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Exceptionally efficient extraction may improve management of nuclear fuel

DOE/Oak Ridge National Laboratory

A team at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory has designed and synthesized a selective molecular trap that can separate the minor actinide element americium from a mixture of americium and the lanthanide elements, using europium as the model lanthanide in experiments. Whereas recovered americium could be burned in nuclear reactors, lanthanides are 'neutron poisons' and must be disposed of in a geologic repository to decay.

Putting quantum scientists in the driver's seat

DOE/Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

An interdisciplinary, interdepartmental group of scientists at ORNL conducted fundamental physics studies at the nanoscale to support development of experimental platforms that will control dissipation in quantum systems and materials.

Journal: Physical Review B
Funder: DOE/US Department of Energy, Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Underground neutrino experiment sets the stage for deep discovery about matter

DOE/Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

In a study published in Physical Review Letters, collaborators of the MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR, an experiment led by the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory, have shown they can shield a sensitive, scalable 44-kilogram germanium detector array from background radioactivity. This accomplishment is critical to developing and proposing a much larger future experiment -- with approximately a ton of detectors -- to study the nature of neutrinos.

Journal: Physical Review Letters
Funder: DOE/US Department of Energy, Laboratory Directed Research and Development Programs, National Science Foundation, DOE/Los Alamos, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Russian Foundation for Basic Research

Neutrons help demystify multiferroic materials

DOE/Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Using neutrons at ORNL, an international team of researchers identified a multiferroic material that exhibits a rare combination of magnetic and electrical properties. Studying these dual characteristics could lead to significant advances in information storage and power performance in new devices.

ORNL researchers design novel method for energy-efficient deep neural networks

DOE/Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Researchers at DOE's Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) have developed a novel method for more efficiently training large numbers of networks capable of solving complex science problems. Specifically, Mohammed Alawad, Hong-Jun Yoon, and Gina Tourassi of ORNL's Computer Science and Engineering Division, have demonstrated that by converting deep learning neural networks (DNNs) to 'deep spiking' neural networks (DSNNs) they can improve the efficiency of network design and training.

Funder: Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Directed Research and Development program, Joint Design of Advanced Computing Solutions for Cancer program
Meeting: 2017 IEEE Conference on Big Data

Researchers develop spectroscopic thermometer for nanomaterials

DOE/Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A scientific team led by the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory has found a new way to take the local temperature of a material from an area about a billionth of a meter wide, or approximately 100,000 times thinner than a human hair. This discovery, published in Physical Review Letters, promises to improve the understanding of useful yet unusual physical and chemical behaviors that arise in materials and structures at the nanoscale.

Journal: Physical Review Letters
Funder: DOE/US Department of Energy

Method to grow large single-crystal graphene could advance scalable 2-D materials

DOE/Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A new method to produce large, monolayer single-crystal-like graphene films more than a foot long relies on harnessing a 'survival of the fittest' competition among crystals. The novel technique, developed by a team led by the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory, may open new opportunities for growing the high-quality two-dimensional materials necessary for long-awaited practical applications.

Journal: Nature Materials
Funder: Technology Innovation Program, DOE/Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, DOE/Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Laboratory Directed Research and Development Program

Neutrons provide new polish for petroleum processing and more

DOE/Oak Ridge National Laboratory

University of Notre Dame researchers are using neutrons at ORNL to study how specialized molecules might improve petroleum production processes, as well as their potential uses in advanced photovoltaic technologies. Specifically, they want to know what effects functionalized molecules called petroporphyrins have on asphaltenes -- darkly colored, high-molecular-weight molecules abundant in heavy crude oil.

Story tips from the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory, March 2018

DOE/Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Peer-Reviewed Publication

ORNL's new model could better predict tiny pockets of methylmercury lurking in creek algae; engines work smarter with new fuel innovation; making high-purity metallic structures narrower than a cold virus could advance tiny electronics, drug delivery and more; insights on certain enzymes that try to break down antibiotics may inform better drug designs for fighting resistant bacteria; ORNL is preparing current software simulations for small modular reactors to run on next-generation supercomputers.

Journal: Environmental Science & Technology
Funder: DOE/US Department of Energy, Biological and Environmental Research

Neutrons reveal promising properties of novel antioxidant polymer

DOE/Oak Ridge National Laboratory

A team of researchers from ORNL and the University of Alabama at Birmingham recently developed the antioxidant manganoporphyrin, a new polymer that could potentially improve drug delivery methods and other biomedical applications. Using neutrons, they studied the strength and efficiency of a compound made from this material and tannic acid, a natural antioxidant.

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