While studying how bio-inspired materials might inform the design of next-generation computers, scientists at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory achieved a first-of-its-kind result that could have big implications for both edge computing and human health.

Quantum materials behave in surprising ways because of quantum physics. For example, they can be superconductors, which can allow electricity to flow with no resistance. These materials could lead to completely new technologies. In an advance for quantum materials, scientists tested the ability of techniques called entanglement witnesses to accurately identify pairs of entangled magnetic particles.

To solve a long-standing puzzle about how long a neutron can “live” outside an atomic nucleus, physicists entertained a wild but testable theory positing the existence of a right-handed version of our left-handed universe. They designed a mind-bending experiment at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory to try to detect a particle that has been speculated but not spotted. If found, the theorized “mirror neutron” — a dark-matter twin to the neutron — could explain a discrepancy between answers from two types of neutron lifetime experiments and provide the first observation of dark matter.

This study demonstrates a potential kinetic route to develop highly stable and selective MOFs for the adsorption of caustic acid gas species.

Surprisingly, it is shown that the ferromagnetic (FM) ground state in the magnetic Weyl semimetal Co3Sn2S3 with magnetic Co ions on a Kagome lattice is stabilized by the third-neighbor “across-hexagon” interaction.