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Category: Materials Sciences

A New Way to Engineer Composite Materials

Silica nanoparticles affixed with a distribution of polystyrene chains (purple) self-assemble into hexagonal lattices. Depending on how the chains are organized on the particle surface, they tangle together (purple) or unravel (blue) when compressed.

Two Berkeley Lab Scientists Elected to the National Academy of Engineering

Two smiling people in circular frames on a gradient background.

Berkeley Lab Helps Explore Mysteries of Asteroid Bennu

Roughly diamond-shaped asteroid with a rocky, uneven surface, set against a completely black background.

Scientists Capture Images of Electron Molecular Crystals

2 rows of 3 scanning tunnel microscope images showing purple shapes against a dark background.

Researchers Succeed in Taking 3D X-ray Images of a Skyrmion

A rendering in paraview of the product of the 3D reconstruction. (Credit: David Raftrey)

Peter Fischer Appointed Director of Berkeley Lab’s Materials Sciences Division

Portrait of Peter Fischer, a person with short brown gray hair wearing glasses and a dark top, photographed against a gray backdrop.

New Computer Simulations Help Scientists Advance Energy-Efficient Microelectronics

Three individuals are pictured in separate circular frames against a background of a green circuit board. The person on the left has a beard and short dark hair, wearing a blue shirt. The person in the center has long black hair and is smiling, wearing a dark shirt. The person on the right has a beard and is wearing a suit jacket over a white shirt.

Kristin Persson Receives Distinguished Scientist Fellow Award

Kristin Persson holding a molecule model.

A New Approach to Accelerate the Discovery of Quantum Materials

This image shows the cobalt defect fabricated by the study team. The green and yellow circles are tungsten and sulfur atoms that make up a 2D tungsten disulfide sample. The dark blue circles on the surface are cobalt atoms. The lower-right area highlighted in blue-green is a hole previously occupied by a sulfur atom. The area highlighted in reddish-purple is a defect—a sulfur vacancy filled with a cobalt atom. The scanning tunneling microscope (gray) is using electric current (light blue) to measure the defect’s atomic-scale properties.

New Technology Provides Electrifying Insights into How Catalysts Work at the Atomic Level

A woman, left, and a man look at visual data on several monitors with components of an electron microscope nearby.

New Technique Could Help Build Quantum Computers of the Future

A person testing electronics that are part of the experimental setup used for making qubits in silicon in a lab.

Scientists Demonstrate the Potential of Electron Spin to Transmit Quantum Information

Magnon propagation in an antiferromagnet is revealed in these snapshots of spatially resolved transient reflectance, obtained using pairs of laser pulses.