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A simulation of runaway electrons in the experimental tokamak at the DIII-D National Fusion Facility at General Atomics shows the particle orbits in the fusion plasma and the synchrotron radiation emission patterns. Credit: Oak Ridge National Laboratory,

Fusion scientists from Oak Ridge National Laboratory are studying the behavior of high-energy electrons when the plasma that generates nuclear fusion energy suddenly cools during a magnetic disruption. Fusion energy is created when hydrogen isotopes are heated to millions of degrees...

Ryan Kerekes is leader of the RF, Communications, and Cyber-Physical Security Group at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Photos by Genevieve Martin, ORNL.

As leader of the RF, Communications, and Cyber-Physical Security Group at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Kerekes heads an accelerated lab-directed research program to build virtual models of critical infrastructure systems like the power grid that can be used to develop ways to detect and repel cyber-intrusion and to make the network resilient when disruption occurs.

Oak Ridge National Laboratory used neutrons to evaluate the behavior of ions adsorbed on the external surfaces onion-like carbon electrodes and determine the right balance of two liquid salts that yields optimal energy storage potential.

Energy storage could get a boost from new research of tailored liquid salt mixtures, the components of supercapacitors responsible for holding and releasing electrical energy. Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Naresh Osti and his colleagues used neutrons at the lab’s Spallation Neutron ...

Oak Ridge National Laboratory researcher Arnab Banerjee has charted several accomplishments in his neutron studies of quantum phenomena.

Raman. Heisenberg. Fermi. Wollan. From Kolkata to Göttingen, Chicago to Oak Ridge. Arnab Banerjee has literally walked in the footsteps of some of the greatest pioneers in physics history—and he’s forging his own trail along the way. Banerjee is a staff scientist working in the Neu...

Illustration of satellite in front of glowing orange celestial body

A shield assembly that protects an instrument measuring ion and electron fluxes for a NASA mission to touch the Sun was tested in extreme experimental environments at Oak Ridge National Laboratory—and passed with flying colors. Components aboard Parker Solar Probe, which will endure th...

Julie Smith

It may take a village to raise a child, according to the old proverb, but it takes an entire team of highly trained scientists and engineers to install and operate a state-of-the-art, exceptionally complex ion microprobe. Just ask Julie Smith, a nuclear security scientist at the Depa...

ORNL researcher Miaofang Chi refines her microscopy techniques toward understanding how and why materials have certain properties.

Material surfaces and interfaces may appear flat and void of texture to the naked eye, but a view from the nanoscale reveals an intricate tapestry of atomic patterns that control the reactions between the material and its environment. Electron microscopy allows researchers to probe...