News Releases

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

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Updates every hour. Last Updated: 15-May-2025 03:10 ET (15-May-2025 07:10 GMT/UTC)

Moiré than meets the eye

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Researchers have discovered that phasons, low-temperature quasiparticles found in crystal lattices, enable interlayer excitons to move at very low temperatures, when motion should stop. In addition to contributing to foundational materials science knowledge, this discovery could help improve the stability of quantum technologies, such as using excitons as qubits.

New DESI results strengthen hints that dark energy may evolve

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Reports and Proceedings

The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument used millions of galaxies and quasars to build the largest 3D map of our universe to date. Combining their data with other experiments shows signs that the impact of dark energy may be weakening over time — and the standard model of how the universe works may need an update.

Meeting: Global Physics Summit 2025

DESI opens access to the largest 3D map of the universe yet

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Reports and Proceedings

A new data release from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument is now available for researchers to explore. The collection contains information on 18.7 million galaxies, quasars, and stars — the largest dataset of its kind ever shared.

Meeting: Global Physics Summit 2025

Scientists discover new heavy-metal molecule ‘berkelocene’

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Scientists have discovered “berkelocene,” the first organometallic molecule to be characterized containing the heavy element berkelium. The breakthrough disrupts long-held theories about the chemistry of the elements that follow uranium in the periodic table.

Journal: Science

A new way to engineer composite materials

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A new study led by researchers at Berkeley Lab outlines a way to engineer pseudo-bonds in materials. Instead of forming chemical bonds, which is what makes epoxies and other composites so tough, the chains of molecules entangle in a way that is fully reversible.

Journal: Advanced Materials

For better quantum sensing, go with the flow

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Scientists encased nanodiamonds in tiny moving droplets of water to improve quantum sensing. The new technique lets researchers detect trace amounts of certain ions and molecules, and could someday find applications in environmental monitoring, medicine, bioengineering, and more.

Journal: Science Advances

New photon-avalanching nanoparticles could enable next-generation optical computers

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Researchers have developed a new optical computing material from photon avalanching nanoparticles.

Journal: Nature Photonics

Berkeley Lab helps explore mysteries of Asteroid Bennu

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Berkeley Lab’s Advanced Light Source and Molecular Foundry provided powerful tools to study asteroid samples returned by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission. Researchers found that asteroid Bennu contained a set of salty mineral deposits that formed in an exact sequence when a brine evaporated, leaving clues about the type of water that flowed billions of years ago.

Journal: Nature

Taking stock of the known and unknown microbial space

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Using publicly available genome sequence data generated over the past three decades, an analysis from researchers at the DOE Joint Genome Institute assesses what fraction of the microbial diversity we know about, and proposes a path forward to curate and cultivate what is still unknown.

Journal: Science Advances
Funder: DOE/US Department of Energy

Milestone 10-GeV experiment shines light on laser-plasma interactions

DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

With dual lasers, researchers at the Berkeley Lab Laser Accelerator Center accelerated a high-quality beam of electrons to 10 billion electronvolts in just 30 centimeters. The experiment gives scientists a “frame-by-frame” look at how a petawatt laser interacts with a long plasma channel, knowledge that’s crucial for building future compact particle accelerators.

Journal: Physical Review Letters

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