Philip Bingham has two pieces of advice for researchers new to Oak Ridge National Laboratory: (1) develop a skill set that can be applied to multiple research areas, and (2) get out and meet folks across the lab. “The favorite part of my work is that I’ve done a lot of very diffe...
Scientists at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory induced a two-dimensional material to cannibalize itself for atomic “building blocks” from which stable structures formed. The findings, reported in Nature Communications, provide insights that ...
Brixon, Inc., has exclusively licensed a multiparameter sensor technology from the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The integrated platform uses various sensors that measure physical and environmental parameters and respond to standard security applications.
Throw a rock through a window made of silica glass, and the brittle, insulating oxide pane shatters. But whack a golf ball with a club made of metallic glass—a resilient conductor that looks like metal—and the glass not only stays intact but also may drive the ball farther than conventional clubs. In light of this contrast, the nature of glass seems anything but clear.
In 2015, American consumers will finally be able to purchase fuel cell cars from Toyota and other manufacturers. Although touted as zero-emissions vehicles, most of the cars will run on hydrogen made from natural gas, a fossil fuel that contributes to global warming.
If such a designation existed, Nazanin Bassiri-Gharb would be on the fast track to becoming an Oak Ridge National Laboratory “super user.” Her research on nanoscale materials has taken her all across the ORNL campus, from scanning probe and electron microscopes at the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences to neutron reflectometry at the Spallation Neutron Source and radiation equipment in the Materials Science and Technology Division.
Old thinking was that gold, while good for jewelry, was not of much use for chemists because it is relatively nonreactive. That changed a decade ago when scientists hit a rich vein of discoveries revealing that this noble metal, when structured into nanometer-sized particles, can speed up chemical reactions important in mitigating environmental pollutants and producing hard-to-make specialty chemicals.
In the early 1980s, the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory was just beginning to explore transfer of technology from the lab to industry. Now it's the norm, and one historical example illustrates the long-term benefits.
Treating cadmium-telluride (CdTe) solar cell materials with cadmium-chloride improves their efficiency, but researchers have not fully understood why.
Using a new microscopy method, researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory can image and measure electrochemical processes in batteries in real time and at nanoscale resolution.