Science and Technology Highlights

The AVLIS program began at LLNL in 1973 and was suspended in 1999. Now, the technology is being revived to create a domestic process for enriching lithium and fuel an energy-resilient nation.
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LLNL researchers are partnering with Hexium, Inc. to address this national need for lithium isotopes.
Ground motion simulation of a magnitude 7 earthquake on the Hayward fault using the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory-Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Earthquake Simulation platform.
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In a recent study, published in Seismological Research Letters, scientists at LLNL and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) simulated earthquake scenarios on the Hayward fault and analyzed how the rupture and underground structure affect ground-motion intensity along the fault.
LLNL researchers invented a high-throughput platform that screens proteins for their rare earth element binding preferences at unprecedented scale.
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In a recent study, published in Nature Chemical Biology, a team at LLNL invented a high-throughput platform that screens proteins for their rare-earth element binding preferences at unprecedented scale.
With recently awarded funding, LLNL will develop quantum and machine learning-accelerated software tools and apply them to discovering ultra-strong, lightweight magnets that are crucial for electronic motors, generators and high-performance information technology.
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LLNL has been selected to lead a project that will receive $4.1 million in funding from the U.S. Department of Energy Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) as part of the Quantum Computing for Computational Chemistry (QC3) program.
Adding an optimized void structure (top right) counteracts a shockwave-induced instability, reducing jetting (bottom right) that can interfere with inertial confinement fusion. Without this void, significant jetting occurs (bottom left).
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Researchers from LLNL, Imperial College London and their collaborators used AI to optimize and 3D printing to create a target that effectively negates the RM instability.
illustration of genetically engineered metabolic pathways in yeast to consume sugar and produce oxalic acid
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Researchers from LLNL, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and the University of Kentucky established a novel microbial platform that produces oxalic acid and purifies rare-earth elements.
group shot of ALS team
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A LLNL-led team of scientists and computational engineers has identified several existing medications that may be associated with longer survival in people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), using one of the largest electronic health record datasets ever assembled for ALS.
LLNL and Meta partner to hasten materials discovery with artificial intelligence.
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In a recent paper, an LLNL team and collaborators detail Open Polymers 2026 (OPoly26) — a dataset with an unprecedented number and diversity of polymer structures with corresponding simulations performed at quantum accuracy. 

LLNL biologist James Thissen loads DNA samples for sequencing in a pathogen-agnostic method to identify respiratory viruses.
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In a recent study, LLNL researchers and the California Department of Public Health identified other potentially harmful respiratory viruses in samples that tested negative in a standard, NAAT-based panel. 

Shaun Kerr and Dean Rusby have refined the MeV X-ray generation of NIF’s Advanced Radiographic Capability, leading to unprecedented imaging of dense materials.
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LLNL's National Ignition Facility is the hottest place on earth for the briefest of moments during an experiment, as explained in a new paper in Physics of Plasmas.