New catalyst can turn smelly hydrogen sulfide into a cash cow

An illustration of the light-powered, one-step remediation process for hydrogen sulfide gas made possible by a gold photocatalyst created at Rice University.
Image Credit: Halas Group/Rice University

Hydrogen sulfide gas has the unmistakable aroma of rotten eggs. It often emanates from sewers, stockyards and landfills, but it is particularly problematic for refineries, petrochemical plants and other industries, which make thousands of tons of the noxious gas each year as a byproduct of processes that remove sulfur from petroleum, natural gas, coal and other products.

In a published study in the American Chemical Society’s high-impact journal ACS Energy Letters, Rice engineer, physicist and chemist Naomi Halas and collaborators describe a method that uses gold nanoparticles to convert hydrogen sulfide into high-demand hydrogen gas and sulfur in a single step. Better yet, the one-step process gets all its energy from light. Study co-authors include Rice’s Peter Nordlander, Princeton University’s Emily Carter and Syzygy Plasmonics’ Hossein Robatjazi.

“Hydrogen sulfide emissions can result in hefty fines for industry, but remediation is also very expensive,” said Halas, a nanophotonics pioneer whose lab has spent years developing commercially viable light-activated nanocatalysts. “The phrase ‘game-changer’ is overused, but in this case, it applies. Implementing plasmonic photocatalysis should be far less expensive than traditional remediation, and it has the added potential of transforming a costly burden into an increasingly valuable commodity.”

New MicroBooNE analysis takes a closer look at the sterile neutrino

MicroBooNE features state-of-the-art particle detection techniques and technology. The experiment studies neutrino interactions and is probing models of a theorized fourth neutrino called the sterile neutrino.
Photo Credit: Reidar Hahn, Fermilab

A new result from the MicroBooNE experiment at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory probes the Standard Model — scientists’ best theory of how the universe works. The model assumes there are three kinds of neutrinos. Yet for more than two decades, a proposed fourth kind of neutrino has remained a promising explanation for anomalies seen in earlier physics experiments. Finding the theorized sterile neutrino would be a major discovery and radical shift in our understanding of the universe.

The new analysis published in arXiv compares the experiment’s data to a model with a fourth, sterile neutrino to test their compatibility. MicroBooNE scientists found no evidence of the long-sought sterile neutrino in the parameter range explored.

The possibility that sterile neutrinos caused the yet-unexplained anomalies reported by previous experiments still remains. These include measurements by the Liquid Scintillator Neutrino Detector at Los Alamos National Laboratory, the MiniBooNE experiment at Fermilab, and several radiochemical and nuclear reactor neutrino experiments.

“This is the first time we’ve checked whether our data fit a specific sterile-neutrino model,” said Matt Toups, a Fermilab scientist and co-spokesperson for MicroBooNE. “We’ve excluded large sections of the sterile neutrino parameter space allowed by LSND. But there are still corners where a sterile neutrino could potentially be hiding.”

Researchers create the first quasiparticle Bose-Einstein condensate

Observation of Bose-Einstein condensates of excitons in a bulk semiconductor using mid-infrared induced absorption imaging realized in a dilution refrigerator A close-up picture of the apparatus in a cryogen-free dilution refrigerator. A dark red-colored cubic crystal in the center of the picture is cuprous oxide. A zinc selenide meniscus lens placed behind the crystal is an objective lens. A rod and a stage below the crystal is used for generation of an inhomogeneous strain field in the crystal that acts as a trap potential for excitons.
Credit: ©2022 Yusuke Morita, Kosuke Yoshioka and Makoto Kuwata-Gonokami, The University of Tokyo

Physicists have created the first Bose-Einstein condensate — the mysterious “fifth state” of matter — made from quasiparticles, entities that do not count as elementary particles but that can still have elementary-particle properties like charge and spin. For decades, it was unknown whether they could undergo Bose-Einstein condensation in the same way as real particles, and it now appears that they can. The finding is set to have a significant impact on the development of quantum technologies including quantum computing.

A paper describing the process of creation of the substance, achieved at temperatures a hair’s breadth from absolute zero, was published in the journal Nature Communications.

Bose-Einstein condensates are sometimes described as the fifth state of matter, alongside solids, liquids, gases and plasmas. Theoretically predicted in the early 20th century, Bose-Einstein condensates, or BECs, were only created in a lab as recently as 1995. They are also perhaps the oddest state of matter, with a great deal about them remaining unknown to science.

High-tech sensors could guide vehicles without satellites, if they can handle the ride

Sandia National Laboratories atomic physicist Jongmin Lee examines the sensor head of a cold-atom interferometer that could help vehicles stay on course where GPS is unavailable.
Photo credit: Bret Latter

Words like “tough” or “rugged” are rarely associated with a quantum inertial sensor. The remarkable scientific instrument can measure motion a thousand times more accurately than the devices that help navigate today’s missiles, aircraft and drones. But its delicate, table-sized array of components that includes a complex laser and vacuum system has largely kept the technology grounded and confined to the controlled settings of a lab.

Jongmin Lee wants to change that.

The atomic physicist is part of a team at Sandia National Laboratories that envisions quantum inertial sensors as revolutionary, onboard navigational aids. If the team can reengineer the sensor into a compact, rugged device, the technology could safely guide vehicles where GPS signals are jammed or lost.

In a major milestone toward realizing their vision, the team has successfully built a cold-atom interferometer, a core component of quantum sensors, designed to be much smaller and tougher than typical lab setups. The team describes their prototype in the academic journal Nature Communications, showing how to integrate several normally separated components into a single monolithic structure. In doing so, they reduced the key components of a system that existed on a large optical table down to a sturdy package roughly the size of a shoebox.

A laser that could ‘reshape the landscape of integrated photonics’

A team of researchers led by Qiang Lin, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Rochester, has developed the first multi-color integrated laser that emits high-coherence light at telecommunication wavelengths, allows laser-frequency tuning at record speeds, and is the first narrow linewidth laser with fast configurability at the visible band.
Credit: University of Rochester / J. Adam Fenster

How do you integrate the advantages of a benchtop laser that fills a room onto a semiconductor chip the size of a fingernail?

A research team co-led by Qiang Lin, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Rochester, has set new milestones in addressing this challenge, with the first multi-color integrated laser that:

• Emits high-coherence light at telecommunication wavelengths
• Allows laser-frequency tuning at record speeds
• Is the first narrow linewidth laser with fast configurability at the visible band

The project, described in Nature Communications, was co-led by John Bowers, distinguished professor at University of California/Santa Barbara, and Kerry Vahala, professor at the California Institute of Technology. Lin Zhu, professor at Clemson University, also collaborated on the project.

Ural Scientists Created Nanoparticle Growth Technology

The new material is suitable for solar cells, biosensors, and other systems working on quantum principles.
Photo credit: Vladimir Petrov

Physicists at Ural Federal University and their colleagues from the Institute of Electrophysics, Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and the Institute of Ion Plasma and Laser Technologies, Academy of Sciences, have developed a technology for growing nonspherical nanoparticles that are synthesized by ion implantation. With the new technique, it is possible to grow nanoparticles of different shapes and thus obtain the necessary properties and control them. The technology is applicable to different metals, both noble metals such as gold, silver, platinum, and "ordinary", the scientists assure. A description of the technology and the results of the first experiments - copper implantation in ceramics - are presented in the Journal of Physics and Chemistry of Solids.

"By changing the shape of nanoparticles from spherical to non-spherical, we were able to increase the range of optical absorption. This, in turn, is the basis for further converting the absorbed energy into electricity and heat. As a result, we can get more functional sensors and increase their sensitivity range. If such nanoparticles are built into lasers, their power will increase. If we talk about sensors, their sensitivity will increase. As for sensors, their response time will change. This is all due to the peculiarity of plasmon resonance, which leads to the fact that around the nanoparticles there is an amplified electric field," explains study co-author Arseny Kiryakov, Associate Professor at the Department of Physical Techniques and Devices for Quality Control at UrFU.

Our brains use quantum computation

Scientists from Trinity believe our brains could use quantum computation after adapting an idea developed to prove the existence of quantum gravity to explore the human brain and its workings. The discovery may shed light on consciousness, the workings of which remain scientifically difficult to understand and explain. Quantum brain processes could also explain why we can still outperform supercomputers when it comes to unforeseen circumstances, decision making, or learning something new

Scientists from Trinity believe our brains could use quantum computation after adapting an idea developed to prove the existence of quantum gravity to explore the human brain and its workings.

The brain functions measured were also correlated to short-term memory performance and conscious awareness, suggesting quantum processes are also part of cognitive and conscious brain functions.

If the team’s results can be confirmed – likely requiring advanced multidisciplinary approaches –they would enhance our general understanding of how the brain works and potentially how it can be maintained or even healed. They may also help find innovative technologies and build even more advanced quantum computers.

Researchers discover new monster black hole 'practically in our back yard'

Dr. Sukanya Chakrabarti, the Pei-Ling Chan Endowed Chair in the Department of Physics & Astronomy, is the paper’s lead author. 
Credit: Michael Mercier / UAH

The discovery of a so-called monster black hole that has about 12 times the mass of the sun is detailed in a new Astrophysical Journal research submission, the lead author of which is Dr. Sukanya Chakrabarti, a physics professor at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH).

“It is closer to the sun than any other known black hole, at a distance of 1,550 light years,” says Dr. Chakrabarti, the Pei-Ling Chan Endowed Chair in the Department of Physics at UAH, a part of the University of Alabama System. “So, it's practically in our backyard.”

Black holes are seen as exotic because, although their gravitational force is clearly felt by stars and other objects in their vicinity, no light can escape a black hole so they can’t be seen in the same way as visible stars.

“In some cases, like for supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies, they can drive galaxy formation and evolution,” Dr. Chakrabarti says.

“It is not yet clear how these noninteracting black holes affect galactic dynamics in the Milky Way. If they are numerous, they may well affect the formation of our galaxy and its internal dynamics.”

Physicists confirm hitch in proton structure

The real photon that is produced in the virtual Compton scattering reaction provides electromagnetic perturbation to the proton and allows to measure its electromagnetic generalized polarizabilities.
Image credit: Courtesy of Nikos Sparveris, Temple University

Nuclear physicists have confirmed that the current description of proton structure isn’t all smooth sailing. A new precision measurement of the proton’s electric polarizability performed at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility has revealed a bump in the data in probes of the proton’s structure. Though widely thought to be a fluke when seen in earlier measurements, this new, more precise measurement has confirmed the presence of the anomaly and raises questions about its origin. The research has just been published in the journal Nature.

According to Ruonan Li, first author on the new paper and a graduate student at Temple University, measurements of the proton’s electric polarizability reveal how susceptible the proton is to deformation, or stretching, in an electric field. Like size or charge, electric polarizability is a fundamental property of proton structure.

What’s more, a precision determination of the proton’s electric polarizability can help bridge the different descriptions of the proton. Depending on how it is probed, a proton may appear as an opaque single particle or as a composite particle made of three quarks held together by the strong force.

The Most Precise Accounting Yet of Dark Energy and Dark Matter

G299 was left over by a particular class of supernovas called Type Ia. 
Credit: NASA/CXC/U.Texas

 Astrophysicists have performed a powerful new analysis that places the most precise limits yet on the composition and evolution of the universe. With this analysis, dubbed Pantheon+, cosmologists find themselves at a crossroads.

Pantheon+ convincingly finds that the cosmos is composed of about two-thirds dark energy and one-third matter — mostly in the form of dark matter — and is expanding at an accelerating pace over the last several billion years. However, Pantheon+ also cements a major disagreement over the pace of that expansion that has yet to be solved.

By putting prevailing modern cosmological theories, known as the Standard Model of Cosmology, on even firmer evidentiary and statistical footing, Pantheon+ further closes the door on alternative frameworks accounting for dark energy and dark matter. Both are bedrocks of the Standard Model of Cosmology but have yet to be directly detected and rank among the model's biggest mysteries. Following through on the results of Pantheon+, researchers can now pursue more precise observational tests and hone explanations for the ostensible cosmos.

"With these Pantheon+ results, we are able to put the most precise constraints on the dynamics and history of the universe to date," says Dillon Brout, an Einstein Fellow at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian. "We've combed over the data and can now say with more confidence than ever before how the universe has evolved over the eons and that the current best theories for dark energy and dark matter hold strong."

New laboratory to explore the quantum mysteries of nuclear materials

INL researchers have built a laboratory around molecular beam epitaxy (MBE), a process that creates ultra-thin layers of materials with a high degree of purity and control.
Credit: Idaho National Laboratory

Replete with tunneling particles, electron wells, charmed quarks and zombie cats, quantum mechanics takes everything Sir Isaac Newton taught about physics and throws it out the window.

Every day, researchers discover new details about the laws that govern the tiniest building blocks of the universe. These details not only increase scientific understanding of quantum physics, but they also hold the potential to unlock a host of technologies, from quantum computers to lasers to next-generation solar cells.

But there’s one area that remains a mystery even in this most mysterious of sciences: the quantum mechanics of nuclear fuels.

Exploring the frontiers of quantum mechanics

Until now, most fundamental scientific research of quantum mechanics has focused on elements such as silicon because these materials are relatively inexpensive, easy to obtain and easy to work with.

Now, Idaho National Laboratory researchers are planning to explore the frontiers of quantum mechanics with a new synthesis laboratory that can work with radioactive elements such as uranium and thorium.

Graphene Boosts Flexible and Wearable Electronics

At 200 times stronger than steel, graphene has been hailed as a super material of the future since its discovery in 2004. The ultrathin carbon material is an incredibly strong electrical and thermal conductor, making it a perfect ingredient to enhance semiconductor chips found in many electrical devices.

But while graphene-based research has been fast-tracked, the nanomaterial has hit roadblocks: in particular, manufacturers have not been able to create large, industrially relevant amounts of the material. New research from the laboratory of Nai-Chang Yeh, the Thomas W. Hogan Professor of Physics, is reinvigorating the graphene craze.

In two new studies, the researchers demonstrate that graphene can greatly improve electrical circuits required for wearable and flexible electronics such as smart health patches, bendable smartphones, helmets, large folding display screens, and more.

In one study, published in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, the researchers grew graphene directly onto thin two-dimensional copper lines commonly used in electronics. The results showed that the graphene not only improved the lines' conducting properties but also protected the copper-based structures from usual wear and tear. For instance, they showed that graphene-coated copper structures could be folded 200,000 times without damage, as compared to the original copper structures, which started cracking after 20,000 folds. The results demonstrate that graphene can help create flexible electronics with longer lifetimes.

Boron Nitride with a Twist Could Lead to New Way to Make Qubits

Shaul Aloni, Cong Su, Alex Zettl, and Steven Louie at the Molecular Foundry. The researchers synthesized a device made from twisted layers of hexagonal boron nitride with color centers that can be switched on and off with a simple switch.
Credit: Marilyn Sargent/Berkeley Lab

Achieving scalability in quantum processors, sensors, and networks requires novel devices that are easily manipulated between two quantum states. A team led by researchers from the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has now developed a method, using a solid-state “twisted” crystalline layered material, which gives rise to tiny light-emitting points called color centers. These color centers can be switched on and off with the simple application of an external voltage.

“This is a first step toward a color center device that engineers could build or adapt into real quantum systems,” said Shaul Aloni, a staff scientist at Berkeley Lab’s Molecular Foundry, who co-led the study. The work is detailed in the journal Nature Materials.

For example, the research could lead to a new way to make quantum bits, or qubits, which encode information in quantum computers.

Color centers are microscopic defects in a crystal, such as diamond, that usually emit bright and stable light of specific color when struck with laser or other energy source such as an electron beam. Their integration with waveguides, devices that guide light, can connect operations across a quantum processor. Several years ago, researchers discovered that color centers in a synthesized material called hexagonal boron nitride (hBN), which is commonly used as a lubricant or additive for paints and cosmetics, emitted even brighter colors than color centers in diamond. But engineers have struggled to use the material in applications because producing the defects at a determined location is difficult, and they lacked a reliable way to switch the color centers on and off.

Bristol physicists play key role in new measurement relating the Higgs boson to dark matter

Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at Geneva, Switzerland
Credit: Brice, Maximilien: CERN

Researchers from the University of Bristol have been working with scientists globally to further unravel the way a unique fundamental particle, known as the Higgs boson, might interact with dark matter.

The team of physicists helped conduct the experimental analysis from the most powerful particle accelerator ever built – the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, in Geneva, Switzerland.

Analyzing data collected with a general-purpose detector called the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS), at the LHC, they searched for invisible decays of the Higgs boson and achieved the most precise results to date, allowing for new insights into dark matter properties.

The results, presented at the 12th Higgs Hunting Conference in Paris last month, provide the strongest constraints on how dark matter interacts with the normal matter in our universe, assuming the dark matter mass is similar to or a few times heavier than that of a proton.

Since the discovery of the Higgs boson 10 years ago, scientists at CERN have made rapid progress in measuring and determining the properties of this unique fundamental particle by studying the different ways in which it decays. One of the most intriguing channels to search for is the “invisible” channel – a decay to particles that the experimental apparatus cannot detect. In the Standard Model of particle physics such an invisible decay is predicted to happen once in every 1000 Higgs boson decays by decaying into four neutrinos, the only “invisible” particles known in the Standard Model.

How Stiff Is the Proton?

Compton scattering setup at the High Intensity Gamma Ray Source. The central cylinder is the liquid hydrogen target. High energy gamma rays are scattered from the liquid hydrogen into eight large detectors that measure the gamma rays’ energy.
Image courtesy of Mohammad Ahmed, North Carolina Central University and Triangle Universities Nuclear Laboratory

The proton is a composite particle made up of fundamental building blocks of quarks and gluons. These components and their interactions determine the proton’s structure, including its electrical charges and currents. This structure deforms when exposed to external electric and magnetic (EM) fields, a phenomenon known as polarizability. The EM polarizabilities are a measure of the stiffness against the deformation induced by EM fields. By measuring the EM polarizabilities, scientists learn about the internal structure of the proton. This knowledge helps to validate scientific understanding of how nucleons (protons and neutrons) form by comparing the results to theoretical descriptions of gamma-ray scattering from nucleons. Scientists call this scattering process nucleon Compton scattering.

When scientists examine the proton at a distance and scale where EM responses dominate, they can determine values of EM polarizabilities with high precision. To do so, they use the theoretical frame of Effective Field Theories (EFTs). The EFTs hold the promise of matching the description of the nucleon structure at low energies to the current theory of the strong nuclear force, called quantum chromodynamics (QCD). In this research, scientists validated EFTs using proton Compton scattering. This approach also validated the framework and methodology that underlie EFTs.

Proton Compton scattering is the process by which scientists scatter circularly or linearly polarized gamma rays from a hydrogen target (in this case, a liquid target), then measure the angular distribution of the scattered gamma rays. High-energy gamma rays carry strong enough EM fields that the response of the charges and currents in the nucleon becomes significant. In this study, scientists performed new measurements of Compton scattering from the proton at the High Intensity Gamma Ray Source (HIGS) at the Triangle Universities Nuclear Laboratory. This work provided a novel experimental approach for Compton scattering from the proton at low energies using polarized gamma rays. The study advances the need for new high-precision measurements at HIGS to improve the accuracy of proton and neutron polarizabilities determinations. These measurements validate the theories which link the low-energy description of nucleons to QCD.

Funding:
This work was funded by the Department of Energy Office of Science, the National Science Foundation, the U.K. Science and Technology Facilities Council Grants, and funds from the Dean of the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences at George Washington University and its Vice-President for Research. The researchers also acknowledge the financial support of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and the support of Eugen-Merzbacher Fellowship.

Publications:
X. Li et al., “Proton Compton Scattering from Linearly Polarized Gamma Rays”, Physical Review Letters. 

Source/Credit: U.S. Department of Energy

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New Superconducting Qubit Testbed Benefits Quantum Information Science Development

A superconducting qubit sits in a dilution refrigerator in a Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) physics lab. This experimental device is the first step in establishing a qubit testbed at PNNL.
  Photo Credit: Andrea Starr | Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

If you’ve ever tried to carry on a conversation in a noisy room, you’ll be able to relate to the scientists and engineers trying to “hear” the signals from experimental quantum computing devices called qubits. These basic units of quantum computers are early in their development and remain temperamental, subject to all manner of interference. Stray “noise” can masquerade as a functioning qubit or even render it inoperable.

That’s why physicist Christian Boutan and his Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) colleagues were in celebration mode recently as they showed off PNNL’s first functional superconducting qubit. It’s not much to look at. Its case—the size of a pack of chewing gum--is connected to wires that transmit signals to a nearby panel of custom radiofrequency receivers. But most important, it’s nestled within a shiny gold cocoon called a dilution refrigerator and shielded from stray electrical signals. When the refrigerator is running, it is among the coldest places on Earth, so very close to absolute zero, less than 6 millikelvin (about −460 degrees F).

New light for shaping electron beams

Recent experiments at the University of Vienna show that light (red) can be used to arbitrarily shape electron beams (yellow), opening new possibilities in electron microscopy and metrology.
Credit: stefaneder.at, University of Vienna

A new technique that combines electron microscopy and laser technology enables programable, arbitrary shaping of electron beams. It can potentially be used for optimizing electron optics and for adaptive electron microscopy, maximizing sensitivity while minimizing beam-induced damage. This fundamental and disruptive technology was now demonstrated by researchers at the University of Vienna, and the University of Siegen. The results are published in PRX.

When light passes through turbulent or dense material, e.g. the Earth’s atmosphere or a millimeter-thick tissue, standard imaging technologies experience significant limitations in the imaging quality. Scientists therefore place deformable mirrors in the optical path of the telescope or microscope, which cancel out the undesired effects. This so-called adaptive optics has led to many breakthroughs in astronomy and deep-tissue imaging.

However, this level of control has not yet been achieved in electron optics even though many applications in materials science and structural biology demand it. In electron optics, scientists use beams of electrons instead of light to image structures with atomic resolution. Usually, static electromagnetic fields are used to steer and focus the electron beams.

How fish survive the extreme pressures of life in the oceans

Photo credit: Milos Prelevic

Scientists have discovered how a chemical in the cells of marine organisms enables them to survive the high pressures found in the deep oceans.

The deeper that sea creatures live, the more inhospitable and extreme the environment they must cope with. In one of the deepest points in the Pacific - the Mariana Trench, 11 kilometers below the sea surface - the pressure is 1.1 kbar or eight tons per square inch. That is a 1,100-fold increase of the pressure experienced at the Earth’s surface.

Under normal or atmospheric pressure, water molecules form a tetrahedron-like network. At high pressure, though, the network of water molecules begins to distort and change shape. When this happens to the water inside living cells, it prevents vital bio-chemical processes from taking place - and kills the organism.

Our study provides a bridge between water under pressure at the molecular level and the wonderful ability of organisms which thrive under high pressure in depths of the oceans.

In reporting their findings, the researchers in Leeds have for the first time been able to provide an explanation of how a molecule found in the cells of marine organisms counteracts the effect of external pressure on the water molecules.

Scientists bring the fusion energy that lights the sun and stars closer to reality on Earth

Physicist Min-Gu Yoo with slides from his paper in background.
Photo credit: Elle Starkman/PPPL Office of Communications; collage by Kiran Sudarsanan

Physicists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) have proposed the source of the sudden and puzzling collapse of heat that precedes disruptions that can damage doughnut-shaped tokamak fusion facilities. Coping with the source could overcome one of the most critical challenges that future fusion facilities will face and bring closer to reality the production on Earth of the fusion energy that drives the sun and stars.

Researchers traced the collapse to the 3D disordering of the strong magnetic fields that bottle up the hot, charged plasma gas that fuels the reactions. “We proposed a novel way to understand the [disordered] field lines, which was usually ignored or poorly modeled in the previous studies,” said Min-Gu Yoo, a post-doctoral researcher at PPPL and lead author of a Physics of Plasmas paper selected as an editor’s pick together with a figure placed on the cover of the July issue. Yoo has since become a staff scientist at General Atomics in San Diego.

The strong magnetic fields substitute in fusion facilities for the immense gravity that holds fusion reactions in place in celestial bodies. But when disordered by plasma instability in laboratory experiments the field lines allow the superhot plasma heat to rapidly escape confinement. Such million-degree heat crushes plasma particles together to release fusion energy and can strike and damage fusion facility walls when released from confinement.

Scientists chip away at a metallic mystery, one atom at a time

In this photo from 2020, Christopher Barr, right, a former Sandia National Laboratories postdoctoral researcher, and University of California, Irvine, professor Shen Dillon operate the In-situ Ion Irradiation Transmission Electron Microscope. Barr was part of a Sandia team that used the one-of-a-kind microscope to study atomic-scale radiation effects on metal.
Photo credit: Lonnie Anderson

Gray and white flecks skitter erratically on a computer screen. A towering microscope looms over a landscape of electronic and optical equipment. Inside the microscope, high-energy, accelerated ions bombard a flake of platinum thinner than a hair on a mosquito’s back. Meanwhile, a team of scientists studies the seemingly chaotic display, searching for clues to explain how and why materials degrade in extreme environments.

Based at Sandia, these scientists believe the key to preventing large-scale, catastrophic failures in bridges, airplanes and power plants is to look — very closely — at damage as it first appears at the atomic and nanoscale levels.

“As humans, we see the physical space around us, and we imagine that everything is permanent,” Sandia materials scientist Brad Boyce said. “We see the table, the chair, the lamp, the lights, and we imagine it’s always going to be there, and it’s stable. But we also have this human experience that things around us can unexpectedly break. And that’s the evidence that these things aren’t really stable at all. The reality is many of the materials around us are unstable.”