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ORNL's Communications team works with news media seeking information about the laboratory. Media may use the resources listed below or send questions to news@ornl.gov.

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Big group photo standing outside of a brick building with text underneath describing the IAEA workshop on safety, security and safeguards

In early November, ORNL hosted the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Interregional Workshop on Safety, Security and Safeguards by Design in Small Modular Reactors, which welcomed 76 attendees representing 15 countries, three U.S. national labs, domestic and international industry partners, as well as IAEA officers. 

The left/right columns show a time series of the neutron/proton number densities in log scale for a typical fission trajectory. The bar relates the color to the decimal logarithm of the number density.

Researchers used the Summit supercomputer at ORNL to answer one of fission’s big questions: What exactly happens during the nucleus’s “neck rupture” as it splits in two? Scission neutrons have been theorized to be among those particles emitted during neck rupture, although their exact characteristics have been debated due to a lack of conclusive experimental evidence of their existence.

Image of Giuseppe Barca looking at two computer monitors, representing the team using Frontier to perform the first quantum chemistry calculations to exceed an exaflop.

Researchers led by the University of Melbourne, Australia, have been nominated for the Association for Computing Machinery’s 2024 Gordon Bell Prize in supercomputing for conducting a quantum molecular dynamics simulation 1,000 times greater in size and speed than any previous simulation of its kind.

This illustration demonstrates how atomic configurations with an equiatomic concentration of niobium (Nb), tantalum (Ta) and vanadium (V) can become disordered. The AI model helps researchers identify potential atomic configurations that can be used as shielding for housing fusion applications in a nuclear reactor. Credit: Massimiliano Lupo Pasini/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy

A study led by the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory details how artificial intelligence researchers created an AI model to help identify new alloys used as shielding for housing fusion applications components in a nuclear reactor. The findings mark a major step towards improving nuclear fusion facilities.

The Frontier supercomputer simulated magnetic responses inside calcium-48, depicted by red and blue spheres. Insights into the nucleus’s fundamental forces could shed light on supernova dynamics.

Nuclear physicists at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory recently used Frontier, the world’s most powerful supercomputer, to calculate the magnetic properties of calcium-48’s atomic nucleus. 

Exploding stars, a glowing light

Scientists have determined that a rare element found in some of the oldest solids in the solar system, such as meteorites, and previously thought to have been forged in supernova explosions, actually predate such cosmic events, challenging long-held theories about its origin.

This is an image of a man sitting at a computer with three screens.

Researchers conduct largest, most accurate molecular dynamics simulations to date of two million correlated electrons using Frontier, the world’s fastest supercomputer. The simulation, which exceed an exaflop using full double precision, is 1,000 times greater in size and speed than any quantum chemistry simulation of it's kind.

Colorful circles with symbols of Vc, Vh and Vt inside. Blue, Orange and Pink

Researchers used quantum simulations to obtain new insights into the nature of neutrinos — the mysterious subatomic particles that abound throughout the universe — and their role in the deaths of massive stars.

Woman is standing at podium holding a gavel in the air.

In May, the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge and Brookhaven national laboratories co-hosted the 15th annual International Particle Accelerator Conference, or IPAC, at the Music City Center in Nashville, Tennessee. 

ORNL researcher Louise Evans is working to ensure safeguards approaches and verification technologies are integrated early in the design process of advanced reactor technologies. Credit: Carlos Jones/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy

Researchers tackling national security challenges at ORNL are upholding an 80-year legacy of leadership in all things nuclear. Today, they’re developing the next generation of technologies that will help reduce global nuclear risk and enable safe, secure, peaceful use of nuclear materials, worldwide.