News Releases

Physical Sciences

Updates every hour. Last Updated: 25-Aug-2025 12:11 ET (25-Aug-2025 16:11 GMT/UTC)

New nanoscale technique unlocks quantum material secrets

DOE/Argonne National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Using a novel surface-sensitive spectroscopy method, scientists explored atomic vibrations in crystalline material surfaces near interfaces. The findings illuminate quantum behaviors that play important roles computing and sensing technologies.

Journal: Science Advances

Mini flow battery speeds energy storage research

DOE/Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Mini flow cell battery provides the first step toward an AI-driven, robotic energy storage discovery laboratory.

Journal: Journal of The Electrochemical Society
Funder: DOE/US Department of Energy

Mini flow battery speeds energy storage research

DOE/Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Mini flow cell battery provides the first step toward an AI-driven, robotic energy storage discovery laboratory.

Journal: Journal of The Electrochemical Society
Funder: DOE/US Department of Energy

From photons to protons: Argonne team makes breakthrough in high-energy particle detection

DOE/Argonne National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Researchers at Argonne have discovered that superconducting nanowire photon detectors can also be used as highly accurate particle detectors, and they have found the optimal nanowire size for high detection efficiency.

Journal: Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research

Innovative target design leads to surprising discovery in laser-plasma acceleration

DOE/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

SLAC researchers studying laser-driven proton acceleration introduced a self-replenishing water sheet target to address the inefficiency of replacing targets after each laser pulse. The new target had an unanticipated side effect, resulting in a naturally focused, more tightly aligned proton beam.

Journal: Nature Communications
Funder: DOE/US Department of Energy, U.S. National Science Foundation

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

Improving the way flash memory is made

DOE/Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

The narrow, deep holes required for one type of flash memory are made twice as fast with the right recipe, which includes a plasma made from hydrogen fluoride.

Journal: Journal of Vacuum Science & Technology A Vacuum Surfaces and Films

Peeling back the layers: Exploring capping effects on nickelate superconductivity

DOE/Brookhaven National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A team led by researchers at the National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II) used cutting-edge X-ray techniques to gain new insights into “infinite-layer” nickelate materials.

Journal: Physical Review Letters

Polymer editing can upcycle waste into higher-performance plastics

DOE/Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

By editing the polymers of discarded plastics, chemists at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have found a way to generate new macromolecules with more valuable properties than those of the starting material. Upcycling may help remedy the roughly 450 million tons of plastic discarded worldwide annually, of which only 9% gets recycled; the rest is incinerated or winds up in landfills, oceans or elsewhere.

Journal: Journal of the American Chemical Society
Funder: U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science, Laboratory Directed Research and Development program of Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Fresh, direct evidence for tiny drops of quark-gluon plasma

DOE/Brookhaven National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A new analysis of data from the PHENIX experiment at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) reveals fresh evidence that collisions of even very small nuclei with large ones might create tiny specks of a quark-gluon plasma (QGP). Scientists believe such a substance of free quarks and gluons, the building blocks of protons and neutrons, permeated the universe a fraction of a second after the Big Bang.

Journal: Physical Review Letters
Funder: DOE/US Department of Energy

1
2
3
4
5