Creating a Super Lattice: Zipping Electrons, Jumping Holes, and the Quest for Solar Fuels

Designing a superlattice of chromium and iron oxides produces a material that allows electrons excited by sunshine to freely move away from their “holes,” answering a fundamental question for material scientists working to create the materials that produce fuels from sunlight.

Imagine having solar panels turn out fuel, essentially storing the sun’s energy for a rainy day. Scientists are…

Physical Sciences Division Research Highlights

While they’re essential to manufacturing everything from the case around your cell phone to the gas in your car, catalysts — molecules that drive chemical reactions but aren’t consumed by them — are not always well understood. Take the case of a catalyst made from palladium particles. The size of the particles seemed to determine if the catalyst drove the reaction to create methane or a different…

DOE creates new Center for Computational Materials at Argonne

The revolution of computational materials design is in the making, and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has taken a firm step toward achieving it by creating the Midwest Integrated Center for Computational Materials (MICCoM) at DOE’s Argonne National Laboratory. MICCoM will receive $3 million a year for four years from DOE’s Office of Basic Energy Sciences.

MICCoM’s mission is to develop…

Powering the Future with Solar Energy

As our energy demands continue to grow along with looming global climate change, there is an imminent need to replace fossil fuels with sustainable and clean sources of energy. Solar energy has been recognized as the most prominent source for future needs. Consequently, about half of the 32 Energy Frontiers Research Centers(EFRCs) are focused on understanding and exploiting fundamental science to…

UCLA physicists determine the three-dimensional positions of individual atoms for the first time

Atoms are the building blocks of all matter on Earth, and the patterns in which they are arranged dictate how strong, conductive or flexible a material will be. Now, scientists at UCLA have used a powerful microscope to image the three-dimensional positions of individual atoms to a precision of 19 trillionths of a meter, which is several times smaller than a hydrogen atom.

Their observations make…

Japanese Paper Art Inspires New 3-D Fabrication Method

A new assembly method based on an ancient Japanese paper art quickly transforms 2-D structures into complex 3-D shapes. The results, reported by a Northwestern University and University of Illinois research team, could be useful in tissue engineering and microelectromechanical systems. (Credit: University of Illinois) – See more at: http://www.northwestern.edu/newscenter/stories/2015/09/3d-fabric…

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Refined by nature over a billion years, photosynthesis has given life to the planet, providing an environment suitable for the smallest, most primitive organism all the way to our own species.

While scientists have been studying and mimicking the natural phenomenon in the laboratory for years, understanding how to replicate the chemical process behind it has largely remained a…

Two Great Catalysts that Work Great Together

Two metal-free catalysts, known as NOx and R2NO, can approach the efficiency of platinum in fuel cell’s, according to scientists at the Center for Molecular Electrocatalysis. Image: Nathan Johnson, PNNL Multimedia. 

Generating power without gasoline, diesel, or coal could change our nation’s energy and security landscape. However, replacing technologies that use fossil fuel with ones that…