The world is full of “huge, gnarly problems,” as ORNL research scientist and musician Melissa Allen-Dumas puts it — no matter what line of work you’re in. That was certainly the case when she would wrestle with a tough piece of music.
Burak Ozpineci started out at ORNL working on a novel project: introducing silicon carbide into power electronics for more efficient electric vehicles. Twenty years later, the car he drives contains those same components.
Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm visited ORNL on Nov. 22 for a two-hour tour, meeting top scientists and engineers as they highlighted projects and world-leading capabilities that address some of the country’s most complex research and technical challenges.
A team led by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory demonstrated the viability of a “quantum entanglement witness” capable of proving the presence of entanglement between magnetic particles, or spins, in a quantum material.
A team led by ORNL and the University of Michigan have discovered that certain bacteria can steal an essential compound from other microbes to break down methane and toxic methylmercury in the environment.
Of the $61 million recently announced by the U.S. Department of Energy for quantum information science studies, $17.5 million will fund research at DOE’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory. These projects will help build the foundation for the quantum internet, advance quantum entanglement capabilities — which involve sharing information through paired particles of light called photons — and develop next-generation quantum sensors.
Anyone familiar with ORNL knows it’s a hub for world-class science. The nearly 33,000-acre space surrounding the lab is less known, but also unique.
An international problem like climate change needs solutions that cross boundaries, both on maps and among disciplines. Oak Ridge National Laboratory computational scientist Deeksha Rastogi embodies that approach.
Moving to landlocked Tennessee isn’t an obvious choice for most scientists with new doctorate degrees in coastal oceanography.
Consumer buy-in is key to the future of a decarbonized transportation sector in which electric vehicles largely replace today’s conventionally fueled cars and trucks.