Fusion scientists from Oak Ridge National Laboratory, as part of the DIII-D National Fusion Facility team at General Atomics, are studying an approach to insulate the reactor’s innermost wall that surrounds the burning plasma from the energy created when hydrogen isotopes are heated...
An Oak Ridge National Laboratory–led team discovered that vanadium dioxide in a crystalline thin film makes an outstanding electrode for lithium-ion batteries. Theory and computation predicted a high capacity for lithium storage, which experiments confirmed with tests in coin c...
Finding new energy uses for underrated materials is a recurring theme across Amit Naskar’s research portfolio. Since joining Oak Ridge National Laboratory in 2006, he has studied low-cost polymers as carbon fiber precursors, turning lignin−a byproduct of biofuel production−into renewable thermoplastics and creating carbon battery electrodes from recycled tires.
No two scientists have the same story about how they ended up in their field. Some people seem to have been born scientists; others develop their love for it as budding minds full of curiosity. Then there are those who don’t discover science until later in life, but when they do, the...
Oak Ridge National Laboratory today welcomed the first cohort of innovators to join Innovation Crossroads, the Southeast region's first entrepreneurial research and development program based at a U.S. Department of Energy national laboratory. Innovation Crossroads, ...
A new way to grow narrow ribbons of graphene, a lightweight and strong structure of single-atom-thick carbon atoms linked into hexagons, may address a shortcoming that has prevented the material from achieving its full potential in electronic applications. Graphene n...
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 ...
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.
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...