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3D printed “Frankenstein design” collimator show the “scars” where the individual parts are joined

Scientists at ORNL have developed 3D-printed collimator techniques that can be used to custom design collimators that better filter out noise during different types of neutron scattering experiments

A small droplet of water is suspended in midair via an electrostatic levitator that lifts charged particles using an electric field that counteracts gravity. Credit: Iowa State University/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy

How do you get water to float in midair? With a WAND2, of course. But it’s hardly magic. In fact, it’s a scientific device used by scientists to study matter.

Madhavi Martin portrait image

Madhavi Martin brings a physicist’s tools and perspective to biological and environmental research at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, supporting advances in bioenergy, soil carbon storage and environmental monitoring, and even helping solve a murder mystery.

Jerry Parks leads the Molecular Biophysics group at ORNL, leveraging his expertise in computational chemistry and bioinformatics to unlock the inner workings of proteins—molecules that govern cellular structure and function and are essential to life. Credit: Genevieve Martin, ORNL/U.S. Dept. of Energy

When reading the novel Jurassic Park as a teenager, Jerry Parks found the passages about gene sequencing and supercomputers fascinating, but never imagined he might someday pursue such futuristic-sounding science.

Samantha Peters co-designed and conducted experiments using ORNL’s high-performance mass spectrometry techniques to prove that bacteriophages deploy genetic code-switching to overwhelm and destroy host bacteria. Credit: Genevieve Martin, ORNL/U.S. Dept. of Energy

Scientists at ORNL have confirmed that bacteria-killing viruses called bacteriophages deploy a sneaky tactic when targeting their hosts: They use a standard genetic code when invading bacteria, then switch to an alternate code at later stages of

From left are UWindsor students Isabelle Dib, Dominik Dziura, Stuart Castillo and Maksymilian Dziura at ORNL’s Neutron Spin Echo spectrometer. Their work advances studies on a natural cancer treatment. Credit: Genevieve Martin/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy

A scientific instrument at ORNL could help create a noninvasive cancer treatment derived from a common tropical plant.

ORNL’s Tomás Rush explores the secret lives of fungi and plants for insights into the interactions that determine plant health. Credit: Genevieve Martin/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy

Tomás Rush began studying the mysteries of fungi in fifth grade and spent his college intern days tromping through forests, swamps and agricultural lands searching for signs of fungal plant pathogens causing disease on host plants.

Samarthya Bhagia examines a sample of a thermoplastic composite material additively manufactured using poplar wood and polylactic acid. Credit: Carlos Jones/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy

Chemical and environmental engineer Samarthya Bhagia is focused on achieving carbon neutrality and a circular economy by designing new plant-based materials for a range of applications from energy storage devices and sensors to environmentally friendly bioplastics.

ORNL’s Marie Kurz examines the many factors affecting the health of streams and watersheds. Credit: Carlos Jones/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy

Spanning no less than three disciplines, Marie Kurz’s title — hydrogeochemist — already gives you a sense of the collaborative, interdisciplinary nature of her research at ORNL.

A material’s spins, depicted as red spheres, are probed by scattered neutrons. Applying an entanglement witness, such as the QFI calculation pictured, causes the neutrons to form a kind of quantum gauge. This gauge allows the researchers to distinguish between classical and quantum spin fluctuations. Credit: Nathan Armistead/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy

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.