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Physical and Life Sciences
Prototype cavity ring-down spectroscopy instrument for 14C measurements
A commercial cavity ring-down spectroscopy (CRDS) instrument for the measurement of 14C in biological studies has been developed through a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement between Picarro, Inc. and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory—where much of the initial research and development was performed. CRDS is a highly sensitive optical spectroscopic technique…
Surprising grain boundary structures found in refractory metals
Grain boundaries govern many of the properties of engineering materials, but until recently, computational techniques were not sufficiently powerful to predict grain boundary properties at elevated temperature, where they can undergo transitions from one structure to another. The study of grain boundary phase transitions is in its infancy, largely dominated by experiments…
Additive manufacturing advances K-9 training
Additive manufacturing (AM) has gone to the dogs, thanks to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s (LLNL’s) new approach to K-9 training materials. The process prints 3D objects that contain trace amounts of nonreactive explosives, resulting in several advantages for K-9s and their handlers. Chemist John Reynolds leads a team of LLNL scientists and engineers who recently…
Record experiments probe exoplanetary cores
Using high-powered laser beams, iron-silicon alloys have been compressed to unprecedented pressures corresponding to the center of a three-Earth-mass extrasolar planet. The resulting measurements of crystal structure and density provide new insights into the nature of the deep interiors of the large, Earth-like planets that have been discovered throughout our galaxy. The…
Americans ramp up use of solar, wind energy
Americans used more solar and wind energy in 2017 compared to the previous year, according to the most recent energy flow charts released by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). Overall, energy consumption by the residential and commercial sectors dropped a bit. Each year, the Laboratory releases energy flow charts that illustrate the nation's consumption and use…
LLNL maps out deployment of carbon capture and sequestration for ethanol production
To better understand the near-term commercial potential for capturing and storing atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2), researchers from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) have mapped out how CO2 might be captured from existing U.S. ethanol biorefineries and permanently stored (or sequestered) underground. The research appears in the April 23 edition of the…
New exascale system for earth simulation
A new earth modeling system unveiled today will have weather-scale resolution and use advanced computers to simulate aspects of Earth’s variability and anticipate decadal changes that will critically impact the U.S. energy sector in coming years. After four years of development, the Energy Exascale Earth System Model (E3SM) will be released to the broader scientific…
Lawrence Livermore issues state-by-state combined energy and water use flow charts
For the first time, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) has issued state-by-state energy and water flow charts in one location so that analysts and policymakers can find all the information they need in one place. LLNL worked with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) to produce the atlas of hybrid energy/water…
Next round for UN climate change report begins
The seven-year cycle of scientific assessment driven by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (UN-IPCC) has begun, with Lab scientist Paul Durack invited to contribute as a lead author for the sixth assessment report (AR6), chapter three, "Human Influence on the Climate System." This contribution continues a four-decade legacy of Lawrence Livermore…
Ramp compression of iron provides insight into core conditions of large rocky exoplanets
In a paper published today by Nature Astronomy, a team of researchers from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Princeton University, Johns Hopkins University and the University of Rochester have provided the first experimentally based mass-radius relationship for a hypothetical pure iron planet at super-Earth core conditions. This discovery can be used to…
A powerful new source of high-energy protons
Nearly 20 years ago, researchers conducting experiments on Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's (LLNL) Nova Petawatt laser system -- the world’s first quadrillion-watt laser -- discovered that when the system’s intense short-pulse laser beams struck a thin foil target, an unexpected torrent of high-energy electrons and protons streamed off the back of the target…
The definitive search for axion dark matter
Forty years ago, scientists theorized a new kind of low-mass particle that could solve one of the enduring mysteries of nature: what dark matter is made of. The search for that particle has just begun. This week, the Axion Dark Matter Experiment (ADMX) unveiled a new result (published in the April 9 edition of Physical Review Letters) that places it in a category of one:…
Night or day, Lab-developed space-based telescope can image Earth and beyond
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) researchers have developed and tested an optical telescope system that can be used for Earth and space observation. The team, led by Wim de Vries, built and tested several designs for high-resolution monolithic optical telescope systems, fabricated from a single piece of fused silica, for deployment on small satellites. After…
Machine learning models could save lives through personalized sepsis diagnostics
Researchers and clinicians may be able to track the progression of sepsis, a potentially life-threatening condition characterized by an extreme reaction to infection, with more precision and confidence using machine learning models developed at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in conjunction with health care provider Kaiser Permanente. Typical diagnostic tools…
Lab's Data Science Institute brings best minds in AI, machine learning under one umbrella
Machine learning. Deep learning. Artificial intelligence. Computer vision. Big data analytics. These aren’t just techie buzzwords — they’re all areas of research that fall under the sweeping term "data science." So how does a national laboratory, with researchers exploring all of these areas and more, coalesce these disciplines into a unified group? Launched earlier this…
Martovetsky's quest for carbon-free power endures at the world's largest fusion experiment
Growing up in Protvino, Russia, in the 1960s — home to the largest particle accelerator in the world when it launched in 1967 — Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) scientist Nicolai Martovetsky quickly became fascinated with physics and math. "Protvino was one of the towns in Russia built for science, and I was kind of a curious kid by nature," he said. "At…
Lab scientists successfully print glass optics
For the first time, researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) have successfully 3D-printed optical-quality glasses, on par with commercial glass products currently available on the market. In a study published in the journal Advanced Materials Technologies, LLNL scientists and engineers describe successfully printing small test pieces from Lab-developed…
Lawrence Livermore to lead United States-United Kingdom consortium for demonstrating remote monitoring of nuclear reactors
LIVERMORE—Harnessing the unusual characteristics of the elusive subatomic particles known as antineutrinos, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) will lead a new international multi-laboratory and university collaboration for nonproliferation research. The program will support the development of detection hardware and algorithms to enable improved nonproliferation…
A Solid Hydrogen-Storage Solution
At Lawrence Livermore, early-stage research to store hydrogen in solid materials, such as metal hydrides, could be a boon for advancing the hydrogen fuel economy. New results from these efforts, gleaned from this multidisciplinary approach, are reinvigorating scientists engaged in creating a technology infrastructure to produce, distribute, and store hydrogen for fuel cell…
Lab scientists optimizing high performance fuels for advanced internal combustion engines
In support of the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Co-Optimization of Fuels & Engines (Co-Optima) initiative, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) scientists are developing models of high performance fuels to see how they would perform in advanced internal combustion engines. The DOE national research effort is providing industry with the scientific underpinnings…
