Taking Lessons from a Sea Slug, Study Points to Better Hardware for Artificial Intelligence: A new study by researchers who carried out experiments at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Photon Source has found that a material can mimic the sea slug’s most essential intelligence features. The discovery is a step toward building hardware that could help make AI more efficient and reliable for technology ranging from self-driving cars and surgical robots to social media algorithms.

Understanding SrTiO3’s Dual Role as an Insulator and Conductor: Researchers used the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Photon Source to perform a variety of studies using an array of synchrotron analytical techniques on thin films of strontium titanate, both during and after synthesis, solving long-held mysteries that could lead to new ways to harness its strange properties.

Quantum materials are increasingly being explored for their exotic properties. One phenomenon called an electronic flat band can occur in quantum materials with just the right geometric structure. These bands enhance electron-electron interactions that produce unusual and technologically important behavior.

Fanny Rodolakis of the Advanced Photon Source was a big hit with the Lowell Elementary (IL) fifth graders when she spoke to them virtually about science under the auspices of the Argonne National Laboratory STEM Chat program sponsored by Argonne Education and Outreach.

Researchers used XAS measurement at 29-ID to study a new material developed by scientists from three different disciplines. This material can sense glutamate in the brain, and it may lead to new tools to combat neurological disorders. It could also provide the next big steps toward brain-machine interfaces.

An ultra-high vacuum, non-magnetic kappa geometry diffractometer has been designed by the Nanopositioning Group and is being commissioned for the resonant soft x-ray scattering (RSXS) branch of the Intermediate Energy X-ray (IEX) beamline 29-ID at the Advanced Photon Source (APS).

Researchers working to create next-generation electronic systems and to understand the fundamental properties of magnetism and electronics to tackle grand challenges such as quantum computing have a new cutting-edge tool in their arsenal.