Engines, laptops and power plants generate waste heat. Thermoelectric materials, which convert temperature gradients to electricity and vice versa, can recover some of that heat and improve energy efficiency.
Quasiparticles—excitations that behave collectively like particles—are central to energy applications but can be difficult to detect.
Steady progress in the development of advanced materials has led to modern civilization’s foundational technologies—better batteries, resilient building materials and atom-scale semiconductors.
The efficiency of solar cells depends on precise engineering of polymers that assemble into films 1,000 times thinner than a human hair.
Today, formation of that polymer assembly requires solvents that can harm the environment, but scientists at the Depar
Electron microscopy at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory is pointing researchers closer to the development of ultra-thin materials that transfer electrons with no resistance at relatively high temperatures.
The study delivers direct
Some of the 300 million tires discarded each year in the United States alone could be used in supercapacitors for vehicles and the electric grid using a technology developed at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Drexel University.
A catalyst being developed by researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory could overcome one of the key obstacles still preventing automobile engines from running more cleanly and efficiently.
In mere seconds, a system developed at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory can identify and characterize a solid or liquid sample, providing a valuable tool with applications in material science, forensics, pharmaceuticals, biology and