Dana Dattelbaum’s experiments in shock sensitivity and dynamics of explosives at DOE's Los Alamos National Laboratory support simulations of nuclear weapons performance and enhance the safety of the nation’s nuclear stockpile.
She says she was inspired early on to work in her field and to understand that creativity is an essential part of scientific research.
"I was fortunate that my high school was ‘adopted’ by a chemical company, and I was able to start performing hand-on research before entering college, which led to my decision to pursue a degree in chemistry. Early and consistently throughout my undergraduate education, I was engaged in summer (NSF REU) and semester research projects, which both solidified course topics and shaped my creativity as a research scientist."
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Measuring the cyclotron power radiated by a single electron in a magnetic field is a first, but it’s also another step toward answering some of the most pressing questions about the universe, according to scientists at DOE's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) who recently collaborated with others to accomplish that feat.
Physicist Brent VanDevender and his colleagues at PNNL, along with others from five research institutions, recently measured cyclotron radiation produced by single electrons from radioactive krypton-83m decays. They used a method they developed called Cyclotron Radiation Emission Spectroscopy (CRES). Cyclotron radiation was postulated in 1904 and later measured from groups of electrons, but the power from single electrons had never been observed.
“Everybody knew it would be there,” VanDevender explained. “We went looking for it.”
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Since 2005, DOE's Fermilab’s Test Beam Facility, with its distinctive orange and blue corrugated-steel roof, has staged more than 50 experiments, conducted by scientists from more than 170 institutions in 30 countries.
DOE has announced $75 million in funding to renew the Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis (JCAP), a DOE Energy Innovation Hub originally established in 2010 with the goal of harnessing solar energy for the production of fuel. The hub is led by the California Institute of Technology in partnership with DOE's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
Using ever more energetic lasers, DOE's Lawrence Livermore researchers have produced a record high number of electron-positron pairs, opening exciting opportunities to study extreme astrophysical processes, such as black holes and gamma-ray bursts.
An important research tool at DOE's Idaho National Laboratory was restarted recently after completion of a nearly 14-month overhaul-and-upgrade project. The Neutron Radiography (NRAD) Reactor provides researchers with a critical non-destructive tool for conducting post-irradiation examination of nuclear fuel and material samples. 