Skip to main content
The interior of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT’s) Alcator C-Mod tokamak. A team led by Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory’s C.S. Chang recently used the Titan supercomputer

The same fusion reactions that power the sun also occur inside a tokamak, a device that uses magnetic fields to confine and control plasmas of 100-plus million degrees. Under extreme temperatures and pressure, hydrogen atoms can fuse together, creating new helium atoms and simulta...

Michelle Buchanan, deputy for science and technology at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and Robert Moseley and Ben Mohr of SimPath signed an agreement for SimPath to license a novel ORNL cloning system that assembles the biological building blocks necessar

SimPath has licensed a novel cloning system developed by the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory that generates and assembles the biological building blocks necessary to synthetically bioengineer new medicines and fuels. Knoxville, Tennessee-based ...

Spin-polarized_4-probe_STM_ORNL_2.jpg
A new method that precisely measures the mysterious behavior and magnetic properties of electrons flowing across the surface of quantum materials could open a path to next-generation electronics. A team of scientists has developed an innovative microscopy technique to detect the spin of electrons in topological insulators, a new kind of quantum material that could be used in applications such as spintronics and quantum computing.
Chengyun Hua applied for a Liane B. Russell Distinguished Early Career Fellowship after meeting ORNL researchers at a Society of Women Engineers conference.

In Chengyun Hua’s research, everything revolves around heat and how it moves. As a Russell Fellow at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Hua carefully analyzes nanoscale heat transfer mechanisms using laser spectroscopy. “Heat is being generated from every...

An image of a complete 7HA.02 gas turbine. The new GE turbine is capable of achieving an overall efficiency of more than 62 percent in a combined-cycle power plant and is projected to exceed world-record efficiency marks set by GE’s 9HA turbine model.
In 2017, US-based General Electric (GE) delivered its newest heavy-duty gas turbine, the 7HA.02, to two power plants in Texas. The installations marked a milestone in natural gas–derived electricity generation, setting new marks in efficiency and emissions for utility-scale turboma...
Strangpresse_ORNL_licensing1

Ohio-based Strangpresse has exclusively licensed additive manufacturing-related extruder technology from the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory that can quickly print hundreds of pounds of polymer material.

When a neutron star forms, compression creates heat that generates neutrinos. When the star’s core collapses, a shock wave propagates around the star but stalls. Credit: ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy; created by J.A. Harris.

The Big Bang began the formation and organization of the matter that makes up ourselves and our world. Nearly 14 billion years later, nuclear physicists at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and their partners are using America’s most powerful supercomp...

ORNL’s Frank Combs and Michael Starr of the U.S. Armed Forces (driver) work in ORNL’s Vehicle Security Laboratory to evaluate a prototype device that can detect network intrusions in all modern vehicles. Credit: Carlos Jones/ORNL, U.S. Dept. of Energy

A new Oak Ridge National Laboratory-developed method promises to protect connected and autonomous vehicles from possible network intrusion. Researchers built a prototype plug-in device designed to alert drivers of vehicle cyberattacks. The prototype is coded to learn regular timing...

 ORNL researchers demonstrated ultrafast mapping of surface voltage dynamics because of ion migration induced by an electric field in a perovskite solar-cell device. Credit: Liam Collins/Oak Ridge National Laboratory, U.S. Dept. of Energy
Oak Ridge National Laboratory scientists have developed a technique for making ultrafast measurements using atomic force microscopy, which previously could only investigate slow or static material structures and functions. In AFM, a rastering probe maps a material’s surface and cap...
ORNL’s 2017 Molten Salt Reactor Workshop offered a wide range of talks on advanced reactors, including modeling and simulation techniques, commercial licensing strategies and the Department of Energy’s efforts to work with industry on developing designs.

The third annual Molten Salt Reactor Workshop allowed leading voices on advanced reactors—including scientists from the national laboratory system, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, reactor design firms and universities—to discuss current efforts in molten salt reactor work and pu...