![Sphere that has the top right fourth removed (exposed) Colors from left are orange, dark blue with orange dots, light blue with horizontal lines, then black. Inside the exposure is green and black with boxes.](/sites/default/files/styles/featured_square_large/public/2024-06/slicer.jpg?h=56311bf6&itok=bCZz09pJ)
Filter News
Area of Research
- Advanced Manufacturing (8)
- Biology and Environment (22)
- Clean Energy (82)
- Climate and Environmental Systems (1)
- Computer Science (5)
- Electricity and Smart Grid (3)
- Fuel Cycle Science and Technology (1)
- Functional Materials for Energy (2)
- Fusion and Fission (28)
- Fusion Energy (11)
- Isotope Development and Production (2)
- Isotopes (8)
- Materials (95)
- Materials Characterization (2)
- Materials for Computing (12)
- Materials Under Extremes (1)
- National Security (14)
- Neutron Science (23)
- Nuclear Science and Technology (36)
- Nuclear Systems Modeling, Simulation and Validation (1)
- Quantum information Science (9)
- Sensors and Controls (1)
- Supercomputing (45)
News Topics
- (-) Grid (62)
- (-) Irradiation (3)
- (-) Materials (144)
- (-) Mercury (12)
- (-) Nuclear Energy (108)
- (-) Quantum Science (69)
- 3-D Printing/Advanced Manufacturing (121)
- Advanced Reactors (34)
- Artificial Intelligence (91)
- Big Data (53)
- Bioenergy (91)
- Biology (98)
- Biomedical (58)
- Biotechnology (22)
- Buildings (57)
- Chemical Sciences (63)
- Clean Water (29)
- Climate Change (99)
- Composites (26)
- Computer Science (187)
- Coronavirus (46)
- Critical Materials (26)
- Cybersecurity (35)
- Decarbonization (79)
- Education (4)
- Element Discovery (1)
- Emergency (2)
- Energy Storage (108)
- Environment (194)
- Exascale Computing (37)
- Fossil Energy (5)
- Frontier (42)
- Fusion (54)
- High-Performance Computing (84)
- Hydropower (11)
- Isotopes (53)
- ITER (7)
- Machine Learning (47)
- Materials Science (140)
- Mathematics (7)
- Microelectronics (3)
- Microscopy (51)
- Molten Salt (8)
- Nanotechnology (60)
- National Security (61)
- Net Zero (13)
- Neutron Science (131)
- Partnerships (44)
- Physics (61)
- Polymers (33)
- Quantum Computing (34)
- Renewable Energy (2)
- Security (24)
- Simulation (47)
- Software (1)
- Space Exploration (25)
- Statistics (3)
- Summit (57)
- Sustainable Energy (125)
- Transformational Challenge Reactor (7)
- Transportation (97)
Media Contacts
![Paul Kent, shown above posing with Summit in April 2018, received the 2020 ORNL Director’s Award for Outstanding Individual Accomplishment in Science and Technology. Credit: ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2020-11/DA_Kent.jpg?h=48cf6540&itok=Ocw9WcgV)
The annual Director's Awards recognized four individuals and teams including awards for leadership in quantum simulation development and application on high-performance computing platforms, and revolutionary advancements in the area of microbial
![David Kropaczek](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2020-11/2016-P07859_0.jpg?h=49ab6177&itok=nsklImHq)
David Kropaczek, director of the Consortium for Advanced Simulation of Light Water Reactors, or CASL, at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, has been named a fellow of the American Nuclear Society.
![Chuck Kessel](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2020-11/ChuckKesselProfile_0.jpg?h=8f9cfe54&itok=pTBVa7QK)
Chuck Kessel was still in high school when he saw a scientist hold up a tiny vial of water and say, “This could fuel a house for a whole year.”
![New virtual tours of ORNL facilities include the Building Technologies Research and Integration Center, shown in dollhouse view. Credit: ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2020-11/BTRIC_1.png?h=e0f61ee9&itok=M5tq8BIL)
ORNL has added 10 virtual tours to its campus map, each with multiple views to show floor plans, rotating dollhouse views and 360-degree navigation. As a user travels through a map, pop-out informational windows deliver facts, videos, graphics and links to other related content.
![Suman Debnath is using simulation algorithms to accelerate understanding of the modern power grid and enhance its reliability and resilience. Credit: Carlos Jones/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2021-01/Suman%20Debnath%20Square.jpg?h=439d043c&itok=1umME5uH)
Planning for a digitized, sustainable smart power grid is a challenge to which Suman Debnath is using not only his own applied mathematics expertise, but also the wider communal knowledge made possible by his revival of a local chapter of the IEEE professional society.
![Scientists synthesized graphene nanoribbons (yellow) on a titanium dioxide substrate (blue). The lighter ends show magnetic states. Inset: The ends have up and down spin, ideal for creating qubits. Credit: ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2020-10/STM_Science_image_0.jpg?h=83401e72&itok=3oR6W30s)
An international multi-institution team of scientists has synthesized graphene nanoribbons – ultrathin strips of carbon atoms – on a titanium dioxide surface using an atomically precise method that removes a barrier for custom-designed carbon
![Water from local creeks now flows through these simulated streams in the Aquatic Ecology Laboratory, providing new opportunities to study mercury pollution and advance solutions. Credit: ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2020-10/img_3692.jpg?h=77bd3ecb&itok=dM1eszup)
New capabilities and equipment recently installed at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory are bringing a creek right into the lab to advance understanding of mercury pollution and accelerate solutions.
![These fuel assembly brackets, manufactured by ORNL in partnership with Framatome and Tennessee Valley Authority, are the first 3D-printed safety-related components to be inserted into a nuclear power plant. Credit: Fred List/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2020-10/FramatomeCB1.jpg?h=7c790887&itok=oVGkqZYZ)
The Transformational Challenge Reactor, or TCR, a microreactor built using 3D printing and other new advanced technologies, could be operational by 2024.
![An ORNL researcher holds a capsule of molten salt. Preliminary experiments seem to indicate that irradiation can slow corrosion of metal in liquid salt. Credit: ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy](/sites/default/files/styles/list_page_thumbnail/public/2020-10/salt_irr_01_0.jpg?h=b69e0e0e&itok=cwf13UxX)
Irradiation may slow corrosion of alloys in molten salt, a team of Oak Ridge National Laboratory scientists has found in preliminary tests.
![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.