Heat transfer is essential to our daily life—from heating a pot of water to complex carbon-free energy technologies that aim to achieve zero carbon emissions. Examples of these technologies include concentrated solar power generation, thermoelectric generation, and nuclear power generation.

Ancient civilizations are defined by the predominant materials used to make tools, i.e., Stone Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age, indicating the importance of materials for life and civilization. Until the late twentieth century, humans mainly used natural materials. In the last century, materials science has rapidly emerged as one of the most important research fields, resulting in a diverse array of human-made materials.

The newly established Manipulation of Atomic Ordering for Manufacturing Semiconductors (µ-ATOMS) Energy Frontier Research Center aims to discover the fundamental principles determining the ordering of atoms in semiconductor alloys and how ordering affects material properties. Semiconductors are widely used in electronic devices such as transistors in smartphones and computers, solar cells, and light-emitting diodes (LEDs) due to their unique electronic properties.

Scientists have determined that atmospheric CO₂ levels are at an all-time high and are continuing to increase at an unprecedented rate. The consequences are rising global temperatures and sea levels and the subsequent impacts on social, ecological, and climate systems. So how can we minimize the increasing concentration of CO₂ in the atmosphere? One promising approach is to permanently store CO₂ underground in minerals―a strategy that the newly funded Energy Frontier Research Center (EFRC), Geo-processes in Mineral Carbon Storage (GMCS), is currently investigating.

Hydrogen is among the most abundant elements on Earth, and its energy density by mass is significantly greater than other chemical fuels. Additionally, the only byproduct of a simple hydrogen fuel cell is pure water. Amidst concern over the environmental impacts of ongoing fossil fuel usage and associated carbon dioxide emissions, these benefits are of critical interest to the energy and transportation sectors, and thus, hydrogen fuel cells have been the focus of widespread research for decades.

Hydrogen is simple, and hydrogen is everywhere. It makes up ^~90% of the atoms in the universe and 63% of the atoms in our bodies. Hydrogen atoms are simple in that they consist of a single proton with the option of no electrons (H⁺, also called a proton), one electron (H⁰, a neutral hydrogen atom), or two electrons (H^-, hydride). Despite its simplicity and omnipresence, scientists have only begun to grasp how hydrogen interacts with other elements due to its tiny mass and elusive nature.