Feature Articles

Physicists, engineers, and technicians at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory are rounding out the year with key developments to a house-sized particle detector that will begin capturing collision snapshots for the first time next spring.

The Quantum Systems Accelerator, a U.S. Department of Energy National QIS Research Center, dedicates special efforts to quantum education, especially at the high school level, which traditionally has not been regarded as an entry point to QIS. The outreach should help fill the increasing number of job vacancies in this fast-growing and developing field.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory seeks undergraduate and graduate students for a summer 2023 internship in robotics and instrumentation. Students will explore using robotics, artificial intelligence and machine learning.

Oak Ridge National Laboratory researchers have developed a novel experimental platform called OpeN-AM to study additively manufactured metal in real time using beams of neutrons. The experimental system features a robotic arm that 3D-prints metal welds to create complex shapes and objects. The entire process is automated by special software that controls the robotic arm and determines to make neutron measurements. Understanding how welds form and behave at the microscopic scale will provide insights into optimizing the technology more mainstream industrial use.

To cool quantum computing components, researchers use machines called dilution refrigerators. Researchers and engineers from the SQMS Center are building Colossus, the largest, most powerful refrigerator at millikelvin temperatures ever made. The new machine will enable new physics and quantum computing experiments.

On their way to market, technologies often reach what is called the “valley of death,” the point where a researcher or institution has developed a promising idea, has received funding through grants, and then runs out of cash to move the idea beyond the laboratory. How much easier would it be if the private sector found investors and raised capital, leaving research scientists free to do what they do best? Idaho National Laboratory is on a new path of exploration, as it has executed multiple agreements with Innovyz USA, a Chicago-based company that works with universities and laboratories to find new technologies ready for commercialization.