Creating energy the way the sun and stars do — through nuclear fusion — is one of the grand challenges facing science and technology. What’s easy for the sun and its billions of relatives turns out to be particularly difficult on Earth.
An advance in a topological insulator material — whose interior behaves like an electrical insulator but whose surface behaves like a conductor — could revolutionize the fields of next-generation electronics and quantum computing, according to scientists at ORNL.
In late May, the Quantum Science Center convened its first in-person all-hands meeting since the center was established in 2020. More than 120 QSC members gathered in Nashville, Tennessee to discuss the center’s operations, research and overarching scientific aims.
For the third year in a row, the Quantum Science Center held its signature workforce development event: a comprehensive summer school for students and early-career scientists designed to facilitate conversations and hands-on activities related to
ORNL will team up with six of eight companies that are advancing designs and research and development for fusion power plants with the mission to achieve a pilot-scale demonstration of fusion within a decade.
A study led by researchers at ORNL could uncover new ways to produce more powerful, longer-lasting batteries and memory devices.
Led by Kelly Chipps of ORNL, scientists working in the lab have produced a signature nuclear reaction that occurs on the surface of a neutron star gobbling mass from a companion star. Their achievement improves understanding of stellar processes generating diverse nuclear isotopes.
Researchers used Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Quantum Computing User Program to perform the first independent comparison test of leading quantum computers.
Kelly Chipps, a nuclear astrophysicist at ORNL, has been appointed to the Nuclear Science Advisory Committee, or NSAC. The committee provides official advice to DOE and the National Science Foundation, or NSF, about issues relating to the national program for basic nuclear science research.
Computing pioneer Jack Dongarra has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences in recognition of his distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.