Lithium-ion batteries, popular in today’s electronic devices, could gain significant energy density if their graphite anodes were replaced with lithium metal anodes. But there’s a major concern with substituting lithium—when the battery cycles, microscopic fibers of the lithium anodes (“dendrites”) form on the surface of the lithium electrode and spread across the electrolyte until they reach the other electrode, possibly leading to short circuiting. Researchers have recently discovered that the x-ray microtomography capabilities at ALS Beamline 8.3.2 can give them a novel view of dendrite growth that’s likely to provide the insight needed to stop it. Read more »
IBM Probes Material Capabilities at the ALS
Vanadium dioxide, one of the few known materials that acts like an insulator at low temperatures but like a metal at warmer temperatures, is a somewhat futuristic material that could yield faster and much more energy-efficient electronic devices. Researchers from IBM’s forward-thinking Spintronic Science and Applications Center (SpinAps) recently used the ALS to gain greater insight into vanadium dioxide’s unusual phase transition. Read more » 
Minding the Gap Makes for More Efficient Solar Cells
Using novel materials to develop thin, flexible, and more efficient photovoltaic cells is one of the hottest topics in current materials research. A class of transition metals undergoes a dramatic change that makes them ideal for solar energy applications. Read more »
The Molecular Ingenuity of a Unique Fish Scale
ALS research has shown how the scales of a freshwater fish found in the Amazon Basin can literally re-orient themselves in real time to resist force, in essence creating an adaptable body armor. Read more »
Learning from Roman Seawater Concrete
Analyses of ancient concrete samples pinpointed why the best Roman concrete was superior to most modern concrete in durability, why its manufacture was less environmentally damaging, and how these improvements could be adopted in the modern world. Read more »
New Light on a Famous Insulator: Photoinduced Polaronic Conduction in Anatase
Using angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES), researchers have shown that the number of conduction electrons in anatase, as well as their degree of correlation, can be patterned by exposure to UV light in a controllable and reversible way. Read more »
Enabling Thin Silicon Solar Cell Technology
The effort to shift U.S. energy reliance from fossil fuels to renewable sources has spurred companies to reduce the cost and increase the reliability of their solar photovoltaics (SPVs). But thinner silicon is more susceptible to stress and cracking, leading one researcher from SunPower Corporation to mount a fundamental approach to systematically find stress and enable solutions for next-generation crystalline silicon SPV systems. Read more »
Self-Assembly of “S-Bilayers”, a Step Toward Expanding the Dimensionality of S-Layer Assemblies
Protein-based assemblies with ordered nanometer-scale features in three dimensions are of interest as functional nanomaterials but are difficult to generate. Here we report that a truncated S-layer protein assembles into stable bilayers, which we characterized using cryogenic-electron microscopy, tomography, and X-ray spectroscopy. Read more »
Space-Age Ceramics Get Their Toughest Test
Advanced ceramic composites can withstand the ultrahigh operating temperatures of jet engines, but detailed analysis of these materials at such high temperatures has been a challenge. In a new highlight with video, researchers describe a testing facility that enables microtomography of ceramic composites at temperatures above 1600°C.
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Two Novel Ultra-Incompressible Materials
Materials that are mechanically, thermally, and chemically stable at extreme conditions are valuable for aerospace engineering and fission/fusion research. Researchers have synthesized and characterized two such materials: Re2N and Re3N are both extremely incompressible. Read more »