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Media Contacts
![Vittorio Badalassi, left, of Oak Ridge National Laboratory leads the Fusion Energy Reactor Models Integrator, or FERMI, project, and collaborates with ORNL computational physicist David Green. FERMI applies fission platforms to fusion reactor design. Credit: Commonwealth Fusion Systems and Colby Earles/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2021-05/FERMI_v3_web_art_for_landing_page_carousel_2021_04_20_1.jpg?h=d1cb525d&itok=y2KEq11p)
Oak Ridge National Laboratory expertise in fission and fusion has come together to form a new collaboration, the Fusion Energy Reactor Models Integrator, or FERMI
![ORNL’s Sergei Kalinin and Rama Vasudevan (foreground) use scanning probe microscopy to study bulk ferroelectricity and surface electrochemistry -- and generate a lot of data. Credit: Jason Richards/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2021-05/KalininVasudevan_2017-P03014_0.jpg?h=1116cd87&itok=KEEOB4hi)
At the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, scientists use artificial intelligence, or AI, to accelerate the discovery and development of materials for energy and information technologies.
![The Perseverance rover](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2020-07/pia23492_0.jpg?h=d1cb525d&itok=A5U6cgBE)
On Feb. 18, the world will be watching as NASA’s Perseverance rover makes its final descent into Jezero Crater on the surface of Mars. Mars 2020 is the first NASA mission that uses plutonium-238 produced at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
![ORNL’s Marcel Demarteau inspects experiments along Neutrino Alley at the Spallation Neutron Source, which makes neutrinos as a byproduct. Credit: Genevieve Martin/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2020-12/2020-P15166_0.jpg?h=c6980913&itok=GkpktZzV)
Marcel Demarteau is director of the Physics Division at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory. For topics from nuclear structure to astrophysics, he shapes ORNL’s physics research agenda.
![ORNL scientists used new techniques to create long lengths of a composite copper-carbon nanotube material with improved properties for use in electric vehicle traction motors. Credit: Andy Sproles/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2020-09/nano_cu_08noLabels_0.jpg?h=4d70cb2a&itok=iFR0YlTM)
Scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory used new techniques to create a composite that increases the electrical current capacity of copper wires, providing a new material that can be scaled for use in ultra-efficient, power-dense electric vehicle traction motors.
![Xunxiang Hu, a Eugene P. Wigner Fellow in ORNL’s Materials Science and Technology Division, designed this machine to produce large, crack-free pieces of yttrium hydride to be used as a moderator in the core of ORNL’s Transformational Challenge Reactor and other microreactors. Credit: Xunxiang Hu/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2020-09/HuYHxphoto.jpg?h=eef83f16&itok=7KfkqQLh)
About 60 years ago, scientists discovered that a certain rare earth metal-hydrogen mixture, yttrium, could be the ideal moderator to go inside small, gas-cooled nuclear reactors.
![A selfie from the Curiosity rover as it explores the surface of Mars. Like many spacecraft, Curiosity uses a radioisotope power system to help fuel its mission. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2020-09/Curiousity_1.jpg?h=86a9dded&itok=Jo0vD321)
Radioactive isotopes power some of NASA’s best-known spacecraft. But predicting how radiation emitted from these isotopes might affect nearby materials is tricky
![Paul Abraham uses mass spectrometry to study proteins.](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2020-09/2019-P16536.jpg?h=8f9cfe54&itok=QMxGFQhK)
Systems biologist Paul Abraham uses his fascination with proteins, the molecular machines of nature, to explore new ways to engineer more productive ecosystems and hardier bioenergy crops.
![This photo shows the interior of the vessel of the General Atomics DIII-D National Fusion Facility in San Diego, where ORNL researchers are testing the suitability of tungsten to armor the inside of a fusion device. Credit: General Atomics](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2020-08/X2001140_Tungsten_DIIID_GeneralAtomics_Bumpus_jnj_0.jpg?h=fa422108&itok=9R1Nn6B_)
The inside of future nuclear fusion energy reactors will be among the harshest environments ever produced on Earth. What’s strong enough to protect the inside of a fusion reactor from plasma-produced heat fluxes akin to space shuttles reentering Earth’s atmosphere?
![3D-printed 316L steel has been irradiated along with traditionally wrought steel samples. Researchers are comparing how they perform at various temperatures and varying doses of radiation. Credit: Jaimee Janiga/ORNL](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2020-08/X2001337_TCR_IrradiatedMaterials_Bumpus_jnj-04.jpg?h=e3a8e2b5&itok=pXslTCBN)
It’s a new type of nuclear reactor core. And the materials that will make it up are novel — products of Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s advanced materials and manufacturing technologies.