Past Events

The demonstration of nuclear fusion in the laboratory and eventual utilization as an unlimited energy source has been a grand challenge for physicists and engineers for 70 years. All life on earth depends on this process that powers our sun...

First discovered serendipitously in 1967, the phenomena known as gamma-ray bursts - short-lived, extremely bright flashes of high-energy radiation - mystified astronomers for decades. Despite many breakthroughs, key open questions - such as the mechanism responsible for the prompt gamma-ray...

New polls show 7 in 10 Americans support legislation to eliminate fossil fuel emissions from the transportation, electricity, buildings, industry, and agricultural sectors by 2050. Then why is nuclear power — our largest and best source of carbon-free electricity in...

Last fall, a team at Google announced the first-ever demonstration of "quantum computational supremacy"---that is, a clear quantum speedup over a classical computer for some task---using a 53-qubit programmable superconducting chip called Sycamore.  In addition to engineering, their accomplishment built...

Synthetic biology – the design and construction of new biological parts and systems and the redesign of existing ones for useful purposes – is transforming fields from fuels to pharmaceuticals and beyond. Our lab has pioneered the potential of synthetic...

Quantum devices and materials have exceptional promise for energy, computation, communication, and sensing. To realize this potential, scientists and engineers must find the right physical systems. Emergent phenomena in quantum systems often exhibit magnetic signatures. Superconducting QUantum Interference Devices (SQUIDs)...

In a 1954 paper “Galileo as a critic of the arts”,  Erwin Panofsky wrote that the Florentine’s culture in which Galileo lived, his participation  in the visual arts, literature and music communities that at the time made Florence a leading...

Microbes are nature’s chemists, capable of producing and metabolizing a diverse array of compounds. In the human gut, microbial biochemistry can be beneficial, for example by producing vitamins or breaking down the complex carbohydrates of our diet; or detrimental, such...

We have explored a concept for an advanced Normal-Conducting Radio-Frequency (NCRF) C-band linear accelerator (linac) structure to achieve an economic high gradient, high power e+e− linear collider in the TeV class. This design study represents the first comprehensive investigation for...