Energy sciences

A new battery design harnesses waste heat in a four-step process: heating, charging, cooling and discharging.

In a recent experiment at SLAC's Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource, scientists "tickled" atoms to explore the flow of heat and energy across materials at ultrasmall scales.

SLAC-led researchers have made the first direct measurements of a small, extremely rapid atomic rearrangement that dramatically changes the properties of many important materials.

Scientists at SLAC and Stanford show how high-temperature superconductivity emerges out of magnetism in an iron pnictide, a class of materials with great potential for making devices that conduct electricity with 100 percent efficiency.

SLAC's Siegfried Glenzer has been selected to receive an Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award, presented by the U.S. Secretary of Energy to honor scientists across a range of fields.

A new theory and computer simulation by SLAC and Stanford researchers rule out high-energy magnetic interactions as a major factor in making copper oxide materials perfect electrical conductors – superconductors – at relatively high temperatures.

SLAC researchers have found a new way to transform graphite into diamond. The approach may have implications for industrial applications ranging from cutting tools to electronic devices.

Scientists have discovered a potential way to make graphene – a single layer of carbon atoms with great promise for future electronics – superconducting, a state in which it would carry electricity with 100 percent efficiency.

A new system at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory's X-ray laser narrows a rainbow spectrum of X-ray colors to a more intense band of light, creating a much more powerful way to view fine details in samples at the scale of...

An experiment at SLAC’s X-ray laser has revealed the first atomic-scale details of a new technique that could point the way to faster data storage in smartphones, laptops and other devices.

An electrode designed like a pomegranate – with silicon nanoparticles clustered like seeds in a tough carbon rind – overcomes several remaining obstacles to using silicon for a new generation of lithium-ion batteries, say its inventors at Stanford University and...

Jolting complex materials with bursts of energy from rapid-fire lasers can help scientists learn why some of these materials exhibit useful properties such as high-temperature superconductivity.