Feature Articles

To mitigate the risks of living in extreme heat, scientists have developed policy recommendations and free toolkits in collaboration with city, state, and federal agencies and nonprofits to help disadvantaged communities adapt and thrive in a warming climate.

Researchers at the Center for High Precision Patterning Science (CHiPPS) in Berkeley, California, could help chip manufacturers make smaller, more powerful microchips and mitigate supply chain disruptions by helping the U.S. design and manufacture the world’s most advanced chips domestically. In a new Q&A, microelectronics expert and CHiPPS Director Ricardo Ruiz shares his perspective on keeping pace with Moore’s Law in the decades to come through a revolutionary technique called extreme ultraviolet lithography.

The Advanced Quantum Testbed (AQT) at Berkeley Lab celebrated the first five years of operations and its renewal with a two-day hybrid summit in May 2023, bringing together staff, alums, testbed users, and colleagues. The summit was a unique opportunity to come together, share the latest experimental breakthroughs and lessons learned, and jointly plan the path forward for AQT.

Ever since gene editing became feasible, researchers and health officials have sought tools that can quickly and reliably distinguish genetically modified organisms from those that are naturally occurring. Now, such tools exist. A suite of techniques was developed and refined over the course of a six-year program funded by the United States Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity.

The open-access collaborative research culture at AQT directly inspired three quantum artworks, which are also currently showcased in the laboratory.

In this Q&A, Berkeley Lab's Yuxin Wu discusses how scientists are developing sensing technologies that could be installed on floating offshore structures. This would allow the structures to self-monitor damaging conditions that could lead to costly repairs, and could also gauge impacts to marine mammals.

Researchers are helping women entrepreneurs in Uganda grow small businesses by investing in energy-efficient technology. Helping the women invest in energy-efficient equipment and appliances could not only benefit the women and their communities but could also reduce their business’s carbon footprint.

To accelerate development of useful new materials, researchers at Berkeley Lab are building a new kind of automated lab that uses robots guided by artificial intelligence. A-Lab will rapidly test whether materials that have been computationally predicted can be made in reality. The lab’s vision is to use AI to discover materials of the future, starting with a focus on materials for batteries and energy storage.

Scientists from Berkeley Lab contributed to landmark climate change reports published between 2018 and 2022. Their research laid the foundation for a new Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report urging nations to cut greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030.

Modeling the effects of earthquakes on homes, businesses, and infrastructure is about to get a lot easier, thanks to advanced simulations performed on the world's fastest supercomputers.