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Scientists start small on the road to building gigantic DUNE neutrino detector

DOE/Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory

The planned Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment will require 70,000 tons of liquid argon, making it the largest experiment of its kind -- 100 times larger than the liquid-argon particle detectors that came before it. Before building this unprecedented machine, scientists understandably want to make sure it's going to work. That's why members of the international DUNE collaboration recently began taking data using a test version of their detector.

Scientists take nanoparticle snapshots

DOE/Argonne National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

An international team of researchers led by X-ray scientist Christoph Bostedt of the US Department of Energy's (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory and Tais Gorkhover of DOE's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory used two special lasers to observe the dynamics of a small sample of xenon as it was heated to a plasma.

Journal: Nature Photonics
Funder: DOE/US Department of Energy, Basic Energy Sciences Program, Volkswagen Foundation

A mile-deep campus

DOE/Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory

Students at South Dakota universities can study physics at Sanford Underground Research Facility, which doubles as essentially the first college campus located a mile underground.

Is the neutrino its own antiparticle?

DOE/Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory

Almost every particle has an antimatter counterpart: a particle with the same mass but opposite charge, among other qualities. But certain characteristics of neutrinos and antineutrinos make scientists wonder: Are they one and the same? Are neutrinos their own antiparticles?

Imaged 'jets' reveal cerium's post-shock inner strength

DOE/Argonne National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

'Jets' formed after shock waves passed through cerium metal provided the yield stress of cerium in its post-shock state, indicating the stress that would cause it to become permanently deformed.

Journal: Journal of Applied Physics
Funder: Basic Energy Sciences, DOE/US Department of Energy

How to find and study black holes

DOE/Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory

Black holes sound too strange to be real. But they are actually pretty common in space. There are dozens known and probably millions more in the Milky Way and a billion times that lurking outside. The makings and dynamics of these monstrous warpings of spacetime have been confounding scientists for centuries.

Superoxide gives lithium-air batteries a jolt

DOE/Argonne National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

In a recent experiment, Argonne battery scientists Jun Lu, Larry Curtiss and Khalil Amine, along with American and Korean collaborators, were able to produce stable crystallized lithium superoxide (LiO2) instead of lithium peroxide during battery discharging. Unlike lithium peroxide, lithium superoxide can easily dissociate into lithium and oxygen, leading to high efficiency and good cycle life.

Journal: Nature
Funder: United States Department of Energy's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy and Office of Science

Annihilating nanoscale defects

DOE/Argonne National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Researchers at the University of Chicago and Argonne may have found a way for the semiconductor industry to hit miniaturization targets on time and without defects.

Journal: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Funder: United States Department of Energy Basic Energy Sciences Materials Energy Program

New sister Interoperability Center opens in Europe

DOE/Argonne National Laboratory
Business Announcement

As global electric vehicle sales continue to rise, the European Union opened the first European Interoperability Center for Electric Vehicles and Smart Grids last month to make sure all of these cars have a standard plug and equipment that can work anywhere.

Funder: US Department of Energy Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy's Vehicle Technologies Office, European Commission

High-energy X-rays give industry affordable way to optimize cast iron

DOE/Argonne National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Researchers from Caterpillar and the US Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory conducted a proof of principle study that shows that high-energy synchrotron X-rays from the Advanced Photon Source can provide a new, affordable way for industry to optimize the mechanical and physical properties of cast iron in the manufacturing process.

Journal: Scripta Materialia
Funder: DOE/US Department of Energy