Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientists have developed a 'brain-on-a-chip' device aimed at testing and predicting the effects of biological and chemical agents, disease or pharmaceutical drugs on the brain over time without the need for human or animal subjects. The device, part of the Lab’s iCHIP project, simulates the central nervous system by recording neural activity from multiple brain cell types deposited and grown onto...

  While additive manufacturing, commonly known as 3D printing, is enabling engineers and scientists to build parts in configurations and designs never before possible, the impact of the technology has been limited by layer-based printing methods, which can take up to hours or days to build three-dimensional parts, depending on their complexity.

A new ultralight silver nanowire aerogel could be a boost to the energy and electronics industries. Metal foams (or porous metals) represent a new class of materials with unique properties including lightweight, high surface area, high electrical conductivity and low thermal conductivity. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) researchers have created a new ultralight silver nanowire aerogel that could lead to advances in fuel cells, ...

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) scientists recently used synchrotron X-ray scattering to fully capture the hierarchical structure in self-organised carbon nanotube materials from the atomic to micrometer scale. Their work, recently published in ACS Nano, is the first to continuously map the structural order of nanotube ensembles across four orders of magnitude in length scale, all while employing a single technique.

  A technology originally developed to smooth out and pattern high-powered laser beams for the National Ignition Facility (NIF) can be used to 3D print metal objects faster than ever before, according to a new study by Lawrence Livermore researchers. A team of Lab scientists report the findings in the latest issue of Optics Express.

Metal 3D printing has enormous potential to revolutionise modern manufacturing. However, the most popular metal printing processes, which use lasers to fuse together fine metal powder, have their limitations. Parts produced using selective laser melting (SLM) and other powder-based metal techniques often end up with gaps or defects caused by a variety of factors.

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientists and collaborators at LANL for the first time have taken 3D snapshots of operating high explosive detonators. Scientists from LLNL, Los Alamos and National Security Technologies, LLC (NSTech) combined state-of-the-art imaging capabilities with computed tomographic reconstruction (X-ray cross sectional imaging) in experiments performed at the Argonne National Laboratory's Advanced Photon S...

For the first time, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientists and collaborators have captured a movie of how large populations of carbon nanotubes grow and align themselves. Understanding how carbon nanotubes (CNT) nucleate, grow and self-organise to form macroscale materials is critical for application-oriented design of next-generation supercapacitors, electronic interconnects, separation membranes and advanced yarns and fabrics.

  Advanced 3D printing promises to redefine manufacturing in critical industries such as aerospace, transportation and defense, and now, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is exploring the use of 3D printing to achieve unprecedented flexibility in producing "on-demand" targets for testing how materials behave under extreme conditions.

A team of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) scientists have created a method to purify copper nanowires with a near-100% yield. These nanowires are often used in nanoelectronic applications. The research, which appears in the online edition of Chemical Communications and on the cover of the hardcopy issue, shows how the method can yield large quantities of long, uniform, high-purity copper nanowires.

A team of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) physicists has performed a series of calculations shedding light on an unexpected way that iron transforms under dynamic compression. In a paper published in Physical Review Letters, the team describes first-principle calculations on two solid phases of iron, as well as on intermediate crystal structures along the transformation path from one phase to the other.

  A team of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory researchers have demonstrated the 3D printing of shape-shifting structures that can fold or unfold to reshape themselves when exposed to heat or electricity. The micro-architected structures were fabricated from a conductive, environmentally responsive polymer ink developed at the Lab.

A Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM) installed at the Lab earlier this year is giving LLNL researchers a clearer look at the atomic level of structures than they've had before. The Titan 80-300 TEM, manufactured by FEI Company, was installed in December and brings an expanded capability to the existing transmission electron microscope the Lab has had for about 20 years, according to LLNL staff scientist Joe McKeown.

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientists have combined X-ray diffraction and vibrational spectroscopy measurements together with first-principle calculations to examine the high-pressure structural behavior of magnesium chloride. Magnesium chloride (MgCl2) is well known to be an effective de-icing agent, for example, in the aviation industry.

For the first time, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) researchers have successfully incorporated adult human peripheral nervous system (PNS) cells on a microelectrode platform for long-term testing of chemical and toxic effects on cell health and function. The study, part of a project known as iCHIP (in-vitro Chip-Based Human Investigational Platform), was recently published online in the journal Analyst.

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientists have combined biology and 3D printing to create the first reactor that can continuously produce methanol from methane at room temperature and pressure. The team removed enzymes from methanotrophs, bacteria that eat methane, and mixed them with polymers that they printed or molded into innovative reactors. The research, which could lead to more efficient conversion of methane to ener...

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) has announced it will receive a first-of-a-kind brain-inspired supercomputing platform for deep learning developed by IBM Research. Based on a breakthrough neurosynaptic computer chip called IBM TrueNorth, the scalable platform will process the equivalent of 16m neurons and 4bn synapses and consume the energy equivalent of a hearing aid battery – a mere 2.5W of power.