First-generation graduate Brittany Rodriguez advances manufacturing scie...
Eric Pierce’s work studying the interaction between water and rocks has taken him from coast to coast, including a stop in Washington, DC, before settling in East Tennessee—all part of what he describes as a lifetime journey of learning.
Nuclear reactors require around-the-clock attention. Before the sun has even begun to rise, nuclear reactor controller Maureen Searles is already well into her shift at Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s High Flux Isotope Reactor.
HFIR produces one of the world’s highest steady-stat...
Researchers have long sought electrically conductive materials for economical energy-storage devices. Two-dimensional (2D) ceramics called MXenes are contenders. Unlike most 2D ceramics, MXenes have inherently good conductivity because they are molecular sheets made from the carbides ...
Growing up in Colombia, Nidia Gallego was a diamond in the rough; she had no inkling that she would later shine as a scientist. Her father, a salesman, and mother, a homemaker, had not had the opportunity to complete high school themselves and urged their six children to stay in schoo...
HTS International Corporation and the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have signed an agreement to explore potential collaborations in advanced manufacturing research.
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) scientists have released a new global, centralized database of plant root traits, or identifying characteristics, that can advance our understanding of how the hidden structure of plants belowground may interact with and relate to life aboveground. ...
Polymer nanocomposites mix particles billionths of a meter (nanometers, nm) in diameter with polymers, which are long molecular chains. Often used to make injection-molded products, they are common in automobiles, fire retardants, packaging materials, drug-delivery systems, medical devices, coatings, adhesives, sensors, membranes and consumer goods.
Deuterium and tritium—heavy isotopes of hydrogen—not only have numerous applications in science and medicine, but could also contribute to the energy mix of tomorrow as fuels for nuclear fusion. However, the process of filtering deuterium out of the natural isotopic mixture of hydrogen...
A fusion reactor is essentially a magnetic bottle containing the same processes that occur in the sun. Deuterium and tritium fuels fuse to form a vapor of helium ions, neutrons and heat. As this hot, ionized gas—called plasma—burns, that heat is transferred to water t...
Not everyone can look back on their life and pick the specific instance that brought them to their current field and dictated the course of their career. For Jason Newby, that instance was a high school physics class that would eventually lead to him studying nuclear technology and i...