News

Advanced materials research to enable energy-efficient, cost-competitive and environmentally friendly technologies for the United States and Japan is the goal of a memorandum of understanding, or MOU, between the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Japan’s National Institute of Materials Science.

Researchers used quantum simulations to obtain new insights into the nature of neutrinos — the mysterious subatomic particles that abound throughout the universe — and their role in the deaths of massive stars.

In May, the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge and Brookhaven national laboratories co-hosted the 15th annual International Particle Accelerator Conference, or IPAC, at the Music City Center in Nashville, Tennessee. 

Researchers at ORNL and the University of Maine have designed and 3D-printed a single-piece, recyclable natural-material floor panel tested to be strong enough to replace construction materials like steel. 

Erin Webb, lead for the Bioresources Science and Engineering group at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, has been elected a Fellow of the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers — the society’s highest honor. 

Oak Ridge National Laboratory scientists ingeniously created a sustainable, soft material by combining rubber with woody reinforcements and incorporating “smart” linkages between the components that unlock on demand.

John Lagergren, a staff scientist in Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Plant Systems Biology group, is using his expertise in applied math and machine learning to develop neural networks to quickly analyze the vast amounts of data on plant traits amassed at ORNL’s Advanced Plant Phenotyping Laboratory.

ORNL scientists develop a sample holder that tumbles powdered photochemical materials within a neutron beamline — exposing more of the material to light for increased photo-activation and better photochemistry data capture.

ORNL researchers used electron-beam additive manufacturing to 3D-print the first complex, defect-free tungsten parts with complex geometries. 

Researchers set a new benchmark for future experiments making materials in space rather than for space. They discovered that many kinds of glass have similar atomic structure and arrangements and can successfully be made in space. Scientists from nine institutions in government, academia and industry participated in this 5-year study.