The clean energy commute of the future could come from research conducted at facilities like Berkeley Lab’s Molecular Foundry, where Rizia Bardhan is helping to develop new hydrogen storage materials. She recently earned a spot on Forbes’ list of 30 people under 30 who are rising stars in science.

When Gang Ren whirls the controls of his cryo-electron microscope, he compares it to fine-tuning the gearshift and brakes of a racing bicycle. But this machine at Berkeley Lab is a bit more complex. It costs nearly $1.5 million, operates at the frigid temperature of liquid nitrogen, and it is allowing scientists to see what no one has seen before. He and his colleague Lei Zhang are reporting the first 3-D images of an individual protein ever obtained with enough clarity to determine its structure.

Omar Yaghi, one of the world’s most cited chemists and leading authorities on nanoscience, is the new director of the Molecular Foundry, a U.S. Department of Energy nanoscience center at Berkeley Lab.

Berkeley Lab researchers at the Molecular Foundry have discovered a universal technique for stripping nanocrystals of tether-like molecules that pose as obstacles for their integration into devices. These findings could provide scientists with a clean slate for developing new nanocrystal-based technologies for energy storage, photovoltaics, smart windows, solar fuels and light-emitting diodes.

Berkeley Lab researchers at the Molecular Foundry have shed light on the role of temperature in controlling a fabrication technique for drawing chemical surface patterns as small as 20 nanometers. This technique could provide an inexpensive, fast route to growing and patterning a wide variety of materials on surfaces to build electrical circuits and chemical sensors, or study how pharmaceuticals bind to proteins and viruses.

Berkeley Lab researchers at the Molecular Foundry like their solutions shaken, not stirred. In this way they have been able to engineer two-dimensional, biomimetic nanosheets with atomic precision for a wide range of applications, including the creation of platforms for sensing molecules, and membranes for filtration. To enable this self-assembly of 2D nanosheets they have developed a programmable device to rock the vial of solutions. They call it a “SheetRocker.”

Berkeley Lab researchers have built a high-capacity energy storage device for lithium ion batteries by constructing a unique nanoscale sandwich of graphene and tin. The device is engineered to improve electrochemical cycling of the battery, which reduces charging time and allows repeated recharging without degrading battery performance.

Berkeley Lab scientists have engineered a universal, highly sensitive technique for detecting misfolded proteins in biological fluids. This groundbreaking nanoscience capability could help pinpoint Alzheimer’s in its early stages and enable researchers to discover new therapies for this devastating disease.

Berkeley Lab scientists have engineered an innovative imaging technique to visualize plasmonic fields with nanoscale resolution. This technique, which harnesses light within a bowtie-shaped structure, could be used to measure the performance of plasmonic devices.

Berkeley Lab scientists have coaxed polymers to braid themselves into wispy nanoscale ropes that approach the structural complexity of biological materials. Their work is the latest development in the push to develop self-assembling nanoscale materials that mimic the intricacy and functionality of nature’s handiwork, but which are rugged enough to withstand harsh conditions such as heat and dryness.