A team of Spanish researchers has discovered a new method that transforms electricity into hydrogen or chemical products solely by using microwaves without cables or any type of contact with electrodes. This achievement represents a disruption in the field of energy research and a key development for the decarbonization of the process industry, as well as for the future of the automotive sector and the chemical industry—among many others.

Researchers from JILA have developed tools to “turn on” quantum gases of ultracold molecules, gaining control of long-distance molecular interactions for potential applications such as encoding data for quantum computing and simulations. The new scheme for nudging a molecular gas down to its lowest energy state, called quantum degeneracy, while suppressing chemical reactions that break up molecules finally makes it possible to explore exotic quantum states in which all the molecules interact with one another.

On December 10, Cryomech, Inc. (CSA CSM), a world leader in cryocooler design and fabrication, announced it had officially completed the construction and relocation of its new facility in Syracuse NY— a 76,000-square-foot building that offers enough space for all of the company’s manufacturing, machinery and the “Cryo-Team.” Construction was completed in just over a year.

More than 3,500 researchers from around the world collaborate with the US Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (CSA CSM) to develop state-of-the-art technologies and solve the mysteries of matter, energy, space and time. Here is a look at 10 ways Fermilab advanced science and technology in 2020.

When two heavy ions collide inside a particle accelerator, they produce a near-perfect fluid through which an assortment of fundamental particles swim. For scientists to accurately simulate even a tiny drop of this hot and dense subatomic brew with a classical computer, it would take longer than the age of the universe. A collaboration of theorists, experimentalists and computer scientists are exploring how they could crack the mathematics with the help of a powerful and emerging tool: quantum computing.

A group of researchers led by Sir Andre Geim and Dr Alexey Berdyugin at the UK University of Manchester have discovered and characterized a new family of quasiparticles named "Brown-Zak fermions" in graphene-based superlattices. The study follows years of successive advances in graphene-boron nitride superlattices which allowed the observation of a fractal pattern known as the Hofstadter’s butterfly—and on November 13 the researchers reported another highly surprising behavior of particles in such structures under applied magnetic field.

On September 10, the International Committee for Future Accelerators announced the structure and members of a new organizational team to prepare a “pre-laboratory” for an International Linear Collider in Japan. The ILC International Development Team, which consists of an executive board and three working groups—governing the pre-lab setup, accelerator, physics and detectors—aims to complete the preparatory phase for the pre-lab on a timescale of around 1.5 years.

On August 24, SuperPower Inc. (CSA CSM), a wholly owned subsidiary of Japan’s Furukawa Electric Company, Ltd., announced that it has completed its move and is now operating from a new facility in Glenville NY. The company is a world leader for the development and manufacturing of REBCO-based second generation high temperature superconducting (2G HTS) wires.