Research Initiatives
MATERIALS
Scientists use our magnets to explore semiconductors, superconductors, newly-grown crystals, buckyballs and materials from the natural world — research that reveals the secret workings of materials and empowers us to develop new technologies.
ENERGY
Scientists here are working to optimize petroleum refining, advance potential bio-fuels such as pine needles and algae, and fundamentally change the way we store and deliver energy by developing better batteries.
LIFE
With the world’s strongest MRI magnet, scientists here study everything from living animals to individual cells, from proteins to disease-fighting molecules found in plants and animals — work that could improve treatment of AIDS, cancer, Alzheimer’s and other diseases.
Latest Science Highlights
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Clues About Unconventional Superconductivity From High-Field Hall Data
13 December 2021
In everyday life, phase transitions - like when water boils and turns into steam or freezes and becomes ice - are caused by changes in temperature. Here, very high magnetic fields are used to reveal a quantum phase transition not caused by temperature, but instead driven by quantum mechanics upon changing the concentration of electrons, work that could hold critical clues that explain high-temperature superconductivity.
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Novel "hot-bronze" Nb3Sn for compact accelerators
22 November 2021
A new "hot bronze" thin film growth recipe was developed to produce high quality superconducting Niobium-Tin (Nb3Sn) films that are easier to fabricate and that outperform existing technologies.
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New quantum tricks in nitride materials
22 November 2021
Gallium nitride (GaN) and Niobium nitride (NbN) are widely used in today's technologies: GaN is used to make blue LEDs and high-frequency transistors while NbN is used to make infrared light detectors. This experiment explores whether a nitride-based device may be relevant for quantum technologies of the future.
Featured Publications
Quantum Rivals in Nitride Materials, P. Dang, et al., Science Advances, 7 (8), eabf1388 (2021), See Science Highlight or Read online
Nb3Sn films via a novel hot-bronze method for compact accelerators, W. K. Withanage, et al., Superconductor Science and Technology, 34 (6), 06LT01 (2021), See Science Highlight or Read online
Unusual high-field state discovered in mineral atacamite, L. Heinze, et al., Physical Review Letters, 126 (20), 207201 (2021), See Science Highlight or Read online
Sunlight converts plastics into diverse chemical mixtures, A. N. Walsh, et al., Environ. Sci. Technol., 55 (18), 12383–12392 (2021), See Science Highlight or Read online
Absence of Weak-Links in Bi-2212 Round Wire, Y. Oz, et al., Phys. Rev. Materials, 5(7), 074803 (2021), See Science Highlight or Read online
Advanced Microscopy for Better Nanostructural Insights in Bi-2212 Round Wires, T.A. Oloye, et al., Supercond. Sci. Technol., 34035018 (2021), See Science Highlight or Read online
Restoration of breathing after drug overdose and spinal cord injuries, M.D. Sunshine, et al., Communications Biology, 4 (1), 1-15 (2021), See Science Highlight or Read online
Linear-in temperature resistivity from isotropic Planckian scattering rate, G. Grissonnanche, et al., Nature, 595, 667-672 (2021), See Science Highlight or Read online
Testing the Critical Current of High-Temperature-Superconducting REBCO Cables Using a Superconducting Transformer, H. Yu, et al., IEEE Transactions on Applied Superconductivity, 30 (4), 5500204 (2020), See Science Highlight or Read online
New High-Magnetic-Field Thermometers for Sub-Millikelvin Temperatures, A. Woods, et al., arxiv, 2107.02387 (2020), See Science Highlight or Read online
A New Method for Understanding Dynamic Nuclear Polarization, Q. Stern, et al., Science Advances, 7 (18), eabf5735 (2021), See Science Highlight or Read online
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Safety at the Lab
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What Scientists Do at the MagLab
