Science on the Hill: Dark matter
detective work
the mountains of Mexico, from the New Mexican.
Fourteen thousand feet above sea level near a volcanic peak
in Mexico sits a unique astronomical observatory. Instead of peering into space
with a glass lens, it uses 300 huge barrels of water. And instead of focusing
light, digital sensors inside each barrel detect a ghostly blue light called
Cherenkov radiation from high-energy particles zipping through the water.
At this High-Altitude
Water Cherenkov Observatory, better known as HAWC, a team of astrophysicists
from Los Alamos National Laboratory and their colleagues are sifting through
data from those mountain-top water barrels looking for the fingerprint of one
of the most elusive yet abundant quarries in the universe: Dark matter. (Full story)
2D layered hybrid perovskite material
enhances effectiveness for LEDs and solar cells
Researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory and their
partners are developing ground-breaking 2D layered hybrid perovskites that
allow higher level of freedom in designing and fabricating efficient
optoelectronic devices.
The 2D,
near-single-crystalline "Ruddlesden-Popper" thin films have an
out-of-plane orientation so that unrestrained charge movement takes place
across the perovskite layers in planar devices.
At the edges of the
perovskite layers, the team detected "layer-edge-states," which are
crucial to both high fluorescence efficiency (a few tens of percent) for LEDs
and high efficiency of solar cells (>12 %). (Full story)
Scientists discover oxidation state for
molecular plutonium
Researchers have identified the +2 oxidation state in a
molecular system of plutonium. The findings by researchers at Los Alamos
National Laboratory in collaboration with the University of California- Irvine
provide a significant step towards a more complete understanding of chemical
trends across the actinide series and ultimately will provide knowledge about
how to manipulate and control oxidation-state chemistry and electronic
structure. (Full story)
Raving about robots
Janelle Vigil-Maestas from the Los Alamos National
Laboratory Community Programs Office, said her Office started sponsoring the
event several years ago, to give students practice ahead of the much larger
annual, international contest held each year in Albuquerque. This year, it will
be on May 5 and 6.
“We brought it to
Northern because we had a lot of students that were starting teams and they
didn’t have experience competing,” she said. (Full story)
LANL donation adding to UNM
supercomputing power
Los Alamos. UNM photo.
The machine was acquired from LANL through the National
Science Foundation-sponsored PR0bE project, which is run by the New Mexico
Consortium (NMC). The NMC, comprising UNM, New Mexico State, and New Mexico
Tech universities, engages universities and industry in scientific research in
the nation's interest and to increase the role of LANL in science, education
and economic development. (Full story)
