LAB REPORT

Science and Technology Making Headlines

June 21, 2019


lassen

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s Lassen joined its companion system Sierra in the top 10 of the TOP500 list of the world’s most powerful supercomputers. Lassen leaped to No. 10 while Sierra stayed at No. 2

Go big or go home

The latest TOP500 list of the world’s fastest supercomputers is out this week, marking a major milestone in the 26-year history of the list. For the first time, all 500 systems deliver a petaflop or more on the Linpack benchmark, with the entry level to the list now at 1.022 petaflops.

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s Lassen joined its companion system Sierra in the top 10 of the TOP500 list of the world’s most powerful supercomputers, announced Monday at the 2019 International Supercomputing Conference in Frankfurt, Germany.

Lassen, an unclassified, heterogenous IBM/NVIDIA system with the same architecture as Sierra but smaller, placed No. 10 on the list with a High Performance Linpack (HPL) benchmark score of 18.2 petaFLOPS (18.2 quadrillion point operations per second) boosting its original 15.4 petaFLOP performance from last November. Sierra, LLNL’s classified system that went into production earlier this year, remained unchanged in the second spot at 94.6 petaflops.


switchgrass

Switchgrass is used as a biomass crop for advanced biofuel production

Turning the switch on biofuels

Plant cell walls contain a renewable, nearly limitless supply of sugar that can be used in the production of chemicals and biofuels. However, retrieving these sugars isn't all that easy.

Imidazolium ionic liquid (IIL) solvents are one of the best sources for extracting sugars from plants. But the sugars from IIL-treated biomass are inevitably contaminated with residual IILs that inhibit growth in bacteria and yeast, blocking biochemical production by these organisms.

Lawrence Livermore scientists and collaborators at the Joint BioEnergy Institute have identified a molecular mechanism in bacteria that can be manipulated to promote IIL tolerance, and therefore overcome a key gap in biofuel and biochemical production processes.


hair

An LLNL team found that a single hair from anywhere on the human body can be used to identify a person. Photo by Julie Russell/LLNL

Bad hair day for sex offenders

Any single hair from anywhere on the human body can be used to identify a person.

This conclusion is one of the key findings from a nearly year-long study by a team of researchers from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s Forensic Science Center (FSC) and Michigan State University.

The team’s study could provide an important new avenue of evidence for law enforcement authorities in sexual assault cases

In 2016, FSC scientists developed the first-ever biological identification method that exploits the information encoded in the proteins of human hair from people’s heads. This forensic science breakthrough provides a second science-based, statistically validated way to identify people and link individuals to evidence in addition to DNA profiling.


slac

Lawrence Livermore researchers and collaborators used the X-ray free-electron laser at the Linac Coherent Light Source to show that phase-change materials can lead to faster and more effective data storage technologies.

Transitioning to higher data storage

Experiments with X-ray lasers show how new phase-change materials could lead to more efficient and faster data storage technologies for gadgets like smart phones.

Phase-change materials are used in the latest generation of smart phones enabling higher storage densities and energy efficiency. Data is recorded by switching between glassy and crystalline material states by applying a heat pulse. However, to date it has not been possible to study what happens at the atomic level during this process.

A group of scientists, including researchers from Lawrence Livermore, describe how they used the capabilities of the X-ray free-electron laser LCLS at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory to show that a transition in the chemical bonding mechanism enables the data storage in these materials.

The results can be used to optimize phase-change materials for faster and more effective data storage technologies and provide new insights into the process of glass formation.


graphene

A sample of microarchitectured graphene aerogel, made from one of the lightest materials on Earth, sits atop a flower.

Graphene is ripe for sourcing

Making graphene an open source material could take it beyond its current limitations. Graphene’s capabilities are staggering — it is essentially 2D, flexible, 200 times stronger than steel, conducts heat 10 times better than copper and conducts electricity 250 times better than silicon. Its abilities are far-reaching and extremely potent, making graphene applications nearly endless.

Though there are some limitations to open sourcing graphene, mass production and 3D printing could be the answer.

One of the most important aspects of 3D printing is the material used to create objects. 3D printers can use a number of materials, including plastic polymers, metal and even wood. Recently, researchers at Virginia Tech University and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have experimented with 3D printing with graphene. They successfully created 3D graphene aerogels and foams that can be shaped to suit various needs. Graphene is an essentially 2D material, so the ability to craft it into a three-dimensional form opens up the current possibilities for the material, extending beyond the membrane technology that many researchers and companies have focused on.

The capabilities to mass produce graphene and utilize it for 3D printing make it possible for open-source sharing of the material to come to fruition

Computer with email graphic

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The Lab Report is a weekly compendium of media reports on science and technology achievements at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Though the Laboratory reviews items for overall accuracy, the reporting organizations are responsible for the content in the links below.