Feature Articles

The upgraded Advanced Photon Source will need a new optics system, one that is much more precise than the current one. A team of Argonne specialists created the new system, and even had to invent new tools to design and test it.

New evidence suggests protons and neutrons go through a “first-order” phase transition to reach their melted state, a soup of quarks and gluons. This is a kind of stop-and-go change in temperature is similar to how ice melts: energy first increases the temperature. The temperature then stays steady while the energy transforms a solid to a liquid. Only when all the molecules are liquid can the temperature increase again.

Critical materials are essential for many key technologies, including batteries and wind turbines. The Department of Energy is working to reduce the need for them, recycle them, and expand domestic sources of them.

PNNL commemorates 9/11 and reflects on the 20 years of science and technology produced since to protect against threats and make America safer.

Z, a machine that exceeds the power of all the generating power plants on Earth when it fires, is the guest of honor tomorrow when its former directors come together to celebrate 25 years of the machine's existence. Z produces data that protects the nuclear stockpile, investigates aspects of the stars, and has moved forward humanity's quest for controlled nuclear fusion, a distant dream.

Rotational Hammer Riveting, developed by PNNL, joins dissimilar materials quickly without preheating rivets. The friction-based riveting enables use of lightweight magnesium rivets and also works on aluminum and speeds manufacturing.

Protons and neutrons orbit atomic nuclei in shells with caps on how many protons or neutrons they can hold. Full shells mean stable, compact nuclei. Physicists call the number of protons or neutrons in a “magic” numbered full shell. New research shows that a previously reported “magicity” for number 32 does not appear in neutron-rich potassium isotopes.

Each year, college graduates with a passion for STEM come to the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory to get hands-on experience through the Alonzo W. Ashley Fellowship Program. The program is named in honor of Al Ashley (1935-2019), who worked 31 years at the lab, championing diversity in the sciences and engineering. Supported by the efforts of the lab’s Committee for Outreach, Recruitment and Engagement (CORE) employee resource group and administered and partly funded by Human Resources, the program aims to bridge education and professional work experience for underrepresented groups. Here you will meet three of the current fellows and learn about their passion for physics, their work at SLAC and their advice on pursuing careers in STEM.

In a conventional tokamak, the cross-section of the plasma is shaped like the letter D. Facing the straight part of the D on the inside side of the donut-shaped tokamak is called positive triangularity. New research suggests that reversing the plasma—negative triangularity--reduces how much the plasma interacts with the surfaces of the tokamak for reduced wear.