Researchers have, for the first time, integrated two technologies widely used in applications such as optical communications, bio-imaging and Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) systems that scan the surroundings of self-driving cars and trucks. In the collaborative effort between the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory and Harvard University, researchers successfully crafted a metasurface-based lens atop a MEMS pla...

To build better solar cells, scientists need to design materials from the bottom up, placing chains of molecules just where they are needed. Scientists devised a new way to grow neatly arranged, densely packed bundles of molecular chains, specifically semiconducting polymer chains. The chains folded on themselves to make bundles that stretched from the growth plate to the film's surface. The bundles were packed side-by-side with neighboring bundl...

Los Alamos National Laboratory has produced the first known material capable of single-photon emission at room temperature and at telecommunications wavelengths. These carbon nanotube quantum light emitters may be important for optically-based quantum information processing and information security, while also being of significant interest for ultrasensitive sensing, metrology and imaging needs and as photon sources for fundamental advances in qu...

After discovering a novel group of giant viruses with a more complete set of translation machinery genes than any other virus known to date, scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute (DOE JGI), a DOE Office of Science User Facility, believe that this group (dubbed 'Klosneuviruses') significantly increases our understanding of viral evolution.

By crossing two counter-rotating ultrafast laser beams in a gas target, scientists controlled the direction and polarisation of laser-like beams in the extreme ultraviolet and soft x-ray portions of the spectrum. This represents a ability to manipulate x-ray light using visible light, and obviates the need for inefficient and expensive optics that other approaches must use to filter and steer such beams.

Yeasts are physically hard to distinguish, and it is easy to think they are all the same. Metabolically, genetically and biochemically, however, yeasts are highly diverse. So far industry has only harnessed a fraction of the diversity available for biotechnological applications, including biofuel production. In the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a team led by DOE Joint Genome Institute researchers aims to help boost the use of a...

Physicists led by Gerrit Kramer at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) have conducted simulations that suggest that applying magnetic fields to fusion plasmas can control instabilities known as Alfvén waves that can reduce the efficiency of fusion reactions. Such instabilities can cause quickly moving charged particles called "fast ions" to escape from the core of the plasma, which is corralled ...

  A team of researchers from the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, the University of Illinois at Chicago and the U.S. DOE Argonne National Laboratory have engineered silicon particles one-fiftieth the width of a human hair, which could lead to "biointerface" systems designed to make nerve cells fire and heart cells beat.

An international team using resources at the Center for Functional Nanomaterials tailored extremely small wires that carry light and electrons. They devised an approach that lets them tailor the wires through exquisite control over the structures at the nanoscale. New structures could open up a potential path to a wide range of smaller, lighter, or more efficient devices.

Detecting noxious gases, such as those released from power plants and other sources that can harm the environment, is something graphene does well, but it could be even better. Researchers discovered a way to significantly improve its performance by peppering high-quality graphene sheets with boron impurities. Compared to pristine graphene, these modified sheets, a.k.a. boron-doped graphene, were 27 times more sensitive at detecting nitrogen diox...

Lead-free, more efficient solar cells and other optoelectronics devices will likely be based on a family of materials known as hybrid perovskites. Scientists identified how to control different properties and stability in these solar cell materials using lead-free preparation. These new design principles identified super-ion building blocks, clusters of atoms that carry the same charge as the ions that they replace. Scientists can tailor these bu...

To create the next-gen of solar panels and other light-driven devices, scientists must model how complex interactions occur. Modeling across different scales, from individual atoms to very large systems with thousands of atoms, provides needed insights. In a review article in Chemical Reviews, a team of scientists assessed the state of the art for calculations used to model electronic states in exceedingly thin films.