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Media Contacts
![Artist’s conceptual drawing illustrates the novel energy filtering technique using neutrons that enabled researchers at ORNL to freeze moving germanium telluride atoms in an unblurred image. The images offered key insights into how the material produces its outstanding thermoelectric performance. Credit: Jill Hemman/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2023-03/23-G02345_VariableShutter_0.png?h=68c90eda&itok=LLAHAeOZ)
Scientists have long sought to better understand the “local structure” of materials, meaning the arrangement and activities of the neighboring particles around each atom. In crystals, which are used in electronics and many other applications, most of the atoms form highly ordered lattice patterns that repeat. But not all atoms conform to the pattern.
![Alice Perrin is a Distinguished Staff Fellow and materials scientist at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Credit: Carlos Jones/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2023-03/2021-P04764_2.jpg?h=8f9cfe54&itok=Qs5DtUY1)
Alice Perrin is passionate about scientific research, but also beans — as in legumes.
![Heat is typically carried through a material by vibrations known as phonons. In some crystals, however, different atomic motions — known as phasons — carry heat three times faster and farther. This illustration shows phasons made by rearranging atoms, shown by arrows. Credit: Jill Hemman/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2023-02/23-G01840_Phason_Manly_proof3_0.png?h=10d202d3&itok=3NpjriWi)
Warming a crystal of the mineral fresnoite, ORNL scientists discovered that excitations called phasons carried heat three times farther and faster than phonons, the excitations that usually carry heat through a material.
![Even small movements of hydrogen, shown in yellow, were found to cause large energy shifts in the attached iron atoms, shown in silver, which could be of interest in creating novel chemical reactions. Credit: Jill Hemman/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2023-02/Feb_nscd_storytip_1.png?h=b69e0e0e&itok=kwLq6_Wl)
Researchers from Yale University and ORNL collaborated on neutron scattering experiments to study hydrogen atom locations and their effects on iron in a compound similar to those commonly used in industrial catalysts.
![ORNL Weinberg Fellow Addis Fuhr uses quantum chemistry and machine learning methods to advance new materials. Credit: Genevieve Martin/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2023-02/2022-P00820%20%281%29_1.jpg?h=b69e0e0e&itok=CScyCYZg)
When Addis Fuhr was growing up in Bakersfield, California, he enjoyed visiting the mall to gaze at crystals and rocks in the gem store.
![Oak Ridge National Laboratory entrance sign](/themes/custom/ornl/images/default-thumbnail.jpg)
Zheng Gai, a senior staff scientist at ORNL’s Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences, has been selected as editor-in-chief of the Spin Crossover and Spintronics section of Magnetochemistry.
![a man wearing a suit and tie](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2023-02/2023-P00692.jpg?h=8f0b2d98&itok=JVF0ZQ0e)
Jordan Hachtel, a research scientist at ORNL’s Center for Nanophase Materials, has been elected to the Board of Directors for the Microanalysis Society.
![Jason Gardner, Sandra Davern and Peter Thornton have been elected fellows of AAAS. Credit: Laddy Fields/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2023-02/AAAS_2022%20Thumbnail_0.png?h=b6717701&itok=4TftuioC)
Three scientists from the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have been elected fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, or AAAS.
![A man wearing a suit and tie](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2023-02/JHuang_0194.png?h=548d0aa4&itok=S6TCz78W)
Jingsong Huang, a staff scientist at ORNL’s Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences, has been selected as an associate editor of Frontiers in Soft Matter.
![Researchers observe T-shaped cluster drives lanthanide separation system during liquid-liquid extraction. Credit: Alex Ivanov/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2023-02/image_1.png?h=b69e0e0e&itok=1tyDrWMw)
Researchers at ORNL zoomed in on molecules designed to recover critical materials via liquid-liquid extraction — a method used by industry to separate chemically similar elements.