News Releases

If a dangerous asteroid were headed toward Earth, one defense could be a nuclear detonation to blast one side with X-rays and nudge it off course. But new simulations suggest that for a lumpy, irregular asteroid, exactly where those X-rays hit could make a huge difference.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Within tiny halos of light clinging to a vanishingly thin wisp of optical fiber, scientist Jongmin Lee guides atoms like marbles through a narrow pipe. Rock the fiber and the atoms shift side by side; they just don’t fall off. But don’t be deceived by the seemingly delicate nature of his experiment. Lee is exploring how to measure motion precisely in rough-and-tumble environments.

Sandia National Laboratories, home to the DOE’s longest running quantum computing program, and tech company Quantinuum have published a paper in the scientific journal Nature that reports the performance of the company’s 98-qubit commercial system, Helios, which debuted last year.

Scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory showed they can “write” ferroelectric regions into aluminum nitride by using a helium ion beam to create precise defects while keeping the crystal intact. Ferroelectric materials can store information without needing continuous power, so this could lead to more reliable, lower-energy memory made with processes already used in chip manufacturing. The defect patterning reduced the amount of voltage needed to switch the material between its two stable internal states (like 0 and 1 in digital memory) by about 40% and boosted the electromechanical response, which also benefits radio-frequency filters and resonators — parts in wireless devices that tune and stabilize high-frequency signals.Scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory showed they can “write” ferroelectric regions into aluminum nitride by using a helium ion beam to create precise defects while keeping the crystal intact. Ferroelectric materials can store information without needing continuous power, so this could lead to more reliable, lower-energy memory made with processes already used in chip manufacturing. The defect patterning reduced the amount of voltage needed to switch the material between its two stable internal states (like 0 and 1 in digital memory) by about 40% and boosted the electromechanical response, which also benefits radio-frequency filters and resonators — parts in wireless devices that tune and stabilize high-frequency signals.

Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and collaborators found a new way to control how heat moves through certain ceramic materials. By applying an electric field, they changed the behavior of tiny vibrations in the material (called phonons), making heat travel much more easily in the direction of the field—nearly tripling thermal conductivity compared with other directions. The discovery could help create solid-state devices that manage heat more efficiently in electronics, energy systems and other technologies.

A paper published in Nature Communications shows how AI at Sandia National Laboratories is advancing beyond a mere automation tool toward becoming a powerful engine for clear, comprehensible scientific discovery.