Skip to main content

News

The theories that led to physicists Thouless, Haldane, and Kosterlitz being awarded the Nobel Prize in physics, are guiding today’s quantum physicists at ORNL in their search for materials of the future. (Image credit: ORNL/Jill Hemman)

The theories recognized with this year’s Nobel Prize in Physics underpin research ongoing at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, where scientists are using neutrons as a probe to seek new materials with extraordinary properties for applications such as next-generation electronics, superconductors, and quantum computing.

A simulation shows the path for the collision of a krypton ion (blue) with a defected graphene sheet and subsequent formation of a carbon vacancy (red). Red shades indicate local strain in the graphene. Image credit: Kichul Yoon, Penn State
Researchers at Penn State, the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company have developed methods to control defects in two-dimensional materials, such as graphene, that may lead to improved membranes for water desalination, energy...
The SNS LINAC is the most powerful proton-pulsed accelerator in the world.
The first of its kind superconducting linear particle accelerator (LINAC) built for the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory is now celebrating 10 years of successful operations. The world-leading machine, which took 7 years...
ORNL researcher Xiaobing Liu  works in the laboratory’s Building Technologies Research and Integration Center.

As a boy growing up in China, Xiaobing Liu knew all about Oak Ridge and the World War II Manhattan Project. He had no idea that he would one day work at DOE’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the Secret City’s successor. Liu is a lead researcher in geothermal heat pump (GHP) techn...

The first-ever 3D printed excavator will include a cab designed by a University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign student engineering team and printed at DOE’s Manufacturing Demonstration Facility at ORNL using carbon fiber-reinforced ABS plastic.

Heavy construction machinery is the focus of Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s latest advance in additive manufacturing research. With industry partners and university students, ORNL researchers are designing and producing the world’s first 3D printed excavator, a prototype that w...

Melissa Allen’s work at Oak Ridge National Laboratory is focused on urban infrastructure and atmospheric transport, creating models to determine the effects of temperature and climate changes on human activity.
Melissa Allen, a researcher at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory, is guided by her curiosity and is inspired to pursue what she loves – music, flying and climate science. And she credits her family and many mentors who have helped her along the way. Gro...
Neutrons facilities welcome 20,000th user
In August, the High Flux Isotope Reactor and the Spallation Neutron Source—both U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science User Facilities at DOE’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory—reached a milestone with the arrival of Irina Nesmelova, the facilities’ 20,000th user. “We ...
Dianne Bull Ezell enjoys the variety of projects offered in a national laboratory setting.
Dianne Bull Ezell has always been a problem solver. As a child she built a bridge of Lego pieces for fun. Nowadays the Electrical & Electronics Systems Research Division engineer has grown from configuring toys to piecing together engineering solutions, and she’s still havin...
ORNL’s Manjunath Gorentla Venkata helped develop a new approach to analyze thousands of genetic samples by connecting powerful computing resources.

Computing experts at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory collaborated with a team of university researchers and software companies to develop a novel hybrid computational strategy to efficiently discover genetic variants 

Emilio Ramirez studies the slugging transition in a bench scale reactor made possible by the Computational Pyrolysis Consortium, a multilaboratory collaboration formed to develop infrastructure ready fuel from biomass feedstock.

Just a few years ago, Emilio Ramirez spent his days operating and adjusting settings to optimize thermal performance at a Central California bioenergy power plant. Ramirez, a California native who is now a University of Tennessee doctoral candidate working with the Department of...