A Berkeley Lab-led research team has demonstrated an ultrathin silicon nanowire that conducts heat 150% more efficiently than conventional materials used in advanced chip technologies. The device could enable smaller, faster, energy-efficient microelectronics.
New Silicon Nanowires Can Really Take the Heat
News Release Theresa Duque •
2 Berkeley Lab Physicists Elected into the National Academy of Sciences
News Release Theresa Duque •
Joel Moore and Joseph W. Orenstein of the Materials Sciences Division have been elected into the National Academy of Sciences. They join 120 scientists and engineers from the U.S. and 30 from across the world as new lifelong members and foreign associates.
Skyrmions on the Rise – New 2D Material Advances Low-Power Computing
News Release Media Relations •
A team co-led by Berkeley Lab has discovered a new ultrathin material with exotic magnetic features called skyrmions. The new material could enable the next generation of tiny, fast, energy-efficient electronic devices.
Using Hundred-Year-Old Chemistry to Capture Carbon Directly From Air
Feature Story Julie Chao •
Scientists at Berkeley Lab are working on new approaches to achieve direct air capture of carbon dioxide. Andrew Haddad, a researcher in Berkeley Lab’s Energy Technologies Area with a Ph.D. in inorganic chemistry, talks about how a Nobel Prize-winning chemistry concept from more than a century ago inspired his idea for efficiently capturing CO2.
Scientists Uncover Surprising New Clues to Exotic Superconductors’ Superpowers
News Release Theresa Duque •
Unconventional superconductors carry electrical current with zero resistance in ways that defy our previous understanding of physics. A recent study led by Berkeley Lab could help researchers advance future applications in next-gen energy storage, supercomputing, and magnetic levitating trains.
How X-Rays Can Make Better Batteries
Feature Story Theresa Duque •
In this Q&A, ALS senior staff scientist David Shapiro and Stanford materials science professor William Chueh share how their pioneering X-ray techniques can help researchers understand how battery materials work in real time at the atomic scale.
Safely Studying Dangerous Infections Just Got a Lot Easier
Feature Story Aliyah Kovner •
Soft X-ray tomography – a way to take gorgeously high-resolution, 3D images of cells – can help us study infections without risk of contamination. And now, the whole process takes just a fraction of the time and preparation required by other imaging methods.
Quantifying California’s Lithium Valley: Can It Power Our EV Revolution?
News Release Julie Chao •
The Salton Sea geothermal field in California potentially holds enough lithium to meet all of America’s domestic battery needs, with even enough left over to export some of it. But how much of that lithium can be extracted in a sustainable and environmentally friendly way? And how long will the resource last? These are just a few of the questions that researchers hope to answer in a new project sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy.
Scientists Discover ‘Secret Sauce’ Behind Exotic Properties of New Quantum Material
Science Snapshots Media Relations •
MIT physicists and colleagues, including scientists from Berkeley Lab, have discovered the “secret sauce” behind the exotic properties of a new quantum material known as a kagome metal.
With a Little Help, New Optical Material Assembles Itself
Feature Story Theresa Duque •
A research team led by Berkeley Lab has demonstrated an optical material that self-assembles from tiny concentric nanocircles. Their work could enable the large-scale manufacturing of nanocomposites for fiberoptic telecommunications systems as well as for buildings, automobiles, and aerospace.