Science & Research Highlights
April 23, 2009
Combining the results from several powerful techniques for studying materials structure at the nanoscale, including work at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National Laboratory, researchers believe they have settled a long-standing debate over the source of the unique electronic properties of a material with potentially great importance for wireless communications.
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April 21, 2009
The technology for storing electronic information has been a major force in the electronics industry for decades. Improving this technology to keep up with new requirements and trends has been an economic driver for as long as the technology has been around. Now, low-power, high-efficiency electronic memory could be the result of research at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National Laboratory.
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April 20, 2009
Sodium might appear to be an unassuming member of the Periodic Table of Elements, but scientists using the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National Laboratory have discovered that sodium displays a unique property by turning transparent when pressure is applied. This result has important implications for understanding highly compressed matter, in particular inside stars and giant planets.
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March 12, 2009
Ever since the Bronze Age, humans have experimented with combining different metals to create alloys having properties superior to either metal alone. But not all metals readily form alloys. Researchers using high-brilliance x-rays from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Photon Source have discovered that previously impossible alloys can be created by subjecting atoms to high pressure―opening possibilities for new materials in the future.
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March 5, 2009
Researchers using an x-ray beamline at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Photon Source have gained new information on how the motions of entangled polymer chains in a thin liquid film freeze as the film approaches the temperature at which the liquid goes into a glassy state.
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March 3, 2009
A snapshot of the elegant dance performed by viral proteins as they create the infectious structure that causes all manner of misery and disease has been captured by scientists using the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National Laboratory. Their work may help drug developers pinpoint attack sites for pharmaceuticals, and could have an impact on the emerging field of medical nanotechnology.
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March 3, 2009
Power plants based on turbine engines burning natural gas are a key component of future energy grids in the U.S. and other nations. A team of researchers applied the high-brightness x-ray beams from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National Laboratory to finding ways of incorporating new materials for this promising energy source.
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February 26, 2009
Scientists using the U.S. Department of Energy's Advanced Photon Source have manipulated electron mobility and pinpointed the mechanism controlling the strength of magnetic interactions in europium oxide and, hence, the material's magnetic ordering temperature.
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February 24, 2009
Because the atomic structure and polarity of ferroelectric materials respond dramatically to an applied electric field, they have found many applications. But what if there were another way to make ferroelectric materials do their thing—not electrically, but through another mechanism? Experimenters using an x-ray beamline at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Photon Source have managed to do just that, proving that not just electricity but also a little bit of chemistry can flip the structure and thus the polarity of a ferroelectric
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January 22, 2009
Like watchmakers prying open a complicated timepiece, researchers are using x-ray beams from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Photon Source, and the Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source, to peer into the molecular works of an enzyme that has long defied investigation. What they are discovering may one day make it possible to design safer, more effective cancer-fighting drugs.
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