NEWS RELEASES

DOE Funded News

Updates every hour. Last Updated: 11-Nov-2026 20:16 ET (12-Nov-2026 01:16 GMT/UTC)

Astronomers find hints of star population that failed to explode

California Institute of Technology
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A new Caltech-led study using data from the LIGO–Virgo–KAGRA network of gravitational-wave observatories finds evidence for a distinct population of black holes that may have formed from failed supernovae.

Journal: Physical Review X
Funder: Simons Foundation

DOE labs and NY Creates partner to advance US microelectronics

NY Creates
Grant and Award Announcement

Researchers at Brookhaven National Laboratory, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and NY Creates have launched a U.S. Department of Energy-funded pilot program designed to accelerate development of next-generation semiconductor chips. The initiative will connect chip manufacturers with advanced research facilities, scientific expertise, and specialized equipment at the national laboratories to address critical industry challenges in semiconductor manufacturing, particularly in extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography and materials characterization. The project could have significant implications for technology, economic competitiveness, and national security. Advances in EUV lithography are expected to enable smaller, faster, and more energy-efficient semiconductor chips that power emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, high-performance computing, quantum systems, advanced communications, and next-generation consumer electronics.

A flexible new route to designer materials built from nanoparticles

Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Peer-Reviewed Publication

MIT researchers developed a new way to control how nanoparticles come together to create high-performing materials for photonics, chemical catalysis, medicine, agriculture, and more.

Journal: Nature Materials
Funder: U.S. Army, U.S. Navy

Breakthrough from Brown University engineers could enable energy-efficient microchips for AI

Brown University
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Brown University researchers developed a technique to make ultra-thin multiferroic materials that retain their functional properties, offering a potential path toward low-power microchips for AI.

Journal: Nature Materials
Funder: Army Research Office

Advanced microscope boosts ORNL’s atomic-scale materials research

DOE/Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Business Announcement

ORNL’s newly installed Thermo Scientific Spectra Ultra is among the most advanced aberration corrected scanning transmission electron microscopes in the national laboratory system. The instrument combines atomic-scale imaging, high-speed spectroscopy and Super Intelligence (SI)-enabled workflows to accelerate materials research. The capability will support the applied science development of advanced materials that strengthen U.S. manufacturing, energy technologies and economic competitiveness.

Quantum interference is key to catching electron waves

Columbia University
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Ever since quantum mechanics first described particles, like electrons, as rippling waves, researchers have wondered if those waves could be trapped in place. Writing today in Science a century later, a team of Columbia University researchers reports waves of electrons becoming trapped for the first time in a metal called Pd₅AlI₂.

Journal: Science
Funder: Brown Institute for Basic Sciences, Air Force Office of Scientific Research

UCLA-led study finds amino acid extends quantum properties above room temperature

California NanoSystems Institute
Peer-Reviewed Publication

New research started with a special material that behaves unusually when it’s extremely cold — 135 degrees below zero Fahrenheit, close to the most frigid temperature ever recorded in Antarctica — and showed that the unusual behavior could be extended to well above room temperature — up to about 135 F, close to the highest heat ever measured in Death Valley, California.

Journal: Nature Chemistry

Boise State joins project funded by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Genesis Mission and led by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab)

Boise State University
Grant and Award Announcement

Boise State joins effort to harness AI for precipitation forecasting, grid reliability

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