Science and Technology Highlights

Harrison Horn and collaborators used a laser-heated diamond-anvil cell to recreate the conditions that could exist on some exoplanets.
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Experiments show how water could form on exoplanets, disrupting current theories

In a recent study, an LLNL postdoctoral researcher demonstrates a novel pathway for producing significant quantities of water on sub-Neptune-sized exoplanets.

Researchers used Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s exascale supercomputer El Capitan to perform the largest fluid dynamics simulation ever — surpassing one quadrillion degrees of freedom in a single computational fluid dynamics problem. The team focused the effort on rocket–rocket plume interactions, achieving better than 500 trillion grid points, or 500 quadrillion degrees of freedom, in simulating the turbulent exhaust flow generated by many rocket engines firing simultaneously.
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Gordon Bell finalist team pushes scale of rocket simulation on El Capitan

Researchers used LLNL's exascale supercomputer El Capitan to perform the largest fluid dynamics simulation ever.

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s exascale El Capitan retained its ranking as the world’s fastest supercomputer with a verified 1.809 exaFLOPs (quintillion calculations per second) on the Top500 organization's High Performance Linpack benchmark. El Capitan’s smaller sibling system, Tuolumne, repeated at 12th on the list at 208.1 petaFLOPs (quadrillion calculations per second).
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El Capitan retains title as world’s fastest supercomputer in latest Top500

LLNL's El Capitan once again claimed the top spot on the Top500 List of the world’s most powerful supercomputers.

Demonstrations of a new corrective manufacturing technique. In the left panel (a), low resolution printed shapes are shown at top and corrected shapes are shown at bottom. In the right panel (b), hybrid manufacturing is used to correct a gap in a fluidic structure.
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Unique resin allows 3D-printing method to add and subtract

In a new study, LLNL researchers developed a hybrid additive and subtractive manufacturing system with a unique resin that enhances traditional 3D printing. 

ElMerFold researchers produced high-quality 3D structure predictions for more than 41 million proteins — at a scale and speed previously thought impossible — using Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s El Capitan, the world’s fastest supercomputer. This image shows predictions across different biomolecular complexes by the preview release of OpenFold3, an open-source reproduction of AlphaFold3.
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LLNL and partners launch record-breaking protein-folding workflow

LLNL scientists and collaborators have achieved a milestone in biological computing: completing the largest and fastest protein structure prediction workflow. 

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory scientists used the Advanced Light Source, shown here, to develop a new technique in nuclear forensics.
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X-ray technique provides a new tool for nuclear forensics investigations

In a recent study, LLNL and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory scientists described how synchrotron-based scanning transmission X-ray microscopy (STXM) can identify chemical states and material impurities at the scale of individual particles. 

Artist’s rendering of a possible inertial fusion energy power plant.
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Energy Department funds LLNL for fusion energy research

The DOE announces $134 million in funding for two programs designed to secure U.S. leadership in emerging fusion technologies and innovation. 

Close-up of the surface of laser powder bed fusion (LBPF), a metal additive manufacturing (AM) process where a laser uses heat to fuse metal powder material and form structures.
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Enabling technologies for metal additive manufacturing

LLNL researchers are tackling this challenge by developing first-of-their-kind approaches to look at how materials and structures evolve inside a metal AM structure during printing. 

From left: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Materials Science Division (MSD) researcher Juergen Biener, Materials Engineering Division(MED) staff engineer Abhinav Parakh, physicist Kristi Beck, physics postdoctoral researcher Sayan Patra, and MED staff engineer Xiaoxing Xia.
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Miniaturized ion traps show promise of 3D printing for quantum-computing hardwa…

LLNL researchers and collaborators miniaturize quadrupole ion traps for the first time with 3D printing. 

A schematic of the SAPPHIRE diagnostic. The top half of a chirped laser beam passes through plasma, while the bottom half does not. Separating and recombining the beam creates interference patterns (right) that show how the plasma changes with time.
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Novel probe captures every scene of a plasma movie all at once

In a study published in Optica, LLNL researchers developed a new diagnostic that captures plasma evolution in time and space with a single laser shot.