Over the past three decades, lithium-ion batteries, rechargeable batteries that move lithium ions back and forth to charge and discharge, have enabled smaller devices that juice up faster and last longer. Now, X-ray experiments at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have revealed that the pathways lithium ions…
Scientists Use Frozen Gas to Boost Laser Light to New Extremes
To observe something as small and fast as an electron rushing to form a chemical bond, you need a bright light with an incredibly small wavelength that comes in very fast pulses — just a few attoseconds, or billionths of a billionth of a second, long. Scientists figured out more than a decade ago how…
Hitomi Spacecraft to Enable Unprecedented Views of Violent Universe
Although the star-covered night sky is regarded by many as a synonym of serenity, the cosmos is in fact a rather hostile place. It hosts many extreme environments that would instantaneously eradicate any life nearby. A new space mission is about to reveal this violent nature in greater detail than ever before: On Feb. 17,…