Top news

For the first time, a team at Fermilab has cooled and operated a superconducting radio-frequency cavity — a crucial component of superconducting particle accelerators — using cryogenic refrigerators, breaking the tradition of cooling cavities by immersing them in a bath of liquid helium. The demonstration is a major breakthrough in the effort to develop lean, compact accelerators for medicine, the environment and industry.

Two students have received the prestigious DOE Office of Science Graduate Student Research fellowships to conduct their research at Fermilab. The goal of the program is to prepare graduate students for STEM careers critically important to the Office of Science mission by providing graduate thesis research opportunities at DOE laboratories.

Today’s quantum computing processors must operate at temperature close to absolute zero, and that goes for their electronics, too. Fermilab’s cryoelectronics experts recently hosted a first-of-its-kind workshop where leaders in quantum technologies took on the challenges of designing computer processors and sensors that work at ultracold temperatures.

Scientists working on the MINERvA experiment at Fermilab have examined a few ways neutrons can affect the measurements of antineutrino interactions.

The Event Horizon Telescope collaboration, which announced the first image of a supermassive black hole in April, has won the 2020 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics. Fermilab scientists Bradford Benson and Alexandra Rahlin are among a large group of scientists who share the prize for their contributions to the achievement.

Esquivel is one of 125 women from across the United States who will serve as high-profile role models for middle school girls through the AAAS IF/THEN® Ambassador Program. The program highlights women in STEM who contribute to the many fields influenced by science, technology, engineering and math.

Future particle colliders will need strong magnets to steer high-energy particle beams as they travel close to the speed of light on their circular path. A group at Fermilab has achieved a record field strength of 14.1 teslas for a particle accelerator steering magnet, breaking the 11-year record.

The Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Germany, has taken a significant step to participate in the international Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment, hosted by Fermilab. Fermilab and the university have signed an agreement to jointly appoint an internationally renowned researcher who will strengthen the experimental particle physics research program at JGU Mainz and advance a German contribution to DUNE. This is the first Fermilab joint agreement with a university in Germany.

Ketevan Akhobadze moved to Fermilab from the country of Georgia and found a new home. She now creates exhibits as a tool to introduce the public to the exciting science done at Fermilab.

Engineers at Fermilab have shown that sometimes, to reshape the metal heart of a particle accelerator, what you need is a balloon. The new, patented technique is a novel solution to a problem that affects an essential component of accelerators: superconducting cavities.