Oak Ridge National Laboratory researchers serendipitously discovered when they automated the beam of an electron microscope to precisely drill holes in the atomically thin lattice of graphene, the drilled holes closed up.
Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory are using state-of-the-art methods to shed light on chemical separations needed to recover rare-earth elements and secure critical materials for clean energy technologies.
Several electrolyte and thin-film coating technologies, developed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, have been licensed by BTRY, a battery technology company based in Virginia, to make batteries with increased energy density, at lower cost, and with an improved safety profile in crashes.
Oak Ridge National Laboratory researchers demonstrated an electron microscopy technique for imaging lithium in energy storage materials, such as lithium ion batteries, at the atomic scale.
To advance sensor technologies, Oak Ridge National Laboratory researchers studied piezoelectric materials, which convert mechanical stress into electrical energy, to see how they could handle bombardment with energetic neutrons.