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Since the discovery of high-temperature superconductors — materials that can transport electricity with perfect efficiency at or near liquid nitrogen temperatures (minus-196 degrees Celsius) — scientists have been working to develop a theory that explains their essential physics.
After running a simulation proving calcium-48 was a magic isotope, ORNL researchers were surprised to find experimental data and simulations that suggested calcium-52 was not magic, as expected.
​A multi-institution team led by Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Gaute Hagen used computation to corroborate experimental findings throwing calcium-52’s status as a magic isotope into question.
A 3-D printed table was manufactured using 10 percent bamboo fiber, an initial step toward sustainable practices using bio-derived materials
Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory are using bamboo fiber in 3-D printing experiments to determine whether bio-based feedstock materials are feasible in additive manufacturing.
ORNL’s Juan Carlos Idrobo helped develop an electron microscopy technique to measure magnetism at the atomic scale.

Scientists can now detect magnetic behavior at the atomic level with a new electron microscopy technique developed by a team from the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Uppsala University, Sweden. The researchers took a counterintuitive approach ...

In conventional, low-temperature superconductivity (left), so-called Cooper pairing arises from the presence of an electron Fermi sea. In the pseudogap regime of the cuprate superconductors (right), parts of the Fermi sea are “dried out” and the charge-ca
When physicists Georg Bednorz and K. Alex Muller discovered the first high-temperature superconductors in 1986, it didn’t take much imagination to envision the potential technological benefits of harnessing such materials.
Fernanda Foertter
Fernanda Foertter, a user support specialist at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, considers herself a tinkerer. Foertter’s tinkering started when she was a child, but her innate inquisitiveness still influences her work at the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing...
An illustration of the dopamine transporter in its outward- (left) and inward-opening (right) state. Note that the inward opening has brought about an outward closing and change in the number of water molecules (blue, pink spheres) inside and outside the

In an era of instant communication, perhaps no message-passing system is more underappreciated than the human body. Underlying each movement, each mood, each sight, sound, or smell, an army of specialized cells called neurons relays signals that register in the brain and connect us to our environment.

A simulation of combustion within two adjacent gas turbine combustors. GE researchers are incorporating advanced combustion modeling and simulation into product testing after developing a breakthrough methodology on the OLCF’s Titan supercomputer.

In the United States, the use of natural gas for electricity generation continues to grow. The driving forces behind this development? A boom in domestic natural gas production, historically low prices, and increased scrutiny over fossil fuels’ carbon emissions. Though coal still acco...

Department of Energy national lab researchers found strain dramatically influences low-temperature oxygen electrocatalysis on perovskite oxides, enhancing bifunctional activity essential for fuel cells and metal–air batteries.

Catalysts make chemical reactions more likely to occur. In most cases, a catalyst that’s good at driving chemical reactions in one direction is bad at driving reactions in the opposite direction. However, a research team led by the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory ...

ORNL carbon fiber processing technology co-invented by Felix Paulauskas (left) has been licensed to RMX Technologies, represented by vice president for research and development Truman Bonds.

RMX Technologies of Knoxville, Tenn., and the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have signed an exclusive licensing agreement for a new technology that dramatically reduces the time and energy needed in the production of carbon fiber. Lowering the ...