Crystallography for the misfit crystals

Advanced algorithms plus an exceptional X-ray laser can reveal the structures of not-so-neat-and-tidy materials unattainable by other techniques

24-Jan-2022 - Francis Crick, who famously co-discovered the shape of DNA, once said: “If you want to understand function, study structure.” Many decades later, this remains a tenet of biology, chemistry, and materials science. A key breakthrough in the quest for DNA’s structure came from X-ray crystallography, ...

Google provides open source library for quantum chemistry

Platform-independent solution to integrate future developments

26-Oct-2017 - Since physicists have been dealing with the theoretical description of molecules, the solving of quantum mechanical equations has been a major obstacle. This is supposed to be a thing of the past with the release of an open source based system. Google has introduced such a system to the public ...

2-D material's traits could send electronics R&D spinning in new directions

28-Jun-2017 - An international team of researchers, working at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and UC Berkeley, fabricated an atomically thin material and measured its exotic and durable properties that make it a promising candidate for a budding branch of ...

Thin-film ferroelectrics go extreme

12-May-2017 - Scientists have greatly expanded the range of functional temperatures for ferroelectrics, a key material used in a variety of everyday applications, by creating the first-ever polarization gradient in a thin film. The achievement by researchers at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley ...

Berkeley Lab scientists discover new atomically layered, thin magnet

Study reveals unprecedented control of ferromagnetic behavior in 2-D material

02-May-2017 - It may not seem like a material as thin as an atom could hide any surprises, but a research team led by scientists at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) discovered an unexpected magnetic property in a two-dimensional material. The scientists found that ...

Nanoscale tetrapods could provide early warning of a material’s failure

Scientists developing a new way to detect microscopic fractures in materials in the field

20-Sep-2016 - Light-emitting, four-armed nanocrystals could someday form the basis of an early warning system in structural materials by revealing microscopic cracks that portend failure, thanks to recent research by scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National ...

Massive trove of battery and molecule data released to public

10-Jun-2016 - The Materials Project, a Google-like database of material properties aimed at accelerating innovation, has released an enormous trove of data to the public, giving scientists working on fuel cells, photovoltaics, thermoelectrics, and a host of other advanced materials a powerful tool to explore ...

What screens are made of

New twists (and bends) in LCD research

20-Apr-2016 - Liquid crystals, discovered more than 125 years ago, are at work behind the screens of TV and computer monitors, clocks, watches and most other electronics displays, and scientists are still discovering new twists--and bends--in their molecular makeup. Liquid crystals are an exotic state of ...

A nanoscale look at why a new alloy is amazingly tough

11-Jan-2016 - Just in time for the icy grip of winter: A team of researchers led by scientists from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has identified several mechanisms that make a new, cold-loving material one of the toughest metallic alloys ever. The alloy is made of chromium, ...

Fundamental chemistry findings could help extend Moore's Law

17-Jul-2014 - Over the years, computer chips have gotten smaller thanks to advances in materials science and manufacturing technologies. This march of progress, the doubling of transistors on a microprocessor roughly every two years, is called Moore's Law. But there's one component of the chip-making process ...