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New battery technology a boost for Formula E race cars; New ORNL roof coating helps keep roofs cool; ORNL technique reveals defects in solar cell material; ORNL finding shows promise for alternating current conduction for oxide electronics.

Researchers have developed aluminum alloys that are both easier to work with and more heat tolerant than existing products.

As US utility companies replace coal-fired power plants with natural gas, a collaboration between GE and Oak Ridge National Laboratory is contributing to efficiency gains in GE's H-class gas turbines. GE researchers produced the first simulation involving multiple gas turbine combustors to study combustion interactions that are impractical to test physically. Advanced simulation is projected to results in a full percentage-point gain in turbine efficiency.

A team led by the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory used neutron analysis to better understand a protein implicated in the replication of HIV, the retrovirus that causes AIDS. The enzyme, known as HIV-1 protease, is a key drug target for HIV and AIDS therapies. The multi-institutional team used neutron crystallography to uncover detailed interactions of hydrogen bonds at the enzyme's active site, revealing a pH-induced proton 'hopping' mechanism that guides its activity.

Joining carbon fiber composites and aluminum for lightweight cars and other multi-material high-end products could become less expensive because of an ORNL method that harnesses a laser's power and precision.

ORNL demonstrates a method to produce significant amounts of semiconducting nanoparticles for light-emitting displays, sensors, solar panels and biomedical applications.

RMX Technologies and Oak Ridge National Laboratory have signed an exclusive licensing agreement for a new technology that dramatically reduces the time and energy needed in the production of carbon fiber.

Researchers at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and their collaborators used neutron scattering to reveal magnetic moments in hybrid topological insulator materials at room temperature, hundreds of degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the extreme sub-zero cold where the properties are expected to occur. The discovery promises new opportunities for next-generation electronic and spintronic devices such as improved transistors and quantum computing technologies.

A team led by the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory used state-of-the-art microscopy to identify a previously undetected feature, about 5 billionths of a meter (nanometers) wide, in a solid electrolyte. The work experimentally verifies the importance of that feature to fast ion transport, and corroborates the observations with theory. The new mechanism the researchers report in Advanced Energy Materials points out a new strategy for the design of highly conductive solid electrolytes.