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Three ORNL scientists have been elected fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, or AAAS, the world’s largest general scientific society and publisher of the Science family of journals. Credit: ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy

Three ORNL scientists have been elected fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, or AAAS, the world’s largest general scientific society and publisher of the Science family of journals.

A material’s spins, depicted as red spheres, are probed by scattered neutrons. Applying an entanglement witness, such as the QFI calculation pictured, causes the neutrons to form a kind of quantum gauge. This gauge allows the researchers to distinguish between classical and quantum spin fluctuations. Credit: Nathan Armistead/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy

A team led by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory demonstrated the viability of a “quantum entanglement witness” capable of proving the presence of entanglement between magnetic particles, or spins, in a quantum material.

ORNL and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory scientists studied the formation of amorphous ice like the exotic ice found in interstellar space and on Jupiter’s moon, Europa. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Researchers from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Oak Ridge National Laboratory successfully created amorphous ice, similar to ice in interstellar space and on icy worlds in our solar system. They documented that its disordered atomic behavior is unlike any ice on Earth.

Spin chains in a quantum system undergo a collective twisting motion as the result of quasiparticles clustering together. Demonstrating this KPZ dynamics concept are pairs of neighboring spins, shown in red, pointing upward in contrast to their peers, in blue, which alternate directions. Credit: Michelle Lehman/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy

Using complementary computing calculations and neutron scattering techniques, researchers from the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge and Lawrence Berkeley national laboratories and the University of California, Berkeley, discovered the existence of an elusive type of spin dynamics in a quantum mechanical system.

Sergei Kalinin

Five researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have been named ORNL Corporate Fellows in recognition of significant career accomplishments and continued leadership in their scientific fields.

A nanobrush made by pulsed laser deposition of CeO2 and Y2O3 with dim and bright bands, respectively, is seen in cross-section with scanning transmission electron microscopy. Credit: Oak Ridge National Laboratory, U.S. Dept. of Energy

A team led by the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory synthesized a tiny structure with high surface area and discovered how its unique architecture drives ions across interfaces to transport energy or information.

Matthew R. Ryder

Matthew R. Ryder, a researcher at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, has been named the 2020 Foresight Fellow in Molecular-Scale Engineering. 

Background image represents the cobalt oxide structure Goodenough demonstrated could produce four volts of electricity with intercalated lithium ions. This early research led to energy storage and performance advances in myriad electronic applications. Credit: Jill Hemman/Oak Ridge National Laboratory, U.S. Dept. of Energy

Two of the researchers who share the Nobel Prize in Chemistry announced Wednesday—John B. Goodenough of the University of Texas at Austin and M. Stanley Whittingham of Binghamton University in New York—have research ties to ORNL.

ORNL collaborator Hsiu-Wen Wang led the neutron scattering experiments at the Spallation Neutron Source to probe complex electrolyte solutions that challenge nuclear waste processing at Hanford and other sites. Credit: Genevieve Martin/Oak Ridge National Laboratory, U.S. Dept. of Energy.

Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Washington State University teamed up to investigate the complex dynamics of low-water liquids that challenge nuclear waste processing at federal cleanup sites.

The illustrations show how the correlation between lattice distortion and proton binding energy in a material affects proton conduction in different environments. Mitigating this interaction could help researchers improve the ionic conductivity of solid materials.

Ionic conduction involves the movement of ions from one location to another inside a material. The ions travel through point defects, which are irregularities in the otherwise consistent arrangement of atoms known as the crystal lattice. This sometimes sluggish process can limit the performance and efficiency of fuel cells, batteries, and other energy storage technologies.