to learn how the radioactive metal binds with other elements. That information could help design better cancer treatments.

Journal: Nature Communications

Detecting defects in tomorrow’s technology

DOE/Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

New research from PPPL and the University of Delaware offers an enhanced understanding of common defects in transition-metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) — a potential replacement for silicon in computer chips — and lays the foundation for etching smaller features.

Journal: 2D Materials
Funder: DOE/US Department of Energy, U.S. National Science Foundation, DOE/US Department of Energy, National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, U.S. National Science Foundation

SLAC researchers pioneer new methods in ultrafast science for sharper molecular movies

DOE/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

SLAC’s “electron camera” can reveal some of nature’s ultrafast processes. Now, researchers across the lab have collaborated to achieve improvements to that tool to make its molecular movies even sharper, keeping SLAC at the forefront of pioneering tools for ultrafast science.

Journal: Structural Dynamics
Funder: DOE/US Department of Energy

Machine learning could aid efforts to answer long-standing astrophysical questions

DOE/Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

PPPL physicists have developed a computer program incorporating machine learning that could help identify blobs of plasma in outer space known as plasmoids. In a novel twist, the program has been trained using simulated data.

Journal: Earth and Space Science

Scientists probe chilling behavior of promising solid-state cooling material

DOE/Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A research team led by the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory has bridged a knowledge gap in atomic-scale heat motion. This new understanding holds promise for enhancing materials to advance an emerging technology called solid-state cooling.

Journal: Science Advances
Funder: DOE/US Department of Energy

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