Scientists crafting a nickel-based catalyst used in making hydrogen fuel built it one atomic layer at a time to gain full control over its chemical properties. But the finished material didn't behave as they expected: As ...
Materials Science
Jan 11, 2021
0
57
Polarons are fleeting distortions in a material's atomic lattice that form around a moving electron in a few trillionths of a second, then quickly disappear. As ephemeral as they are, they affect a material's behavior, and ...
General Physics
Jan 4, 2021
5
2978
Coronaviruses like the one that causes COVID-19 are studded with protein "spikes" that bind with receptors on the cells of their victims—the first step in infection. Now scientists have made the first detailed images of ...
Biochemistry
Dec 18, 2020
0
693
X-ray free-electron lasers, such as the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) at the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, produce intense X-ray pulses that allow researchers to image biological objects, ...
Condensed Matter
Nov 24, 2020
1
56
The universe is expanding but astrophysicists aren't sure exactly how fast that expansion is happening—not because there aren't answers, but rather because the answers they could give don't agree.
Astronomy
Nov 17, 2020
2
1273
When it comes to fully understanding the hidden secrets of quantum materials, it takes one to know one, scientists say: Only tools that also operate on quantum principles can get us there.
Quantum Physics
Oct 29, 2020
0
18
A new facility that could pave the way for a future generation of particle colliders and powerful light sources has turned on at the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. Operating as a DOE user facility, ...
General Physics
Oct 13, 2020
0
54
All cells with nuclei, from yeast to humans, are organized like cities, with a variety of small compartments—organelles—that serve as factories where various types of work are done. Some of those factories, like the ones ...
Cell & Microbiology
Oct 7, 2020
1
69
Particle accelerators generate high-energy beams of electrons, protons and ions for a wide range of applications, including particle colliders that shed light on nature's subatomic components, X-ray lasers that film atoms ...
General Physics
Sep 24, 2020
2
615
The second phase of a major upgrade project is now online at the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS), the pioneering X-ray free-electron laser at Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. On September 12, ...
Optics & Photonics
Sep 15, 2020
0
8
