In response to a renewed international interest in molten salt reactors, researchers from the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have developed a novel technique to visualize molten salt intrusion in graphite.
Using neutrons to see the additive manufacturing process at the atomic level, scientists have shown that they can measure strain in a material as it evolves and track how atoms move in response to stress.
In 2023, the National School on X-ray and Neutron Scattering, or NXS, marked its 25th year during its annual program, held August 6–18 at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge and Argonne National Laboratories.
Warming a crystal of the mineral fresnoite, ORNL scientists discovered that excitations called phasons carried heat three times farther and faster than phonons, the excitations that usually carry heat through a material.
ORNL researchers have identified a mechanism in a 3D-printed alloy – termed “load shuffling” — that could enable the design of better-performing lightweight materials for vehicles.
ORNL has been selected to lead an Energy Frontier Research Center, or EFRC, focused on polymer electrolytes for next-generation energy storage devices such as fuel cells and solid-state electric vehicle batteries.
Matthew Ryder has been named an emerging investigator by the American Chemical Society journal Crystal Growth and Design.
A multidisciplinary team of scientists at ORNL has applied a laser-interference structuring, or LIS, technique that makes significant strides toward eliminating the need for hazardous chemicals in corrosion protection for vehicles.
Led by ORNL and the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, a study of a solar-energy material with a bright future revealed a way to slow phonons, the waves that transport heat.
Joe Paddison, a Eugene P. Wigner Fellow at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, believes there’s more information to be found in neutron scattering data than scientists like himself might expect.