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Thermal energy in ordinary crystal materials takes the form of tiny atomic vibrations that ripple through the material in waves. Instead of spreading evenly through the material, some of the energy will clump into little packets. Scientists had thought that these energy packets, which they call intr...
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A special report highlights the accomplishments of researchers running large, complex and often unprecedented simulations on Department of Energy Office of Science supercomputers. The research community gains access to these powerful machines through the Innovative and Novel Computational Impact on ...
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Polymer-based solar cells are attractive to solar energy developers because they are inexpensive and relatively easy to fabricate. But to be economically viable, they must be made more efficient. Neutron scattering measurements have shown that appropriately heat-treating (annealing) a thin film cont...
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Five of the world's most advanced instruments for neutron scattering research are serving the neutron science community following the completion of the $68.5 million SING project at Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Spallation Neutron Source (SNS).
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A novel microscopy method at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory is helping scientists probe the reactions that limit widespread deployment of fuel cell technologies.

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Nano-sized palladium particles elevate the performance of a new hydrogen microsensor to an unprecedented level, according to Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Nickolay Lavrik. The key innovation is based on the fact nano-sized palladium particles react very quickly to hydrogen gas. "Our hydrogen senso...
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Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory are making new functional nanocomposite materials by inserting nanoparticles into asymmetric block copolymer films, resulting in promising new matrices on which such materials can be constructed. The Magnetism Reflectometer at ORNL's Spallation Neutron So...
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To study questions of why the universe has matter, physicists can try to create another ?Big Bang' somewhere and study how it evolves. If they only do it once, however, like flipping a coin, there is bias. So they must run a few thousand ?Big Bangs' and wait 14 billion years for each one and see how...
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Oak Ridge National Laboratory managing contractor UT-Battelle has donated $25,000 to an effort to honor the memory of Alvin M. Weinberg, the Department of Energy national laboratory's first director who was recognized as a nuclear pioneer and science visionary.
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The US ITER Project Office at Oak Ridge National Laboratory competitively awarded a multi-year contract to General Atomics to produce superconducting magnets for the central solenoid of ITER, an experimental fusion facility that aims to demonstrate the feasibility of fusion energy for the commercia...